It’s the time of the year that we all set out to make plans and changes to our lives and I love it!!!!!!!! Goals and lists make me so happy, especially put down on paper. I’m all for computers and technology, but sometimes I just need a paper and pen to really put my thoughts on and feel like I can focus on them. For the past few years, Logan and I have set goals together and written them on posterboards to hang in our room or somewhere we would see them often. We have also have individually and as a family picked a word to focus on in our lives too!! This year as the beginning of the year came and went, we had been talking about goals and ideas for the year but it took up until this last week for us to write them out together. It’s one of my favorite things to be able to sit down together and really go over the things that we want to accomplish ourselves and together. We know how to push each other and it makes it so setting goals together pushes us to accomplish what we set out to do… usually. This past year we STRUGGLED with our goals. When we brought last years goals down as we were working on this years, we laughed as we looked over the fact that we didn’t reach a lot of the individual things we set out to do. Logan’s exact words were, “Wow, we suck.” And that was followed by a lot of belly laughing from both of us. Realizing how much we struggled, we changed up how we set goals this year. Instead of doing those big year-long goals, we decided to break things down into quarterly goals and words. This will give us a timeline to really get going on these things and to really focus on them all. In regards to our financial goals, we knew what we wanted to do for the year, so we split it up into the quarters. This has made our goals seem so much more within reach and less daunting. We also really honed in and set fewer goals with more specific reasons as to why we were setting that goal and how we would make it happen. To make it happen, we helped each other come up with 3 action plans and habits to implement and we wrote those down next to the goal. I’m so excited to see how changing up our goals encourages us this year!! Our words for the quarter are accepting (Michelle), present (Logan), and grateful (family). The words are just something we want to accomplish and an overall feeling we want in our lives. We explained to each other what we meant by these words and it has me so excited to see how these words shape the next few months. We won’t share all of our goals, but here’s a breakdown of what they look like.

Michelle goal- Try 2 new recipes a month

1. Try new methods of cooking- don’t just use a crockpot all the time! Try roasting veggies, etc.
2. Adapt them to also be freezer meals- easier for a quick dinner
3. Be willing to try new foods!! Be less picky and give some foods another chance!

Logan goal- Crush Young Men’s calling

1. Go to basketball on Saturday mornings
2. Spend more time adapting lessons to the needs of his class
3. Keep his calendar updated for mutual and bring his best self to mutual

Family goal- Stay happy

1. Beat Mario together on Logan’s new NSES classic
2. Make 2 home videos
3. Plan at least 1 friend thing each month

We hope you take time to set goals for yourself, family, and your marriage. We know that doing this together is something that really strengthens us as individuals, in our marriage and now as a family. And another thing, don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t reach your goals. We are all becoming too hard on ourselves, myself 100%included in that (hence the accepting word- accepting of myself). At least if we set a goal, we can see where we want to go in our lives and if we are trying for these goals, we are making progress even if we don’t fully reach them!! So here’s to one heck of a 2018!!!

And I just realized I never shared these photos from Anna Christine Photography! We had these taken 2 months ago! Jai has gotten so much bigger, but they are too cute not to share!

I love this guy! That little face!!! My heart just loves this one so much! This was his tongue phase- hahaha!!