Happy New Year

Last night we just had a quiet evening in enjoying each other as a family. I honestly can't remember the last time that we didn't have a house full of people for New Year's Eve, but this year it just didn't happen.

We spent the day shopping, cooking, playing with the kids, watching the kids in a hilarious battle of Just Dance Kids. Hudson finally is getting the hang of it and giving Madison a run for her money. :) It might be time to find the next edition of Just Dance Kids, as I am sure we will be having snow days here very soon and most days I find that it's already too cold to take the kids to the park.

One of the things Alex and I have done for years is always pick a new book to ready together as we start the new year. It gets us focused on putting each other first in the midst of our crazy life taking care of kids, running errands, going to school, etc...

This year the book we chose was "You and Me Forever" by Francis and Lisa Chan. We love the books and studies that we've ready by Francis Chan in the past, so when we found this one, we basically stopped looking. I am looking forward to starting this with Alex. We like to put the kids to bed and then sit down on the couch and go through the book together. We often stop and ask each other questions or answer questions that naturally come up in the book. We make a point to do this before we do anything else such as watch TV, read our own book, do homework, or whatever else may be on our "to do" list for the day. I truly cherish this time with Alex.

I am not one that is big on resolutions, but I do like to set goals. So here are a few of my goals for this upcoming year:

1. To go deeper in my prayer journals...to really pray like I believe God will answer the cries of my heart and then sincerely offer up my prayers to Him

2. To be more organized for our upcoming move since we never fully unpacked when we arrived here, knowing that we would only be here for 10 months

3.To continue a healthy eating and work out routine and to not get discouraged when the kids are sick (preventing me from being able to go to the gym) or my picky eaters turn their nose up to a new healthy recipe I may try

4. To read 30+ books (of all sorts...if you have an recommendations please share)

5. To continue our streak of going out on dates more than just once a month, even if that means being intentional and having an at home date night after the kids go to bed where we just play games, watch movies or cook a meal together

6. To be more consistent with documenting our adventures through this blog...my goal is to post at least once a week

Well, those are just a few of my goals for 2015.