2017 Goals Update

My goals with my dinner, because they looked a little more interesting that way. ;)

       I don't think I ever shared my goals for 2017. Each year I try to choose a couple different areas to focus on, and I usually try to be fairly specific. I don't always complete everything, but it is motivating to have some things to focus on, and I always figure that progress is a reward in and of itself.

    I have done some big time "adulting" lately: I scheduled a dentist's appointment (We changed insurances, so it was a lot more complicated than just calling for a date.), we bought a new mattress (I bravely purchased one online. It is due to be delivered new week, we are very excited to see if our leap of faith is rewarded!), I have been doing some serious de-cluttering as part of my Lent discipline, and of course, all the usual every day things that accompany being a stay-at-home wife and homeschooling mom!

    But anyway, I decided that I was proud of myself for the progress that I am making, and my 2017 goal progress is part of it! So, here are my goals (Don't make fun of them!) and where I am at:

1. Decrease sugary drinks, and the amount of sugar in drinks. This one I wasn't hugely specific writing it down, but I had some certain things in mind. I love my afternoon coffee, and I had moved away from measuring the amount of sweetened creamer I used, and I had also been drinking soda almost every day. I have been recording the days that I have not had soda, and that is really helping. Actually, as of today, I haven't had any soda in a week! I have cut the amount of creamer I am using at home in half, too. Also, I have gone back to ordering a small size if I am drinking coffee out, which is definitely decreasing my sugared drink intake. This goal won't be accomplished if I don't maintain it, so that is really my focus now.

2. Learn to use eye shadow. Zero progress on this one. Just being honest. The only thing I have done is tell my youngest sister she has to help me. Hoping to mark this one off this summer, I should probably start by actually buying some eye shadow!

3. Finish T & T book. My kids are in Awana, and my husband and I volunteer. I, personally, though, have never done any of the books. They changed the 3rd-6th grade program this year and all the students are doing the same book. I decided that would be a good point for me to jump in, so I am working through the book with my kids.Memorizing Bible verses is an area I really needed to work on. I am a little behind right now, but I found a really cool app called "Verses" that I am using now, and it has made a huge difference! I should be done with this goal by May, if I manage to get back on track. It would be fantastic if I finished up at the same time as my kids! Carson has been a huge encouragement to me in this area, and I am so proud of myself. I have learned over twenty new verses since September!

4. Read twelve books I already own. I have finished three, and I am fairly sure that I should be able to accomplish this, as I tend to read more over the summer. I am working on a fourth, but I am tackling some of the classics, and they tend to be more "slog" than "skim"! I wanted to read books I owned versus borrowing them, as I kind of tend to buy a book then stick it on a shelf while I try to get through books I have borrowed from family or the library. (I may have cheated a tiny bit by buying "The Handmaid's Tale" but I figured once I purchased it, it qualified as a book I owned! And I'm making the rules, anyway. It was totally worth it, by the way, if you like dystopian novels!)

5. Finish three photo books. I made big time progress on that this weekend! I had a "free" book code, so I got to work. I was doing really well, then I got a second code! I had to hustle, but I finished with 30 minutes left before the code expired. Pretty proud that I knocked two out of three off! However, the last minute crunch was a good thing in that it motivated me to get the next few months of photos uploaded and organize a ton of others. I am hoping now to finish 2014 in the next few months. I usually put 2-3 months in each book, and yes, I am definitely behind, but I also started using Chatbooks, so I have printed photos starting in January 2015, so I will get caught up eventually! I've made so much headway in this area since I began, I am confident that some day I won't have years worth of un-printed photos looming over my head. Someday.

     I don't have a hard-and-fast rule about only making goals at the beginning of the year, although I do enjoy the freshness of January 1st. I made a goal in February to finish a specific workout program, and I will do that next week, Lord willing! So where are you with your goals?

A "Thirst Quenching" Thank-You

 My children attend a marvelous Awana program. If you are not familiar with Awana, it is worldwide Scripture memory organization. Kids memorize Scripture, learn about missionaries and play games. They earn awards based on their performance. It requires a ton of workers, and this year my kids both had wonderful groups of  leaders.

I think it is so important to thank your children's church teachers. Everyone remembers their children's school teachers-and that is great, too. But I am so appreciative of the people that work hard to teach my kids about the Bible and how to love and obey the the Lord.

Our budget is really tight right now, and I was hard pressed to come up with an original idea. Candy or baked goods are so frequent, and personally, I am not overly appreciative of all those extra calories! I would have loved to have given each person a gift card, but even then, not everyone likes Starbucks as much as I do, and that was definitely not in the budget.

My sister suggested giving out bottles of water with packaged drink mixes. I would have needed to re-label the bottles, and I learned from Carson's party last year that labeling water bottles is a pain! However, I took the kernel of her idea and expanded on it.

Part of my difficulty was that I needed at least 12 gifts, for both adults and teenagers, and men and women! I wanted something memorable, that wasn't expensive and would be fun.

This is what I came up with: the Dollar Store had fun reusable island themed water bottles. I filled each bottle with two ice pops (unfrozen, of course!) two packages of Hawaiian punch drink mix, two expandable sponges and some bubbles. Then I attached a water gun on the outside.

It might seem like that was a bunch of silly things, but I knew almost all of the adults had kids, and that the kids would enjoy  the toys. I knew the adults could use the bottles. I thought all the teenagers (there were four adult leaders and eight teens) would love the water guns!

 I filled the bottles with all the things, and it was easy to get the ice pops in there, I just bent them at the bottom since they were still liquid. I looped the rubber band through itself around the handle of the water gun, and then placed it over the bottles. It made them look even more fun and colorful.

 All ready to go, but there was something missing. I wanted to let the leaders know how much I appreciated their hard work...

 So I grabbed my trusty mailing labels and printed off some thank you stickers! Each one says,

" Every good and perfect gift is from above..." James 1:17
Thank you for being a gift from God to me! Enjoy your summer and have fun!
                                                       In Him,

The each child drew a picture of themselves with each leader and signed their name (I helped Carson with his, can you tell?)

 I could have done a variety of verses, such as:

"And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.” Matthew 10:42  with "You gave far more than a cup of water, so here are some "refreshing" things to say thanks!"

but I have always been partial to James 1:17, so that is what I went with. I know that child of one particular teacher was thrilled with everything- he thought it was fantastic that there were popsicles in it! It would be so easy to put a variety of things in there, and it ended up costing me less than $2 per gift. I have a feeling I know what the VBS teachers will be getting...

Racecars and Shoeboxes

This year Josie and Carson started attending Awana at a different church. We had attended (and I had taught) on post at the chapel for the last three years, but with Joel getting out it was time to find a new program. We absolutely love the new one! It is huge and does a lot of the things that our smaller club couldn't do. One of those things is the Awana Grand Prix. Josie got into the spirit of things by pretending to "drive".

This is Carson's car. Neither car was the prettiest, nor the fastest, but they both enjoyed coloring them. Next year we will do paint, but we didn't have time to make them too fancy this year.

This was Josie's. There was some pretty stiff competition in her division. Fortunately, I think it was the dads who were the competitive ones, the kids just wanted to have fun and enjoy looking at the cars!

Josie and Carson were thrilled to be asked to hold the flags for the opening ceremony! We were a little nervous about them touching the ground, but they did just fine.

Each racer was allowed to place his or her car on the track for each heat. There were three heats, and for Carson's division there were five groups. For Josie's there were eight!

Josie got some encouragement from Cubbie Bear while placing her car.

And their off! The race was so quick you couldn't hardly see the cars.

The whole thing was very professional, with a digital track and scores posted electronically on the leaderboard as soon as the last car cleared the finish line. The speeds were translated into miles. Josie's car was one of the slowest ones, at 155 mph. The fastest car in her division went 214 mph! Carson nor Josie won, but they did have a good time. I am little frightened at the amount of "ideas" Joel has for next year...

Later on the kids packed their shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. This is without a doubt one of my favorite holiday traditions. I packed my first box at age 13, and I haven't missed a year since.

Carson had a little trouble figuring out why we were buying gifts for someone he didn't know, but once he understood, he really got into it. He tried to buy everything in the store for his "friend". He really wanted to send his friend a ball, and he hand-picked the stuffed moose he sent. It was very sweet.

Jocelyn was so cute. She wanted everything to be just perfect for her box, and in the end it was so full it would barely close!

She specifically wanted to put flip flops in her box. I am so praying that some little girl in a foreign country has turquoise flip flops on her wish list. And a stuffed puppy.

She drew the sweetest card to put in her box, I had to take a picture. She really loves doing it as much as I do.

So that is just a little of what has been going on here. We have been busy, busy as usual. I don't think it is going to get any slower with the holidays coming. I guess I better just resign myself to it at some point that this is normal!

Recap

This has been another crazy, busy week. However, I do have some highlights. Monday was rather uneventful- did some cleaning and went to the commissary. Tuesday was good, even though I almost had a nervous break-down at PWOC (I think I may be a wee bit claustrophobic). However, Joel called and I had spent a nice afternoon with some Bible study friends. Wednesday we went to the zoo with some more friends and did lunch. Thursday I had a steering committee meeting for my Friday moms' group but the nice surprise was another friend took great photos of my kids that afternoon. It may be that I am little biased, but they may have been the best photos ever! :) I taught the lesson in Awana that night- not so sure how the kids' received the lesson, but I love working with them. I also was reminded of the precious gift of my salvation as I shared with the middle-schoolers about God's redemptive love. Their favorite part was the huge Costco cupcakes I brought- can't go wrong with food bribery! Today we had our moms' group, everything went well and we had a nice afternoon admiring our photos and relaxing. Now Josie and I are enjoying our 5,000th viewing of "Cinderella" and munching some "copcorn". I managed to keep the house together, too. That has probably been one of my most favorite parts! I am looking forward to tomorrow, too. I am getting together with a big group of high-school buddies for dinner and I think it will be great. Most importantly, I get to be kid-free because my friend is keeping the children! Yippee!

Busy Bees

What a crazy week! I am really enjoying being busy, it has helped to keep the loneliness at bay, but it has only been 3 days. I started a Beth Moore Bible study at PWOC (A Woman's Heart: God's Dwelling Place), Josie started AWANA on Thursday and our Moments for Moms group started today. I am particularly excited about AWANA because Josie is a Puggle! For some reason I just think that is the cutest thing. I also volunteered to help with the Trek group, the middle-schoolers. I am really in prayer about them, from what I can tell there are a lot of unbelievers. Since the program is offered at the chapel on post there are so many opportunities to reach people, and these kids are so precious.
I am also really excited about the Beth Moore study, but I have been really lax about getting started. I am convicted at this very moment to get started on it so I will have to wrap this up. I have some mixed feelings about the study at church. Time will tell if we are able to work out the kinks. We are changing a lot of things from what we did last year and I think that is making things seem a little strange to me. Oh well, 2 out of 3 is not bad! Besides it was only the first meeting so I am sure it will only get better...