Goals for 2023:
- Complete the Love & Respect workbook with Doug, there are 52 chapters so should be able to do 1/wk (I have seriously had this book back from Andrew days, never did it, and think it could only benefit us) - We did about 15 chapters.
- Complete a Parenting from Surviving to Thriving workbook together, 12 chapters, so 1/month - We completed 2 chapters. This workbook was pretty intense with each chapter being about an hour of reading/questions/reflections on our own childhoods and it was a good reference, but took a lot of time and thought.
- Date nights 12x a year, finish our dance lessons CD together, and attend a marriage conference - We probably had about 6 date nights. We were doing good with our date trades with another couple friend until some issues came up, so we need to get back to hiring babysitters. We did some of the dance CD lessons, did not finish. And did not attend a marriage conference. We DID go on one short getaway cruise alone together for our anniversary, so that was great.
- Purchase a new rental property - Nope. The still high Seller's market, 8% interest rates, etc were just not in our favor again this year. But our rental property is still going well, so we are thankful for that.
- Use my harp lessons gift certificate Doug got me when I turned 40 - No, still need to!
- Make a school decision for our son, keep him in school or move to a hybrid/homeschool option - Yes. We made a decision to do the hybrid/homeschool option this year. I think we are mostly pleased with the decision? Some of the pros and cons are exactly the same thing. Pro= he's at home more; Con= he's at home more (lol) = more work, more fighting, less time to spread between 3 kids. I do feel he is learning well. He obviously likes being home more having more time to play and more flexibility. The teaching him to read has been really hard. Next month we are going to hire a weekly tutor to hopefully help jumpstart his reading a little better. It will be a whole new world when he can read. When we ask him if he likes this school option better, he says no, but always like something "I miss the playground" (the hybrid school meets in a church with no playground), or he misses his old friends. We have noticed that last year he would very very frequently ask strangers if they believed in God (his old school's motto was "share Christ's story with love") and we've noticed that settling down, which is a shame. I think the Wednesday chapel the old school used to have can be livestreamed, so I've been thinking about having him watch that weekly so he can still have that Godly aspect of school. The hybrid school is mostly ran by Christians, but since it is state funded, it is a neutral school. So we definitely miss that Christian aspect. But overall we do think it is working well for our family, so we plan to continue on next year for him as well as for our new kindergartener.
- Complete the 10 minute plan (I did her 12 week postnatal plan pretty much on repeat all of 2022 so I'm ready to move to the next level) - I'm 1/3 done! I still ended up repeating the postnatal plan almost most of the year. I had some Diastasis Recti, even 2 years post pregnancy, and I was so afraid of moving on to her new program and maybe making it worse. So over the summer I did about 10 weeks of Physical Therapy to get that closed. When I finally got it good enough to "graduate" I started the new plan. I'm in phase 2 now, and I do like it, altho it's actually not as challenging as the prenatal one believe it or not. But she says phase 2 and phase 3 will progress, so maybe. I've already bought her Firm30 series to try after I finish this one.
- Read through the pile of books that has been on my nightstand for years now
- Complete this prayer journal (I like it's weekly and not daily, seems more attainable) - I made several weeks in, I liked it, just couldn't make it a habit I guess.
- Transition the girls into sharing a room (after 15+ months, we need the baby out of our room!) - Yes! Once we finally made the switch everything went fine. This was one of those things that I just was so anxious about forever, but when we finally just made a decision and did it, it was a lot smoother than I'd imagined. There was a little difficulty because I still nursed her at night, but she was starting to finally slow down at that point anyway, and was done nursing altogether a few months later.
The room before:
- Think about a job/career switch - Thought about it. Deciding to stay in my spot. I think I'd like to go to Mother/Baby, but would have to work midnights. I can't even fathom that logistically now, but maybe could revisit this when all the kids are in school, even the hybrid school, but we are about 3-4 years away from that anyway. But who knows, if we lose our parent babysitters at some point, we might have to make some sort of changes before then anyway.
- Find some way to streamline cooking/cleaning/laundry??? - I know what works best is to have a list of 10 meals and just always have the ingredients to make them. I've had a big tupperware of fresh veggies that people grab from for lunches/snacks. But I do get annoyed that it's 99% me peeling/cutting/chopping those biweekly. Doug is a great help with grocery shopping tho. The second half of the year we have hired someone to come clean once a month. So at least once a month I have washed floors. Which is a lot more frequent than I could say before that. We got a cordless stick vacuum that I love and even August can use it to zip around and clean up after meals. And we got a very expensive new vacuum for the carpets, which even though it does a good job, unfortunately I hate it and wish we wouldn't have gotten it. It is so heavy and so loud I wear the kids ear protectors, and it has a dual motor so it's powerful, but that makes the vacuum part thick so it can't go into small spots like my last one. And I hate I'm stuck with this thing for like 10 years till it dies. Laundry, meh, no way to streamline that I've found, but sometimes I get the girls to help me. They love to put the stuff from the washer to the dryer and then can pull things out one at a time for me to fold. They love to match socks. But 5 people means laundry several times a week.
2023 has been a really great year overall. We are blessed with healthy, happy, lively children. We were able to take a trip to Louisiana and Mississippi mid- February, a road trip to Vermont and New Hampshire and Niagara Falls over the summer, we went up to Bois Blanc Island Labor Day weekend, and we did our kid-free Bahamas cruise. We enjoyed a 2 week long visit this summer with my brother and his family, spending lots of time together. We celebrated the birth of my sister's baby after YEARS of praying and waiting and hoping and praying some more. We've weathered some concerns with our parents' health, my mom's new knee early winter and Doug's dad's cancer scare. We are THANKFUL for all God's goodness in 2023 and hope and pray and continue to follow Him into 2024.
