I'm so excited about the prospect of a new year! 2012 was a good year, and I feel like it was leading up to an even better year. That doesn't mean we will have our trials or win the lottery in 2013, but I learned so many lessons during the past year that have helped me feel true joy, contentment and compassion. Here's to applying those lessons to all the surprising moments that hit in the next 350 days!
Ryan planned a Family Home Evening for the first week of the new year. He wanted us to have a "family review," where we discussed our successes (and not-so-successes) of 2012 and set new goals for 2013. We didn't talk about our individual goals because we made those in the next FHE, but we had the kids give their input as to how we have done as a family in the following areas of spiritual and physical growth; Family Home Evening, family prayer, family scripture study, temple attendance for those old enough, exercise, and time together as a family making memories.
We gave ourselves the following grades for 2012:
Family Home Evening: C-
Family prayer: B
Temple attendance: C
Family scripture study: D
Exercise: C+
Family time: A
Ouch, it hurt a little to be so honest. We have no expectations of perfection in the next year, so we set realistic goals for us to meet.
Goals for 2013:
Family Home Evening: B (at least 27 weeks of the year)
Family prayer: B+ (we always have a prayer before the kids head off to school in the morning, but we sometimes miss the prayer before bed)
Temple attendance: B (at least 25 total temple visits - this includes Brevan doing baptisms)
Family scripture study: C (at least 15 times a month)
Exercise: B+ (Ryan, Ali and Brevan each exercise at least 3 times a week - the younger kids get plenty of exercise in their various activities)
Family time: A (we rock this one!)
We have a new plan for this year. We are going to have the kids hold me and Ryan accountable. Each child will be assigned 3 months where they are in charge of keeping us on track in FHE, scripture study and prayers. They will receive $10 for each month we accomplish our goals. It sounds a bit pathetic, but for our family we think this might actually give us a swift kick in the pants.
I made this chart that will be in plain sight on the fridge. So far Lindsey is well on her way to earning $10, but Ryan and I need to step it up on the temple attendance and exercise! With us leaving on a trip this week where we will be consuming every food item possible, it's left us with no motivation to exercise until we get back and need to burn off the extra 10 pounds we are planning to gain!
I also decided we are going to work on creating a family moto. I've already thought of two things I am constantly telling the kids (and myself):
1. Ellefsens are not quitters.
2. Ellefsens can do hard things.
I painted the kitchen this past week while Brenda watched the kids for me. I loved the time alone to accomplish a long-put-off task while listening to the Mormon Channel for hours, but I don't love the color. This picture doesn't show the true color, because how it looks in this picture is how I wish it looked in real life! The color is actually more green than I was hoping. I included a swatch of the Sherwin Williams colors below. I painted "Underseas" on the wall because I hoped it would make the ugly green countertops look better. The countertops (which I'm planning to replace in the semi-near future) definitely blend in better, but the color isn't EXACTLY what I wanted, and it's driving me crazy. The next couple days after I finished the whole paint job, I actually avoided the kitchen as much as possible because I wanted to cry every time I walked by. The color has grown on me more, but I still want to re-do the paint job. It's going to have to wait until after our vacation though!
I'm thinking of doing the "Interesting Aqua" or "Moody Blue" color below. I realize my countertops will look out of place again, but I just have to love my wall color. I'm kind of paint color obsessed! :) Opinions are VERY welcome!
A couple noteworthy events of the past week include:
I bought a new camera finally! For someone that loves photography as much as I do, it's pathetic that I was still using such a crappy camera. While researching my options, I was speaking to a worker at Best Buy who looked at me funny and said, "So we've been having this conversation where you know so much about ISO and working cameras manually . . . but you've been using a Kodak for years? Kodak doesn't even make cameras anymore because they were so horrible." I giggled and explained the super-cheapness that is ingrained in me. But yay for finally having a nice Canon camera! I was still much too cheap to buy the DSLR I was researching, but I got a great point-and-shoot one with fun options. The one I chose was back-ordered until today, so the photos on this post were taken with my phone camera.
Lindsey got an award in front of the whole school this week for getting the best score on all her Math tests! She also played in her first basketball game where her team won 16-12.
Brevan hacked into my iPhone and changed the "signature" on all my emails, so any time I send out emails it says "I am the cuddly teddy bear that stalks in the night." I didn't realize it until days later! How embarrassing, but I literally laughed out loud! Goofy kid.
I did a couple social experiments this past week. The first one was not having a car for 8 days because I let a friend of mine borrow it to take her kids to BYU-Idaho. Although I'm very glad to have my van back today, I am so surprised how much more I was able to get done, and how much money I saved! Ryan and I had to coordinate the use of the truck, so when I ran errands I was on a very strict time limit, thus the spending less money. The other experiment was to have my teenage son "babysit" me by going onto my Facebook account and changing my password. Now if I want to check my Facebook account, I have to have him log in for me and keep the password secret. Talk about having more time in my day! The convenience of having an app on my phone was causing me to waste time that could be used more productively, plus I want to set an example for my kids about being wise with technology use.
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