This last week of break for us has been good. 

Monday Daniel took Brooke night skiing, and I did a mini family home evening with Camille and Jack. 

We took Aleah's family, Rebekah and her girls, mom and Jennie to the Dino museum with us on Tuesday. And they came over afterwards to hang out and let the cousins play and have dinner. Mom bought pizza for everyone for dinner. 

Wednesday, the girls had play dates with friends: Brooke with Claire and Camille with Peyton. While they were occupied at friends houses, I took the boys to do grocery shopping and run a couple errands. It was very nice only having the boys with me for errands. Not so chaotic as usual. 

Thursday afternoon, after Sawyer's nap, we went to Emily's house so the kids could play with clay and create things. Aleah and her kids were there too. They had so much fun, and they asked when we could do it again. 

Friday was new year's eve. Daniel and I started a cleaning/ dejunking/ reorganizing project. Daniel has been kind of antsy about the garage and how messy and unorganized it always. And I've been antsy about how messy and unorganized the storage rooms always are. Daniel went on Monday to get a shelf unit and wood to complete some of his projects, and concluded that it would be cheaper and easier to get rid of stuff (the shelf was really expensive). And I was like, "Well, yes. This is what I always say. Get rid of stuff."

So we started on new years eve. Getting rid of things, reorganizing stuff and putting up shelves. We kept working on it yesterday, and it's already looking so much better. But we still have a lot to do. 

We had the Smiths over on new year's eve for dinner and games. The kids played games together and we had dinner and then we played a few games altogether with the kids, one of which was a virtual reality game. One person was in the vr goggles, and the rest of us played on our devices. It was fun, but we are so inexperienced with video games, it was kinda hard. 

We split, then, to put all our kids to bed, and then they came back over to play games without the kids. It was a fun night! 

Yesterday, after working on cleaning projects for a bunch of the day, we took the kids sledding for about an hour. Jack was done first. I don't think he even went down the hill once. He just complained about being cold, and then cried until I took him to the car. Camille quit shortly after that. She went down a couple of times, and then complained that her hands and feet were too cold. So Daniel took her to the car. I went down with Sawyer a number of times, and then he was done too. Only Brooke really had fun. She loved it and could've gone a lot longer, if the other kids hadn't been such stinkers. It was getting dark, too, though. So we left. We need to get these kids used to the cold, so we can play in it more! 

This year, I'm not making goals. Well, I'm sure I will make goals, but none for the entire year. Last year I made 2 or 3 goals for each category, like how the church does goal setting for the kids: physical, mental, social, and spiritual. And I did pretty well. I didn't lose all the baby weight, but I'm really close, and I think I'll get there in a few months. And I didn't hike timpanogos, because we were in Alaska when that was supposed to happen. But I did my other goals, not completely for the whole year, but mostly (for example, my desire to follow the news petered out the last few months of the year).

And while I did complete most of my goals, it was overwhelming at times, trying to get it done. And I didn't enjoy life as much as I feel I should've. That's not how I want goals to feel. I want to feel motivated, not overwhelmed. 

So this year, I'm not setting goals to complete for the year, except one: get ready for a baby. 😊 I would like to prepare my body and my home to welcome another baby into our family. I've been feeling more of a sense of urgency to have what I believe will be our last baby. And I've been feeling more and more that someone is missing, even when we're all together. But I always feel overwhelmed by the house and the kids and the stuff after having a baby. That's normal. But I'd like to lessen that sense as much as possible by preparing. Preparing my body by getting stronger and fitter, so that I can bear a cold. Preparing my home by organizing and getting rid of as much as I can, so that I don't feel overwhelmed after having a baby. 

That's it. That's the only goal I have for this year. That's all I want to get done. I'll likely make a to-do list for the year, and I'll likely have monthly goals. But that's it for yearly goals. My main purpose in doing it this way, different from how I've done it in the past, is so that I can enjoy my life and my kids more. They're growing up fast. Brooke turns 10 this year!! I want to be more present with them, enjoy them and get to know them better this year. So I don't want to feel burdened and cumbered about much by my goals and personal plans. I just want to have more fun.