Birthdays and The New Year

Matthew asked for fried fish for his birthday meal. I have never fried fish before! He wanted hush puppies and I have never made them before either! It was pretty easy (besides feeling greasy!) and the guys were quite pleased. The rest of us skipped the fish and ate our annual New Years Eve Chex Mix!



Matthew's favorite birthday treat is ice cream pie!


New Years Day we met some friends from church and went ice skating.

We finally got over the crud we had during Christmas and were able to go see my parents on Sunday. We missed seeing my sisters' families over the holidays. I felt so bad during Christmas that I didn't think much about it. Once I felt better though it was kind of sad that we missed being with everyone. My mom always works so hard shopping and preparing to make Christmas special. The kids had fun seeing them Sunday though. I haven't uploaded pictures from that day yet.

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It was so hard getting back into the swing of things yesterday. I like routine and we seem to get so much more done when we are "doing school". I think being sick over our break made it harder to start back this year. We did 6 loads of laundry yesterday! The bathrooms seemed especially dirty, the baby was fussier than normal, Malachi was extra loud and Mariah had a faraway look in her eye when we were doing school! The older kids were supper time finishing their school work! I HATE days like that! Thankfully today everyone seemed to be back in the groove.

Marc spent some time going over New Years goals with all of us last night. I don't have anything huge on my list. I do have a few things that I want to work on though!

~Being more organized. (I need to redo chore charts for the kids. That helps things go much smoother!)

~Finding joy and contentment in everyday things. My parents gave me two devotional books for Christmas, one is on joy and one on trust. I am looking forward to reading them!

~Drink more water! I have actually been doing that for the last few weeks and I think it makes me feel better!

~Be better with meal planning/grocery shopping. (I guess that falls under being organized!)

~Have a more meaningful personal Bible study. I sometimes have the mindset of checking it off my "to do" list! I would like to memorize more scripture this year. That is SO hard for me! The kids can memorize things so easily!

Well, that is about it. If I can make strides in those areas this year I will be doing good! :>)

What are some of your New Years goals? Hope you have a good New Year!