Happy New Year - 2019 Goals (kind of)

Happy New Year from us here at the Peaden Home. 

We've got a lot of things planned for this year: Finish out our first homeschool year, celebrate our 10 year anniversary, oh and... have a baby! I'll be honest, having a baby is the biggest and best thing that we are looking forward to.

David asked if I had any goals for this year and I made some quip about how I'm not setting any goals this year. I'm mostly serious. In reality, I'm actually a big believer in goals - but for some reason this year I'm just not feeling it. I don't think that you have to force new goals on yourself just because the date on the calendar changes (although, I usually love the chance to reflect and start a fresh year). But I'm still working on my goals for last year:

-Less complaining (own what I'm doing and do it happily).
-More organization and delegation
-Quality one on one time with Lydia and Austin (and Caleb) every day.
-No phone (or less phone) after David gets home from work.
-Faith and Trust in the Lord
*Cut out anything that interferes with these goals.

Plus - we are halfway through our homeschool journey and it has been amazing so far. I'm committed to putting the effort and energy into finishing the school year strong.

I did just change my lock screen to have a sentence on it. It says "Live what's in your heart." The gist of what that means to me is that I often have big, heartfelt feelings. I have dreams of what I want our home to be like. I have this picture of what I want to be like as a mom and a wife. Often, my actions don't line up exactly with what my heart yearns for - so it is a reminder to me to live my life with intention. My heart knows what kind of life it wants for myself and for my family, and if I try a little harder every day to put into practice those things, I just know that little by little the things of my heart will become our true reality.

David's goals for 2019 are:
-Take care of my high-maintenance wife by showing her all five types of love languages within each calendar week, because she likes all of them and I'm amazing enough to accomplish this feat on a regular basis.
-Work a billion hours at my job, and still come home and give 100% to my family.
-Be an all around amazing husband, father, employee, manager, and disciple of Christ.

Okay, technically I, Shantel, wrote these goals because when I asked David what goals he had he said "Too busy! Too busy for goals right now." (Said in a dramatic voice as he leaned over onto my shoulder pretending to fall asleep.) And also, I wrote those as his goals because he's already doing all of those things - so he doesn't even have to do anything extra!

So I guess this year will be a low key goal year, and that's just fine.

I would say, our family goal is to be kind to each other, spend quality time together, and transition to our new life as a family of 6! And that's a big enough, wonderful enough goal for us.

Happy New Year!

Goodbye 2018

I think it is such a good thing to look back at the year and think about how well we accomplished our goals and the big things that happened this year.

My goals for 2018 were to be outstanding and be organized.

I'm not sure I really accomplished those. I think I was a pretty good dad. I think that I tried hard. I think that the challenge of life is balancing being present in the moment, taking time to see the bigger picture of what you want to change and how to improve, and also not becoming so lost in the day to day that you just amble forward without much thought. I'm not sure that even makes sense. I had a wonderful year with this family, I hope I can continue to grow.

Shantel's goals for the year:
-Less complaining (own what I'm doing and do it happily).
-More organization and delegation
-Quality one on one time with Lydia and Austin (and Caleb) every day.
-No phone (or less phone) after David gets home from work.
-Faith and Trust in the Lord
*Cut out anything that interferes with these goals.

I think Shantel made a lot of progress here. When she wrote these, we really had no idea that we would homeschool and I think that really has been a blessing for her time with Lydia, Austin and Caleb. She has really increased her faith and testimony and trust in the Lord. She has focused on not complaining and building a positive attitude. I would guess that she would say that she understands much more about how to delegate and is still working on actually making that happen. She has been telling me that if you delegate then you have to be okay with how they do it, and sometimes she wants it done a certain way.

I asked Shantel and we decided to list our top three things from the year.

#1 - Best Summer Ever
We had what Shantel called "Summer of Dreams" and said repeatedly that she was living her best life. The kids were at good ages for adventures, lake days, water slides, and just enjoying each and every thing that came their way. The summer was the perfect balance between adventuring & sunshine and home-days & relaxing. We did a lot of fun things together as a family. Really the summer that dreams are made of.

#2 - New York
Shantel, Lydia, and I went and visited Bruce in New York. We walked a thousand miles, saw all of the touristy sites, and enjoyed exploring together. We are so glad that we got to go on this trip!

#3- Homeschool
We started homeschooling Lydia. (Which has been amazing and such a good experience for her and Shantel). Lydia is thriving and so is Shantel. The boys, too. It's a good life for us, and we're so glad that we had the courage to do something different because it's been such a good fit for us this year.

We are grateful for everything we experienced in 2018 and so so grateful for this family of ours. 

Ringing in the New Year!

We had a great New Year's Eve. In the morning the kids decided to make a giant pile of stuffies on the bed.

Shantel and I were watching the Haderlie kids so Jenna a could take care of Kevin who just had surgery. However, we really thought it was important to be at my house and spend some time with Bruce (visiting from New York) and my mom (who has been sick). So Lydia and I went to my house for dinner and games. Meanwhile, Shantel was a trooper and watched the other 4 kids at home. It was fun to have Ldyia playing games with my family.

Shantel and the other kids, literally "rang in the new year." Only they did it at 7 pm.

I came home with Lydia around 8-9 and once we got her to bed, we made some frappe, popped some popcorn and watched our favorite new year's movie, "While you were Sleeping." While we did we worked on our Logan puzzle. It was the absolutely perfect ending to 2018.

Happy New Year!