Sunday, January 31, 2010

My Men

Marc being a good sport doing a "cardio party" kickboxing CD with me


Jaden driving around my dad's Quality Carpet Cleaners car. It was a Christmas gift from my aunt Mary. My deceased uncle Ray was an incredible with wood work. He made the car at some point and my aunt put my dad's company name on it. Note the fetal model baby in the back. :)


My dad and Jaden working hard outside....



...while Marc and Perry "work" inside





Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Forwaaard March!

I'm off to DC tonight for the March for Life. Please pray that I will have safe travels, good plane sleep, and a safe march. :) I'm so excited!!

Monday, January 11, 2010

Carepackages for the Homeless

This is something I've been wanting to do for a long time and I was just reminded of it as I browsed blogs. I'm adding it to my goals/to do's for 2010. :)

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Goals, Goals, Goals

I'm in goal setting mode right now and it feels great. Hopefully I'll still be feeling great and adjusting goals and setting new ones a month from now too...and again in 3 months...6 months...etc.

I have a whole list of things I want to work on and do. Some have due dates, some are on the back burner. I find it's best not to try to attack too much at once and to be realistic about what you can accomplish. I'm not always very good at that though and have been known to bring on too much at once only to burn myself out and not get very far on any one thing. So I guess you could say that good, positive goal setting is in itself a goal of mine along with reflecting on where I'm out, how I'm doing, and what God is calling me to. It's pretty easy to focus in on my task lists and forget the last part, which is by far the most important.

So here are a few things I'm working on now:
1. The 25 lb weight challenge that Marc and I started at the beginning of last year. I have lost 17.2 lbs so far!! So my first goal is to lose the remaining 7.8 lbs. Some other goals I have in mind are to have a 6 pack once in my life and be able to do pull-ups. :) I've always wanted to do these things! For now though, I'm focusing on the weight loss. Of course, I can work on the other two things alongside it, but my focus will remaining on the challenge.
2. Budgetting! I'm trying to move my budgeting to more of a monthly model rather than a weekly model. I get paid every week and have gotten pretty good about budgeting my week's worth of money, but if I move to a monthly model I may see a bigger picture and notice some trends of spending that I'm not aware of. Hopefully it will allow me to cut back on spending a little bit.
3. Becoming debt free. I'm sooooo close! I just have the very end of my student loans to tackle. Some goals I have in mind next: getting health insurance and getting rid of my credit cards. I should do these things now, but I'm never had health insurance and feel no rush. And as far as the credit cards go, it does make me a little nervous. However, getting an annual fee for one of them when I don't really use them made me think that it needs to happen sooner than later. I also want to look into different banking and car insurance options this year so see where else I might be able to save money.
4. Practice reflecting and meditating. I'm not always very deep and I get distracted so very easily. I'm using a book called the Better Part that a few friends of mine have recommended to help me out with this. So far I'm absolutely loving it and finding it very fruitful. I look forward to my time in prayer each day so much more.

I have a ton of other goals, but I won't share them all now. Please keep me in your prayers to form better habits. You are all in mine and I pray that you will have a blessed month and year!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Family Pictures from Christmas

Christmas Morning at Stacey & Perry's House. Riley has a hand holding phobia. So either she REALLY loves me or she was just too tired to fight back. I think she really loves me. :)

Marc often makes fun of my open mouth smile, but I guess I'm not the only one who does it...

Perry very ready to play with his toy, but not getting to open it. They all woke up late and his mom was on her way to pick him up so we had to rush through present opening pretty quickly. Woopsy Daisy!

These bibs were not a gift from me, but I will encourage their use.

My parents are so stinkin' cute sometimes!

Tools for the boys.

Visiting Grandma!

What kid doesn't love playing Grandma's organ?

Not a family pic, but on the way home from Grandma's...

Riley "finished" her Rite of Baptism on the Feast of the Holy Family (there is a more proper term for this, but I can't remember it) . She was baptized before surgery at Mary Bridge not too long after being born, but was welcomed into the parish and received the oil of catechumens and oil of chrism along with some of the other wee ones getting baptized on this day.