Goal update

This year I've been holding myself to the one little word "Action."  I have to say that taking deliberate action on the my focus areas - family, photos, fitness and finances - is lowering my daily stress level.

A few things that we accomplished so far this year are:

• Family:  Implemented family game nights, movie nights, and craft nights.  Our girls are really thriving with the extra attention and activities.  We also hold informal family meetings that the girls like and Chris doesn't like.  He thinks they are silly.  I like them because everyone has to give me at least one suggestion for a dinner dish to make that week and so it means that at least 2 days/week there are no complaints at dinner.  Julia likes it because she loves to go over the family rules - with her in charge of dishing the rules out and she has a baton she uses as her microphone.  Emma loves to watch Julia talk and wield the baton and so she loves the meetings.  
• Photos:  I've enrolled in a photo class and it's quite intense.  But, I'm seeing such improvements in the photos I am taking and love that I took this class.  
• Fitness:  Most weeks I'm hitting the gym 3-5x.  Chris loves working out, but I never really liked it too much so going this frequently is new for me.  It's now become a routine and most days I actually look forward to going - something I never thought I would say!  I mix it up with classes and individual workouts and then hit the hot tub when I have a few extra minutes at the end of my workout.  I've found that the people in the classes I take are really friendly and usually there the same day/time I work out and so it's been a bit of a social outlet for me, too.
• Finances:  We've made a lot of progress on this, too.  I've been tracking our expenses and made a loose budget for this month and next to see how it goes.  I don't like budgets but since we haven't won the lottery I guess it's a necessity.  

In addition to all this, Emma has made fantastic progress in potty training and started extra physical therapy outside of school 2x/week.  Julia now knows 4 steps in Irish dancing and she can now swim without needing a float all the time.

I like taking a moment to realize all that we are doing because it can get lost in our overly-hectic life.  Is it really on February??!!! My how we started the year with a BANG!

I took this photo outside our door.  It's of the beautiful flowers Chris sent me for Valentine's day.  I'm a lucky woman!