New Year's FHE

The first Monday of each new year our family sits down for FHE and sets goals. We each pick one personal goal and one family goal that we think our family needs to work on together. First we review the goals we made for the last year to see how we did on those, which were as follows:

Personal Goals 2008

*Sarah--Sleep in her own bed, which she did! Hooray for Sarah! This was a huge accomplishment for her (and us)!

*Katie--Listen better and make bed everyday. Katie decided that she thought she could still use some improvement in these areas.

*Mommy--Learn to sew, which I did! Hooray for me! Of course, it took me until October to start to learn my new skill, and I am certainly just beginning, but better late than never. I really regret that it took me so long to get up the nerve to try because I really do enjoy my newest hobby.

*Daddy--Start to workout. Dad also decided that he still needed to work on this goal.

Family Goals 2008

*Sarah--she didn't make one

*Katie--Do better at family prayer and scripture study. She came up with this goal by herself, and boy was she inspired because we really did need to do better. Both of the girls amaze me by how important spiritual things are to them at such a young age. We all agreed that our family has improved so much in this area, but still have room for improvement.

*Mommy--Watch less TV. We all agreed that we still need to work on this goal.

*Dad--More outdoor family activities. We did to do more stuff together, but it wasn't necessarily outdoors. We would have liked to have done more camping and fishing, but those are things I wasn't interested in doing in the last few months, considering my current state. We're going to try to do better on this one this year too, after John is born of course, and gets a few months on him.

We then set new goals for this year, which were as follows:

Personal Goals 2009

*Sarah--Listen to and obey parents and the Holy Ghost. She came up with this all on her own. As soon as she said it, I immediately had ideas running through my head of different topics for FHE to help her with her goal. She also set another goal of helping me get ready for the baby, which she has already started on. She helped me go through some baby clothes last night that Jenny gave us, and she was so cute. She would pick up something and say, "OH, how cute! Look how cute Mama!" She is so excited. Such a little sweetie.

*Katie--Help mom more around the house. Wahoo! I am so lovin' this goal! What a great idea Katie!

*Mommy--Lose weight and get healthier. Katie immediately said, "What?! You can't lose weight now! You'll have to wait until after the baby is born!" So funny! Great idea sweetie! After the baby is born, I'll get right on it.

*Daddy--Lose weight. I'm so glad this is his goal too. I can use it when I cook lighter and healthier meals. =)

Family Goals 2009

*Sarah--Be peacemakers. She actually couldn't think of one, so we suggested this one for her because she is always trying to be a peacemaker when Aaron and I are discussing something that we disagree on. We never have been ones to fight and yell at each other, but even though we don't raise our voices, she is very sensitive when we disagree with each other, even if we are laughing while we are disagreeing. She will always say, "Alright, that's enough. Break it up guys." And she doesn't stop saying it until we stop. She's very persistent. So we talked briefly about what a peacemaker is and how she can be a peacemaker in different situations. Another good idea for a FHE lesson.

*Katie--Everyone help clean the house. I am so lovin' Katie's goals for this year! What an inspired little girl! I guess she's noticed I've been slipping in the cleaning lately.

*Mommy--Finish our year supply. I got really motivated last year after our first enrichment of the year when our Stake Food Storage specialist came and gave a great presentation. I got a lot accomplished last year, but I really hope to get it all done this year and start to use and rotate our year supply more.

*Daddy--Watch less TV. This was my family goal for last year, which we didn't really do. So I'm glad it is going to be one that we continue to work on this year. He mentioned canceling our cable, which we only have basic now which is just a few channels. But I don't think we could (or should) live without the news--especially during hurricane season. So we talked about just setting limits, like no TV during the week. We'll have to set more specific goals later.

We decided that to be better at reaching our goals this year, we need to review them more often. So I am going to post them on the refrigerator (which I was supposed to do last year and never did! Opps!) and we will review them at FHE once a month. We are looking forward to our new goals for 2009!