I sheepishly have to admit as I sat down to work on goals for 2017 I needed a refresher on what they were last year. I wrote them down but on what and where? I’m not sure. Luckily I had them saved on my blog. I hit many but not all of them:

2016 goals evaluation

1. Spend more quality time with each of my kids and husband, together and individually: I definitely made this happen. Between date nights, a solo trip with each kid, and beginning our homeschool journey, I felt way closer to each member of our family.

2. Find at least one moment to cherish every day: Though my Cherish365 photo project came in and out all year, each night as I said my prayers I was able to name at least one thing from that day that I was so thankful for or cherished.

3. Spend more time with our pup Snoop: Though we could always be doing better, I think Snoop had more walks and more outings this last year than any since we’ve been parents.

4. Cook or create with Lil’ J at least once a week: The cooking part didn’t happen that often, but if you count our homeschool experiments and art projects, we did well the second half of the year.

5. Organize and print more photos for my home: I got our photos SO organized digitally. I’ve got backups up the wazoo and I’ve deleted RAW files and narrowed the jpgs down to our favorites. I printed quite a few photos but I want to do more of that. Especially now that I have a great photo printer.

6. Get ready (hair and makeup done) at least 2-3 times a week: Probably my biggest failure. But it made such a HUGE difference when I tried to get ready and look nice. I was better in the first half of the year than the second.– Which is probably why you saw less of my face in photos and on Snapchat.

7. Use my talents to give back: I can do better. We began a lot of family volunteering at the end of the year. I didn’t use my photography/video/speaking talents as I’ve done in years before, but I’m glad we still worked to give back planting at local farms, visiting seniors, and doing random acts of kindness.

My 2016 record isn’t too shabby. I’m still pinpointing the ones I want to focus on this year. Last year I also made a new dream board with goals to help my kids find their passions, read read read, bring a lot of Disney magic to my life and make a difference.

I read a bunch of books, then read even more to my kids. We went to Disney World three times and Disneyland once (all but one were work trips). I walked the Disney red carpet, met my favorite directors, interviewed Steven Spielberg, started to homeschool–Effin HOMESCHOOL!–Even went to a homeschool conference! I took my daughter to visit our nation’s capital, started a new calling at church, spoke at blog conferences, received a Voice of the Year Award, did dozens of stories for my news station, celebrated 12 years of marriage, visited family in Utah, began piano lessons… I mean wow, it was an exciting year.

It was also pretty sad. The election season was brutal. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at some of the things our president-elect has said. And my husband’s job is more dangerous than ever. Still, I don’t feel like 2016 knocked me down. Sure, it banged us around a bit, but we’re still standing. And we will continue to rise.

Yesterday at church a quote directly in front of me bore into me the entire last hour of service (yea, church is 3 hours… have I mentioned that??). I meant to snap a picture of it as I was leaving so I’d remember but I forgot to. Nevertheless as I’m writing this blog post I remembered it almost verbatim (I just looked it up to double check).

“The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.” By Russell M. Nelson.

Through our darkest days I had to believe our little family would be ok. And that we will continue to do everything we can to keep it that way for us, and our brothers and sisters (everyone else). I tried to center my energy and focus around love, compassion, and a desire for understanding and I hope to carry that into this year.

2016 was something. And I’m so ready to see what 2017 will bring.

Tags: family, goals, new year