New Year's Resolution

I'm not really one to sit down and set a bunch of New Year's Resolutions. They just don't work for me that way so instead I like to come up with some overarching theme's or goals. Last year my motto was - embrace your crazy.

For the past few weeks I've been thinking about what I want the new year and decade to start with and I've decided that I want to be better about enjoying the small things and documenting them. One of my goals is to take a picture everyday to document what my life is like right now. I also want to try to have 1 of the pictures each week have me and at least 1 of my kids in it. Motherhood is where I am right now and I want my kids to be able to look back at how we are right now. My theme to go along with this is - enjoy the journey.

Here are my pictures so far this year:

January 1: Yes. This is a picture of my bum. The reason I picked this one is because I think it's hilarious that every time Todd gets the camera he takes the most random pictures. When I was looking through our cruise pictures on the day of the 1st I found this picture along with several other people's bums and it cracked me up.

January 2. I love just hanging out with my family. I love that Timmy and Mark have on their Schultz shirts. A few thanksgivings ago we all got shirts made with our family number on them and I love that when ever you catch us together someone is wearing theirs.

January 3. Me sad to be off the cruise and wearing my Schultz shirt with pride. I love my family so much and I am so glad that I got to spend so much time hanging out with 7 of my siblings, my awesome hubby and my rockin' in-laws.

January 4. I love this picture of the boys in their luchador masks. Tayson requested that we buy him an official wrestling outfit to wear with his mask and we told him that all they need to do is wear stretchy pants. He decided that as long as they don't have a shirt on sweats or shorts will do for now.

January 4. I couldn't pick just one for this day since I wanted to get the girls showing off their presents from Mexico too. We got them matching swimsuit cover ups (which they both put on as soon as they got them) and Claire got maracas (or raca's as she calls them) and Sophie got a tambourine. Claire loves to shake the tambourine and hit it on her bum. It's so cute.


January 5. I forgot my phone at home today so Todd brought it to me at work. When I went out to the car to meet him I saw Shadow in the backseat and asked Todd why he was in the car (we never take him anywhere except PetSmart to get his haircut) and Todd said "I thought he'd like a ride". It made me laugh so of course I snapped a picture.

January 6. I realized after everyone was in bed that I hadn't taken a picture yet for the day so I thought I'd get one of the boys and how they are every night. Sitting at their computers playing WoW. They usually sit like this playing until around 2:00 am.

January 7. Today we made another trip to the doctors. We have been there way too much the past 5 weeks. Sophie started with strep 5 weeks ago, then Meggan got it, then I got it, then Claire got it and now Sophie has it again. UGH. When I took this picture Sophie was saying cheese but she was crying at the same time. Such a funny girl.

2009

This year instead of my typical New Years Resolutions I'm doing the following.

1. Setting a theme for the year. My theme is "Embrace your crazy". Everyone has their own brand of crazy, some are more pronounced and others are so similar to mine I don't even think they are crazy. But really we are all crazy at some level. When I look at other people's "brand" of crazy and see it as just that I am much less judgemental and enjoy other people more.

2. Sign up for races/events. Instead of setting a weight or workout goal I like to find races or events to do and then I meet any fitness goals while training for them. Here is what I have in mind for 2009.

• Moab Half Marathon (already signed up....now I must train)
• 2 Centuries (Little Red Riding hood and Heber most likely)
• A marathon (maybe Top of Utah or Deseret News)
• Run at least a 5K every month of the year

A New Year

I thought it would be fun to look back on 2007 and list my favorite things of the year. Rather than put them in order of most important I just ordered them by time of the year.

Our new house

Finding Chelsea – the best nanny ever!

My new bike

Finishing a century and half marathon

Being in better shape in my 30’s than my 20’s

Buying new “skinny” jeans

Phoenix – Amy’s wedding and spending time with old college buddies, not to mention shopping with Kati it doesn’t get much better than that

Tayson’s first day of school

My parent’s moving so close

Mark’s mission (it’s bittersweet having him gone, but I wouldn’t want him anywhere else)

Blogging – I love being back in touch with so many friends who have moved away

Thanksgiving

My hair being as long as Sherry's - for the first time in my life

Our Cruise

Reading (what a year…Harry Potter, Twilight Series, and about 20 other books along the way)

And of course my wonderful husband and kids!!! It just keeps getting better every year.

Looking Ahead:
I'm not big on setting new years resolutions. I love Kati's idea of creating a "theme" instead, but haven't been good at that either. I always tell my spin class at the start of the year the best way to do a fitness goal is to sign up for an event or race rather than say you're going to lose 5 lbs. However, I thought it would be fun to just list some things I'm looking forward to in 2008 then just sit back and enjoy the year rather than think of all the things I'm not doing. So here goes:

Spending the summer with my kids

Lots more reading

So many babies being born this year

Having someone else clean my house

Luke and Claire getting potty trained...hopefully!!!