Wednesday, April 6, 2011

March recap

Here's a recap for myself of what March looked like in relation to my New Year's Resolutions...

1. Daily Bible reading - I finally felt like I was getting into the groove of waking up before the girls and spending some time in the Word and then we started putting Lola in Clara's room overnight and that totally messed up our early morning routine, and thus my Bible reading habit. It used to be that if Clara woke up before 7:00 I would change her diaper and get her a few books and make her stay in bed. But since we put Clara and Lola together they wake each other up and then Lola will often just cry in bed because she doesn't understand the concept of looking at books until I come to get her. So this is an area that needs some work again.

2. Work on my 2011 reading list - I didn't read a ton in March, partly because I was trying to venture away from parenting books, but really all I want to read right now is parenting books. Eventually I decided just to go with it and I picked up Simplicity Parenting. I'm almost done with it and will plan to write a brief book review of it here soon. Then I think I'll be moving on to Last Child in the Woods.

3. Get into a habit of having family devotions - Yay! We finally improved in this area in March! Several of the evenings that Jeremy was home we would clean up after dinner and then we'd put blankets on the living room floor and sit down together to read a Bible story and then sing a song or two. Clara really likes it. Lola wanders around the room sometimes, but at least she's hearing what's going on.

4. No TV or internet for us between dinnertime and the girls bedtime - We're decent with this, but not 100% committed.

5. Work on Kitchen Stewardship's Top 10 Foundational Habits - I have to say I don't think about this one very much. I know there are improvements we could make in our diet, but I'm choosing to spend my limited time on other things right now. Though in March I did place an order for some organic, free-range chickens to purchase this summer from a friend of my cousin. My biggest motivation in doing that is to make homemade chicken broth.

6. Potty train Clara - well we're SLOWLY but surely working on this. We have a sticker chart on the wall and she gets a special treat when she goes potty. Honestly I'm not diligent about it at all. She mostly will go #1 on the toilet after she takes a bath. She has yet to go #2 on the toilet because she has a complete fit if we try to get her to. Maybe someday soon I'll work harder at this and try to get the job done once and for all.

7. Work toward a routine for me and the girls - I did write up a daily routine awhile back, but we didn't do so well at following it in March. And now that the weather is getting nicer it will probably change to include lots of outside time. Plus we recently joined Life Time Fitness so I'll need to work that into our routine as well.

8. Have two Norwex parties per month - well we've actually decided to up this to four parties per month so we can hopefully make extra payments on our school debt. In March I just did two parties, but in April I have four on the calendar!

9. Take the girls outside on every nice day - This was a non-issue in March because there weren't many nice days. I think we got outside maybe 3 times. This month will be a different story though. We've already been out a few times, including this morning.

10. Do more crafts - My mind might be failing me, but I don't think I crafted much in March. Yesterday I did some sewing though!