resolute 2020

here are my resolutions:

1. read 12 books. same as last year and i completed it.

2. read book of mormon with a theme in mind. last year i highlighted all references to Jesus Christ and it was magic. this year my theme to highlight is "knowledge is for the faithful". i going to highlight all references to people gaining knowledge because they were steadfast.

3. declutter every room and closet and storage area and garage. that equals out to one area a month, which is extremely doable. i started with the playroom and now the playroom looks great and hopefully it will make it more play-able because junk won't be everywhere.  matching bins and sneaking old toys out of the basment are twin thrills.

4. no unnecessary shopping until april 28. i have enough. i'm allowed to replace ripped or ruined items and i can always get new gym clothes because i'm really hard on those. here i am at church last week in all "old" clothes that i really love still. skirt is from 1999 and i usually wear it every christmastime.

5. weightlifting goals: 

275# deadlift

250# squat

105# Cossack squat

 10 scary good military pushups 

6. eat out more so that i can stress less. it seems like an opposite type of resolution than most people make, but i stress myself out about always having dinner made. it's usually a subpar dinner at that. i hope to allow myself to look at my schedule more and say, "let's just grab chik-fil-a or whatever", rather than cramming in food prep at random times of day. 

7. visit the dog store at the mall with reagan regularly and work up to him calmy holding and caring for dogs. i'm a big adopt don't shop person, but the mall pet store is pretty convenient for this resolution so we will work toward our personal pet ownership next year by making lots of visits this to the pet store year. 

barry manilow summer

last year i discovered an INTENSELY laid back all 70s easy listening radio station. since i always kinda lose my mind halfway through summer, i made a deal with myself that i would only listen to said station to help alleviate the summer fun stress. i can only deal with so much yelling in the car and since i can't turn off the kids i guess it can't be metallica summer. plus, if you listen to enough 70s easy listening, you're going to listen to a lot of barry manilow. barry manilow is an easy(listening!) target, but he actually has quite a lot of really good music. don't believe me,  next time you're cooking dinner, try listening to "could it be magic?". there's no could be, it is magic!

here's the barry manilow summer recap 2019. only 6 months too late. 

kicked off the summer with the local memorial day parade:

it was hot but loads of small town fun.

scarlett went to girls camp. i'm assuming it was a success. she came home alive and smiling and her laundry was really stinky. i'm just glad that she changed clothes often.

we did another summer of swim team. athena blythe was a pill but i think she still as swim potential. maybe next year. this was also the summer that athena blythe discovered her BFF eva. we go to church with eva and we're friends with her family so it was a matched fueled by swim team. it was eva for whom athena blythe planned the impromptu teenage wedding. 

we love our low-competitive-come-one-come-all swim team. it makes me want to get in the water too.

 

little baby swimmers are my favorite.

 while athena blythe attached herself to eva, herschel attached himself to her little brother, jax. he started wearing his hat backwards like, "jax moophy". reagan also loves "jax moophy" and jax is nice enough to go along with some of reagan's ideas, like having dance breaks at new year's eve parties and impromptu hymn singing in the nursery at the chapel. reagan favors the hymn, "how firm a foundation".

 athena blythe when she actually jumped in at the swim meet. she loves the meets, she doesn't love the racing portion.

we also did scootering at the park. not nearly as much as the previous summer when i forced everyone to scooter at the park every.single.day to help reagan get over his dog phobia(improved but still alive and well).

we also saw toy story 4 which was a big freakin' deal for our family but my computer's selective photo download is withholding those precious pictures so i'll just have to describe it to you. all smiling faces, reagan extra smiley. herschel in a firefighter costume, because why not? thomas in work clothes because he rushed across atlanta rush hour traffic to make it to this special occasion. buckets of popcorn everywhere.

finally, we had professional family pictures done. there are a bunch but here are a few:

the end