Hello, friends! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!

Yesterday we waved goodbye to John’s family after several days together at our home. When planning for this visit several months ago, I have to say, at the same time as I was completely gung-ho (I will almost NEVER say no to loved ones coming to visit us!) I was also a little nervous, because I didn’t know how tired I would be at 37 weeks pregnant or how eight adults and two littles would feel about sharing a house for several days. I’m happy to say, however, that despite the lack of sun (but with the bonus of balmy temperatures in the mid-70s!), our time together was really special. John and I loved seeing our niece and nephew, we loved getting outside every day (our crew walked eight miles on Sunday!!), and it was very sweet to have so much time to just chat with our wise siblings and siblings-in-law as we face down baby girl’s due date.

Clearly we need to clean our windows… but this one was too good not to share! Nephew was a big fan of Uncle John :)

I usually feel a bit blue after we say goodbye to family, but this week holds so much promise and potential that it’s hard to feel down. I have most of the week off work and am planning to use the time to 1) relax and 2) prepare for the new year. I’m excited to get ahead on an exciting EFM series that will be debuting soon, share where I am with goal setting, finish up a few projects for our girl’s room, and place a last big Amazon order for the supplies we want to have before she arrives. And best of all, tomorrow night John and I have reservations for our end-of-year celebration dinner!

This dinner is a fairly new tradition for us: we just started it last year, inspired by several couples we love. Everyone seems to have their own take on the concept, but we keep things fairly simple. We choose a restaurant with a quiet atmosphere that lends itself to a leisurely dinner. (Bonus points for choosing a spot you don’t go to often, so it feels like more of a special occasion!) You certainly could have your celebration dinner at home, but I find that it’s easier to concentrate, have a deeper conversation, and get into dreaming mode when I’m out of my normal environment.

We bring a notebook and a pen and a few questions to guide us as we reflect and look forward. A few we used last year or will be trying tomorrow:

— What did our family do well this year? What went well for us?
— Where did our family struggle this year? What went poorly for us?
— Where do we want to travel in 2016? We brainstorm possible locations, and start to plot out general months for each trip as we narrow things down.
— Where should we give this year’s charitable grant?
— What are our goals for 2016?
— What new things do we want to try, what adventures do we want to have, or what traditions do we want to continue or start next year?
— How will we define success next year?
— What about our life now do we most want to preserve and carry with us into the new year?

That last question has especially been on my mind and will be informing my goals in a big way with our girl due to arrive very soon. It’s good to have a few different questions, though, as you never know which will resonate and spark the most conversation! Some of these could easily keep us talking for an hour.

And that’s pretty much it! Nothing too complicated, but I think there’s something really important about setting aside time to cheer each other (and your union!) on, to mark progress, and to put the brakes on things that are frustrating you before they become problems.

Do you do your own version of an end-of-year celebration dinner? I’d love to hear!!

P.S. I plan to be back on the blog every day this week, with my PowerSheets progress tomorrow, my 2015 year in review on Thursday, and my 2016 inspiration board on Friday! 2016 goals will go up on Monday.

I am 33 weeks pregnant, which means this will presumably be the last month I’m writing goals before our girl joins the family.

Holy moly.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, especially coming off the busy busy month we just finished up. Feeling overwhelmed is a choice, though, and this month my biggest goal is to keep breaking the seemingly insurmountable to dos down into little steps, to keep taking those steps, and to otherwise enjoy the season of Christmas.

This weekend definitely helped. I’d been hoarding planned purchases like a fevered squirrel and finally acted on them all in a torrent of Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals. To make so many purchases in such a short amount of time was a bit of a shock to the system for this infrequent spender, but they were all carefully considered and make me excited. And let this be a reminder to you: if you’re not using EBates for your online shopping, you’re missing out!! I bought a pair of boots I’ve been eyeing for a year for 20% off, then got an additional $10 back by shopping through EBates! We also were able to purchase several things for our girl, including a monitor, bedding, and a cover.

But the reason it was a good weekend was not only because of the money saved, but because of the amazing weather, the hikes we took, the early evening spent decorating our porch for Christmas, the projects finished and started in the nursery — and, of course, our actual Thanksgiving dinner, which was spent with dear friends and their parents. I think December will look similar, which makes me very excited.

Revisiting my goals for November:
Take rings in to be cleaned
Take knives in to be sharpened
Frame and hang our NC BBQ print (explored options but couldn’t find the supplies I needed… yet)
Make a pelmet for little lady’s room (this was basically THE WORST project ever, but we finished!)
Choose and order twin bed bedding
Choose and order Minted Christmas cards
Design and print Christmas card newsletter
Vote!
Host the first Articles Club
Purchase half of our Christmas gifts for friends and family (I think I checked off a third or so)
Start filling out our girl’s baby book

December goals:
— Make and freeze four soups for after our girl arrives
— Deliver homemade toffee to my favorite post office peeps
— Send out our Christmas cards with a personal note on each
— Plan well for Christmas at our home with John’s family
— Give away as much as we spend on Christmas gifts in our church’s Christmas Eve offering (this year going to Imagine No Malaria and local missions)
— Start Life Handbooks for the cousins and our girl when John’s family is here
— Finish shower thank you notes
— Go out to dinner with John for our 2015 review + celebration!

I could add so many more things to this list, mostly related to our newest family member, but I’ll leave it there for now. If you’ve posted your goals somewhere, I’d love to see – or just drop them in the comments!

Ooh boy. I’m a little nervous about November, as it will be an unusually full month for us. We have a commitment Monday-Thursday evening for the first three weeks (instead of our usual rate of maybe one commitment per week!), we’re traveling one weekend, and we’re hosting guests another. And on top of that, I have some major work events, and, oh yes, a major holiday to celebrate! For some reason, all of that hasn’t stopped me from setting a large number of goals for November, but maybe that will work in my favor — did y’all ever experience the phenomenon, maybe in high school, when you got much more done in-season than out-of-season? Necessity is the mother of efficiency, perhaps? Either way, with the clock ticking on our girl, I’ll take it!

Biscuit supplies at my church’s booth!

Revisiting my goals for October:
Paint baby girl’s room (Thank you, Dad and John!)
Switch out baby girl’s light fixture
Assemble crib
Order crib skirt
Make first draft of labor and delivery preferences
Organize linen/party closet (Yes!! I am so pumped about this one! Sadly, I didn’t take a before, so it probably wouldn’t be that impressive to y’all.)
Successfully lead discussion in our family group for the next three weeks
Introduce John’s parents and aunts to Asheville on our annual trip
Host the third annual pumpkin carving and soup night
Catch the goat showmanship competition at the NC State Fair
Make biscuits at our church’s Fair booth
Create my own version of this glitter star garland (the lone goal that didn’t get checked off!)

November goals:
— Take rings in to be cleaned (I usually do this in September around our anniversary, but it’s still lingering.)
— Take knives in to be sharpened
— Frame and hang our NC BBQ print (have to figure out how to do it first… maybe something like this?)
— Make a pelmet for little lady’s room (already bought the fabric and will use Jenny’s tutorial!)
— Choose and order twin bed bedding
— Choose and order Minted Christmas cards (voting post coming soon!!)
— Design and print Christmas card newsletter
— Vote!
— Host the first Articles Club
— Purchase half of our Christmas gifts for friends and family
— Start filling out our girl’s baby book

Whew!! That is WAY more goals than I usually tackle, for two months back to back. If you’ve posted yours somewhere, I’d love to see – or just drop them in the comments!

September was a great month for goals! I was pretty ambitious, setting myself eight, but I still managed to check off six. Apparently I just don’t care enough about the tray – something lingering on my goal list for several months in a row is usually an indicator of that – but the more significant one was not running the 5k. Not running in the race was less about being pregnant and more about just not being quite on track with our training. We realized that our usual runs are around 2.8 miles, and though I might have been able to stretch my distance for the 5k (or walked some of it), we decided not to add extra pressure right now. So, running in a Chick-fil-a 5k remains on my 60 Before 30 list, and I WILL check it off before 2017! By the way, I’m at 27 goals completed — almost halfway there!

This is from about two weeks ago, at 22 weeks — 25 weeks on Friday!

Revisiting my goals for September:
Post an updated house tour (checking this off since part one was posted and part two is ready to go!)
Start a registry for baby girl
Make nursery plans so that we are ready to paint when my parents come in October
Celebrate our third anniversary!
Volunteer and shop at my church’s awesome kids consignment sale
Finish organizing our upstairs closets
Visit my younger sister in Nashville! Figure out how we are going to eat twenty meals in 2.5 days!
Paint my tray
Run my first ever 5k

October goals:
— Paint baby girl’s room
— Switch out baby girl’s light fixture
— Assemble crib
— Order crib bedding
— Make first draft of labor and delivery preferences
— Organize linen/party closet
— Successfully lead discussion in our family group for the next three weeks
— Create my own version of this glitter star garland

Plus a few things from my Fall To Do List I plan to check off this month…
— Introduce John’s parents and aunts to Asheville on our annual trip
— Host the third annual pumpkin carving and soup night
— Catch the goat showmanship competition at the NC State Fair
— Make biscuits at our church’s Fair booth

My goals are definitely baby heavy this month, since we’ll have extra hands on deck! How about you? If you’ve posted your goals somewhere, I’d love to see – or just drop them in the comments!