After the angst of last year, this year’s goals came clearly and quickly, and I’m really excited about them! As always, I set my 2022 goals with the help of my PowerSheets – they remind me what really matters to me and then help me make those things a priority. Sharing my goals here, year after year and month after month, is quite possibly the most potent factor in any progress I’ve made, so thank you, as always, for being kind, listening ears! :)
1. Return to in-person worship. My understanding of Jesus’s vision for a life of faith centers around learning, growing, and loving in a local community. Like many, we have worshipped from home since churches closed at the beginning of the pandemic, and that has been good in many ways, but I have felt strong confirmation that it is time for our family to open ourselves back up to the discipline and delight of in-person worship. This is not as simple as walking back through the doors (hence why it’s a goal), but it’s also very tender, so this is probably not a goal you’ll be hearing much more about right now. But it’s number one for a reason :)
2. Bury the word of God in our hearts. If I want to invite my children into a life of faith, the most powerful thing I can do is to live one myself – and let my children see me living it. The word of God needs to be on MY tongue if I want to teach it to them. The fruit of the Spirit needs to be in ME if I want to encourage it in them. The life of a believer needs to look like the best, most true and joyful and free life if I want them to say – I want THAT. This goal will initially focus on building a morning quiet time for myself and memorizing scripture as a family, but I’m open to where it takes me!
3. Complete my outstanding creative projects quarter by quarter. Last year, I had two goals related to creative projects and memory keeping, and while they all inched forward a bit, I didn’t move any of my many projects across the finish line. This year, to lend urgency, I’m assigning my projects to quarters and will only focus on one at a time.
Q1: 2010-2014 family photo album Q2: First 10 years of EFM book Q3: Kid memorabilia and memory keeping (baby books up to date, etc.) Q4: Advent calendar
4. Make my fitness a priority and have fun doing it. Fitness was 100% not a priority in 2021 – being a healthy pregnant person and a cozy post-partum person was, and that was perfect for that season of life. And 2022 is a new season! I have several goals under this umbrella: complete a diastasis recti program (any recommendations?), compete with our siblings in a Peloton challenge in Q1 (and probably Q4), add Annie into our life as a bike-riding family and get back out on the trails (starting in Q2!), and complete an MS75 ride in September with John and hopefully our brother- and sister-in-law!
5. Celebrate our marriage with joy! This one gets an exclamation point :) We are celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary this year, and that is a milestone worthy of celebration! There’s not a lot I want to *do* for this goal; I mostly just want to make it a focus to praise the Lord for all He has done and continues to do in our marriage. We’ll continue with our monthly date nights and celebrate big-time with our anniversary trip in September. On that trip, I’d also like to incorporate some “marriage summit”-type activities and vision casting for the next decade, which will take some intentional pre-planning.
6. Refresh our home one quarter at a time. We have a few projects already in the works, and like goal no. 3, I’m going to try to focus on these one by one.
Q1: Refresh our kitchen (and possibly our mantel) Q2: Tweak our loft into a true play room Q3: Refresh our powder room Q4: Probably nothing – enjoy the holidays :)
7. Establish new rhythms for our family. I am so grateful that many things are running smoothly and joyfully in our family. I also know that our family is always changing, and so upgrading and fine-tuning our ways of life will always be one of my most important roles (alongside John!). The five of us are held together and built up by rhythms, routines, and traditions, and so it’s worth spending time tinkering. I need to do a little more mapping on this goal, but there are a few rhythms I’m considering implementing, codifying, or deepening: Sunday dinners, Sunday mornings (see goal no. 1!), family meetings with learning topics (oh yes), once-a-month friend lunches, Write the Word Sundays with June, family hikes, and baking together.
8. Make meals easier. This is by far the simplest goal! I have focused on various aspects of getting food on the table in my goals for the last few years, and I have seen HUGE strides in making this part of our family life run more smoothly. This year, this goal is basically about buying a secondary fridge/small chest freezer and developing a rhythm of doubling and freezing meals and incorporating frozen meals into my weekly meal planning. I also want to build out 1-2 “brainless” weeks of menus for each season that I can copy and paste when I’m short on time. That’s it! :)
As always, each of these goals will be broken down and lived out through my monthly goals. A little time at the beginning of each month and week picking out a few tasks that will help me move these goals forward goes a long way!
On that note,I’ll be back with my January goals post and my 2022 book list soon, but in the meantime, I’d love to hear what you have planned for 2022. Have you set goals yet? I’d truly love to hear, so please drop a note in the comments! I can’t wait to cheer you on.
I have been writing these year-in-review posts since 2012, the year John and I were married. They’re often a feat to push out, publishing as they do in the last week of the year, when family time is the priority and free time is scarce. But they’re also always worth it. These are some of our favorite posts to look back on, because even though the contours of our years might have similar curves – we’ve been picking strawberries since that first year, after all – the particulars change memorably.
I’m not sure if I’m just lucky or optimistic or delusional (maybe a bit of all three?), but my family and my faith make it easy to see the bright side of even a tough year. Thanks for taking a walk down memory lane alongside me before we turn our eyes to 2022…
We kicked off the year by celebrating our best five-year-old and with a first project from the now-famous baking book: cake pops! The kids scraped together enough snow in our one dusting to create a snow alien and I struggled to formulate and share my 2021 goals amidst the fatigue of the first trimester. I also (finally!) finished our happy upstairs bathroom refresh.
On the blog, I shared my 2021 reading list as well as this funny little post about research studies that seemed to encapsulate for many of you what you love about EFM.
There were celebrations of all kinds in February! We celebrated my birthday here on the blog with a two-partQ&A, we celebrated Valentine’s Day with the most fun mailbox, and we celebrated a normal anatomy scan and finding out we were adding a sweet baby girl to our family!!! On the blog, I shared one of my most memorable posts from the year, at least in my mind.
We kicked off April by worshiping outdoors for Easter, a true delight! This was our first time back at church since the pandemic began and was long awaited. We ate many meals outside, cheered June on at soccer, and took the first of many trips to the strawberry patch. I enjoyed the sweet spot of pregnancy, when it wasn’t too hot and I wasn’t too large or tired :) On the blog, I finally posted another Marvelous Money installment: Investing 101!
Life in May was very sweet, as recorded in this post! We took advantage of the beautiful weather to pick more strawberries, picnic, cheer at a Bulls game, fly kites, and visit many flower gardens and playgrounds. We took a weekend trip to Charlottesville to meet up with John’s sister and family, we took maternity family photos, and June finally cashed in her tea and pedicures Christmas present, one of my favorite memories of the year. Of course, life took a turn at the end of May when John ruptured his Achilles’ tendon while playing tennis. He attended June’s preschool graduation on crutches and went in for surgery the next day.
On the blog, I shared some of our favorite dad’s wardrobe favorites just in time for Father’s Day.
June! I think this month was a sweet spot for many of us, coming as it did with the ease of COVID in many parts of the country. I feel so grateful we were able to gather safely for our backyard garden party and celebrate the arrival of three new babies. We counted down to Annie’s arrival with pool trips, blueberry picking, our niece staying with us for a week to attend pony camp with June, and enjoying my parents’ extended stay as best we could.
July was the turning point of our year, as we welcomed our youngest daughter, Susanna Liberty, into the family just eight days into the month. We are still praising God for a healthy pregnancy and healthy delivery, albeit in less-than-ideal surroundings :) Once discharged from the hospital, July was spent with both John and I on parental leave, soaking up our squishy baby and adjusting to life as a family of five. June had the biggest adventure of any of us: she traveled to Maine with my family for her first solo trip to the Island just a week after Annie was born. We missed her so much, but she had the BEST time with cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles!
Blog posts were scarce in August, but lots of life was happening at home! John went back to work after six weeks of leave (although still mostly from home), June started kindergarten, and I adjusted again to a new daily rhythm (with smoothies). I dropped almost entirely off of Instagram as we prepared for elementary school (including with a back-to-school dinner!), but I did squeeze in a post of fall outfit inspiration. I’m pleased to report I’ve had fun adding a little variety to my daily looks in the second half of the year!
September marked the official close of summer, and we looked ahead to fall with John back on his feet (hooray!). We actually checked off everything on our seasonal fun list except a visit to the Museum, including a long-awaited trip to WaterColor with John’s extended family. It was a dream! More about our stop in Decatur on the way down, too. And June lost her first tooth! And we got to ride on Thomas for Shep’s birthday!
We celebrated 13 years of blogging on EFM with a rather epic three-part series: on nuts and bolts, on content, and a grab bag. Those were some of my favorite posts to write, and I think some of your favorites to read, but man, they wiped me out!
I returned to work in October just in time for the PowerSheets launch and with reduced hours (down to 30 per week). The adjustment has gone smoothly on the home front – drop offs and pick ups and our daily schedule are falling into place as I’d hoped, though we continue to fine-tune! – but it’s been a steeper curve at work, where I’m still trying to figure out what can stay and what must go in a shorter amount of time each day. I’m grateful to have the challenge, though, and God has truly given our entire team so much grace and mercy as we closed out the year.
We celebrated six years of Articles Club in October – one of the joys of my life! – squeezed in a backyard camping trip with the Rays, ate our way around the State Fair, and carried off my favorite family Halloween costume yet. (I think we’ve peaked.) We also took one of my favorite trips of the year, to Black Mountain, which I haven’t recapped yet but will soon. It was a little slice of magic!
We wrapped up Shep’s first soccer season in November and June began ballet and tap again after a pandemic-hiatus. We made our first gratitude tree and were VERY grateful to bring home our new family car after a five-month wait (!). We finally hosted June’s first sidewalk bakery and closed out the month celebrating Thanksgiving at our brother- and sister-in-law’s new home in Virginia with grandparents, too.
December saw the return of several of our favorite holiday traditions, including our town’s Christmas parade and pancake breakfast, the Nutcracker with cousins, and our favorite Duke Chapel Christmas concert with the Rays. We ended the year with a double-dose of Christmas: Christmas Eve and morning with my parents and sister here in North Carolina, then hopping in the car on Christmas afternoon for a week in Connecticut with John’s family. Annie even got to meet my grandmother (her great-grandmother) for the first time, which was the sweetest capstone to 2021.
Friends, thank you for indulging me. No matter the year, these posts are such a treat for me to write, and always some of my favorites to look back on years later. They help me to notice the good things, do my best to facilitate more of them, and remember to thank God for every delight (and for being with us in the struggles) along the way.
I know I’ve said it before, but I am SO excited for what we’ll discuss here in 2022. Thank you for being here, and for sharing so generously with me! It’s one of the delights of my life. Wishing you a healthy, happy, and abundant new year. My 2022 goals are just about ready to share, so I’ll see you soon! :)
Hello, friends! I hope you had wonderful Christmases, if you celebrated! We did, and in fact still are – we’re enjoying the company of all the wonderful people you’ll see in this post, plus more, this week! I thought I’d pop in to share a few photos from the extended family photo session we coordinated while we were on vacation in WaterColor, Florida this past September. The session was a gift for my parents-in-law, and after much research, we hired Amy Riley for the photos. Here are a few of them, if you’d like to see!
My sisters-in-law put me in charge of choosing the photographer, and given my background, I was glad to accept the assignment. If you, too, are looking for a family photographer, especially one for a large group or in a vacation area, here are a few of the questions you might consider asking:
— Do they include the full gallery download or have an option to add it on for a reasonable fee? (Some photographers will deliver just 5-10 photos, but since we knew we’d have multiple family groupings, the full gallery was important to us.) — Is there an upcharge for a larger group? (Some photographers have a base price for a certain number of people and then charge a fee (say, $50) for each additional person after that.) — Will they travel to you? What are their options for location and timing? (Many shoot only at sunrise or sunset to avoid crowds on the beach and get the best light.)
One extensive spreadsheet later, I ended up contacting five gals for specific quotes and to check availability. And Amy was the winner! We loved the look of her photos, and her pricing was comparable to the others we considered, even with an additional fee for the full gallery. It’s a feat to capture such a large and varied group, but she did a great job and was lovely and easy to work with.
A word to the wise: I had major sticker shock when doing my 30A photographer research. The prices were MUCH (as in three to four times) more expensive than a family session in the Raleigh area, where we live. (I legitimately considered flying a photographer down from the Triangle – it might actually have been less even including flight and accommodations!) Like many things in a vacation destination, photographers can clearly charge a premium here! Thankfully, we were splitting the cost between the three siblings’ families, so it ended up being about what we would pay for a normal family session locally.
My in-laws will be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary next year – amazing! They are a truly special couple, and we are so lucky to have them at the head of this crew.
Though we were so sad to be missing 1/3 of the sibling crew, I’m grateful we were able to capture these photos! I feel incredibly lucky to have married into such a kind, smart, talented, and FUN family, and loved commemorating our time together in Florida in this way.
P.S. Thanks for indulging all of these family photos this year – I promise there will not be three professional shoots to peruse in 2022! :)
Christmas week is here, friends! I hope you’re feeling calm, joyful, and expectant.
(And hey – I know the socially-appropriate response to a sentence like that is probably to laugh nervously, as if the idea of being calm and joyful this week is preposterous and what do I even mean with an expectation like that? But I also know that if you’re here, you just might be feeling calm this week! You probably work hard at setting boundaries and choosing what matters most and saying no to the rest. And if you’re not feeling particularly calm nor joyful going into this week, it’s not too late to adjust your plans or expectations. After all, this is a season of exceeding great joy (and peace, and hope, and love). I’m praying all of those things for you right now!)
I am feeling good about Christmas prep. My only minor stress right now is coming from blog posts I want to write and a video for one special boy I want to edit before the end of the year, but I am reminding myself those are self-imposed deadlines. Christmas cards have been sent, gifts have been purchased, teacher gifts have been given, wrapping has begun, gingerbread houses have been constructed, lights have been seen. This week, we’re doing more wrapping (with friends, tonight!), we’re making peanut butter balls, we’re giving gifts to our garbage and recycling guys, and we’re packing for our Connecticut trip, among a few other things. And we’re just trying to enjoy each other, always.
As they have for the last nine years (!), Minted has graciously gifted us our Christmas cards (even though I am probably the worst influencer they have on the books, seeing as I’m sharing this on December 20th instead of November 15th or whenever they were hoping I might post). But they really are an amazing, innovative, passionate company and I am so proud to partner with them. I love our cards this year (they always have just exactly the right designs!), and I think you’d be very happy if you choose them, too :)
Since we didn’t send birth announcements for Annie (we haven’t sent them for any of our kids!), it was fun to give a little wink to her arrival with the wording of our card. The photo on the front is from Annie’s newborn session with Graham, and the photos on the back are from a photo shoot we did at the beach with our extended family – I’ll show you a few more shots from it soon!
As always, we used our beloved newsletter to share a few details about each of the kids and a few of the big moments from the year – it was a wild one!
Always happy to have a helper :)
Friends, I wish that I could send a Christmas card to each one of you – I really, really do. I’d thank you for being here for another year and send the warmest wishes for a beautiful year ahead. Card in the mail or no, know that I’m sending you love!
