New Goals

I know it isn't time for New Year's Resolutions yet but due to several things going on in my life (reading the Children the Challenge book, trying to be a better wife and mother, making bible study/prayer a priority every day, getting back to my nutrition ROOTS and eating better, wanting to exercise, etc) I have come up with several goals that I going to work on in the next few months -

1. Develop a general daily routine for our family.
2. Exercise at least 3-5 days per week.
3. Prayer/Bible study every morning before work.
4. Lose 2 sizes by Christmas.
5. Play with my kids daily.
6. Get rid of Elijah's pacifier (went cold turkey TODAY!!)
7. Teach Nolan to tie his OWN SHOES!

This may sound repetitive or crazy or something else, but I am serious about all of these. As I said, various things going on have led to these goals. After reading the chapter in Children the Challenge on routine, I knew that this is something that needs to be done in our house. We have some routines for specific things (bedtime, etc) but no routine for the general outline of our day. I think that it will help all of us to feel better. Also, I've been needing to make a set time to study my Bible every day so this works in with that nicely. I just started going through the Experiencing God study book this weekend in preparation for the upcoming Ladies Class study. It is AWESOME by the way and I recommend that all of you work through it. It is changing my life already and I am only on day 3! Also, I LOVE to teach people about nutrition and I want to teach my family how to take care of their bodies by eating healthy foods and including exercise in their lives...BUT...with the day to day stress and goings on, I have not been putting a focus on that. So, the routine is going to help with that also. I am going to begin making a weekly meal plan to help me choose yummy, healthy foods for my family and I am going to start exercising both alone, with my kids, and with Brent. I started riding my bike this weekend at the beach and that was an excellent start. Hopefully this is going to go hand in hand with losing 2 clothing sizes and being a better mother/wife. My husband's love language (we decided with our good friends Kevin and Kim this weekend) is service and words of affirmation. So, I am going to work on showing him how much I love him by doing acts of service for him. I quickly scanned The 5 Love Languages for Kids once, so I know that you can apply this to your kids as well...so I'm going to be thinking about what their primary love languages are. (just in case you are interested - mine are quality time and words of affirmation) I am going to include playing with my kids in our daily routine so that they know that they have my full attention at times in their day. Elijah NEEDS to ditch the pacifier...need I say more? A 6-year-old should KNOW how to tie...I'm a slacker - that's my fault...so we are going to be working on this.

So, what do you think of my new goals? Are they reasonable? I hope that I can stick to them!