goodbye 2018, hello 2019!

2018 was like most years in a lot of ways, but looking back, i'd say it was also exceptional! the years are going by faster every year of my life and i can't believe this one is already over. my girls grew up so much this year and i can't even imagine where 2019 will put them! brooklyn might end up taller than me, kendall could be reading, and adalyn might become a reasonable toddler. who knows!

brooklyn grew up so much this year! enough that james and i trusted her with her first babysitting job while we went out to dinner for our anniversary. she passed with flying colors and we're so excited to be getting to that point in our lives! she has become a great reader and can often be found with a chapter book in her hands. she tested the waters of ballet but has decided that tumbling is her one true love. i love helping in her 2nd grade classroom and watching her be helpful and kind to others. i just love her for that!

kendall has loved gaining a little independence this year by starting preschool and getting to do tumbling this summer. she is such a little character and has us laughing often! her imagination continues to be her shadow and we never know what she'll come up with next. she's finally willing to dress herself and even make her bed once in a while. at long last, she and adalyn are now good little friends. she's willing to include her and often seek her out to play out her ideas. i love watching them!

adalyn is in the thick of terrible two's! she started 2018 being the sweetest and talking our ears off...the second half...let's just say she's testing our patience in every sense of the word. she's still our most cuddly and can be so sweet when she wants to be. her obsession with babies hasn't dimmed at all and her year was topped off with two baby dolls from santa. she named them hazel and summer and acts like their true mother.

james and i love being parents to these three darling/frustrating girls! they are our world and we're always trying to improve ourselves for them. we're excited for the new challenge of the "come follow me" home study program and hope to be successful as we try our best with our little crew. we also hope to add in a little fun and a lot of love. as james and i were out for our anniversary, we talked about our goals for the year and what we want our family motto to be for the year. james suggested, "remember to smile". i loved it and that's what we went with. i think it's a good simple but powerful one.

2018 was full of lots of highs and lots of lows for me. luckily, i look back on it all with a smile. i continue to go to the gym and i'm in the best shape of my life at 33. it's a great outlet for me and my girls are happy to go to the gym daycare so i can have that time to myself. i'm a huge advocate for gym daycares. if you're thinking about it all, i strongly suggest it! it took me a few months to get over the mom guilt that i felt dropping my kids off for an hour but now, we all love it and we're all happy about it. there should be no guilt on mothers who are trying to be healthy and take a small break out of their day. it clears my head and makes me a better mom on the days we go to the gym.

i took president nelson's challenge seriously and felt close to my Savior and felt my Heavenly Father's love for me. my sister in law chelsea and i decided the night the prophet issued that challenge to go to the temple early one morning every week. it became my favorite day of the week and i always looked forward to it. i loved reading the Book of Mormon and finished it on Christmas day. i can't wait to start it again!

i love the fresh clean start a new year brings. my new day planner is begging to be written in and my calendars marked up. i look forward to 2019 with bright eyes and an open heart. i'm hopeful. i'm excited. i'm looking forward to so much. but i'm also really going to try to enjoy the normal every day that is my wonderful beautiful life.

a new year + back to blogging

man i miss this blog. all year i was basically playing catch up and feeling like i couldn't post the day to day things that i used to love to blog about! brooklyn is at the age now where she loves to sit and look through the blog on her own. dream come true for me! but how sad will it be when kendall and adalyn want to do the same and there's hardly anything about their lives on here? it breaks my heart. so this year i am determined to keep up to date! it's so much harder to do now that i have three little ones to take care of, but luckily, james wants this updated just as much, so he's been more than willing to offer up anything he can do to help make it possible. i get giddy just thinking about doing this regularly again.

i also blame this rapidly growing babe that i JUST. CAN'T. PUT DOWN. for the lack of blogging...

on our anniversary (DEC 28TH), we've made it a tradition and priority to go to dinner and discuss our goals/theme/vision for the new year. i really love having our anniversary right before the new year because this has given us this kind of opportunity at just the right time in the year. this year was no different. we got a babysitter, kissed the girls goodbye, and headed to the mandarin here in bountiful. our favorite!

it was james who got the conversation going this year. last year, i was anxiously/nervously waiting to hear what middle name he'd picked out for our unborn babe. man that was a great moment! he couldn't have picked better, in my opinion. (in case you don't know, adalyn's middle name is jac, after my grandma jackie) he talked about things he wanted to improve on and what goals he had for our family. i did the same, and then we chose a theme... though we couldn't quite put it into words to make it a less wordy theme. then we happened to be in target a couple days later and saw a cute banner, and the words on it were perfect! so we snatched it up and it's hanging in our home as a great reminder of these goals.

i pondered long and hard about what i want my own personal goals and vision for the year to be. going back and forth thinking that i was either being too easy or too hard on myself. being a woman is hard right?! then add in there being a mother and wife and it's straight up impossible sometimes. it blows my mind how amazing those two roles are in my life, but how they bring me to my knees more than anything else. i wouldn't trade my roles as wife and mother for all the riches in the world (or donuts!), but it's HAAAARD. so i settled on some simple goals and a quote i've been trying to keep in my head constantly...

"A Mother knows that the influence of righteous, conscientious, persistent,

daily mothering is far more lasting, far more powerful, far more influential

than any earthly position or institution invented by man."

-Julie B. Beck

the task seems daunting, but with the help of amazing people i am lucky to be surrounded by daily, i can do it! it won't be perfect and it sure as heck most of the time won't be pretty, but i'm determined to be a better version of myself this year. so here's to a new year, a renewed hope, and a whole year ahead of things to look forward to!

mom goals.

during our date night to celebrate our anniversary, james and i talked about goals for our little family for 2015. i was mostly being serious and james was mostly being goofy (our food may have been too delicious to be serious!). so while we did talk about things, nothing was set in stone and written down in list form like i like to do. we talked about a theme for the year and simple weekly goals. again, they're not written down yet so i'll wait to share those later. 

but for now, i'm going to share my "mom goal" for the year. it's a quote that has crossed my path several times this past year and i took that as a sign. 

(credit: pinterest)

i plan on printing this out and hanging it in my room (or bathroom) for the year.

i am definitely one of those mothers who gets caught up in the success of my day depending on finishing my to do lists. i run around like crazy sometimes try to accomplish what i have deemed important for that day and i forget to slow down and take precious time one on one with my girls. my vivacious three year old definitely needs this time. she is so much more happy and content when i take time to listen to her, to talk to her, to teach her, or to let her help me with daily tasks. she loves to help! and usually i'm too busy or trying to hurry too quickly to include her. I WANT TO BE BETTER AT THIS! she needs me to teach her. above all else, i need to a good first teacher for her. kendall gets my attention while i dress her, change her diapers, and nurse her, but i need to spend more time just talking to her. she loves when i'm looking her in the eyes and having actual conversations with her. 

being a mother is my favorite/most rewarding/most frustrating job! i wouldn't trade it for the world. but i need to be better. i'm not trying to put a lot of pressure on myself, i just really like to have little reminders like this quote to keep me focused on the most important things. and if brooklyn wants to learn how to fold towels and her clothes and i know i only have ten good minutes to fold until kendall has a melt down, well by dang, i better turn on my patience, remember this quote, and teach that cute little thing how to fold. 

i'll never regret it.

here it comes...

you knew it was coming...

a post about resolutions. 

so bare with me. i just do so much better with goals and commitments if they're written down (typed down). my whole life, new year's resolutions have always had me excited. they've also had me nice and anxious. but i love them. i love making new goals, starting fresh, and being re-committed to things. 

and just like every blogger and everyone else on social media, i've come up with a word to live by. one that i will try and stick in brain, dig out when i need it, and also, i'm hoping it will help me be a better (nicer person). my word is simplicity. it has a nice ring to it. any word with -icity on the end of it sounds kinda pretty right? so that's it, simplicity. simplifying is going to be my main focus and it needs to be. adding another little body to cream gables will definitely be an adventure, and in order to keep up, i will need to remember that little four syllable word: simplicity. 

so without further ado, here are my resolutions/goals.

1. have a day planner to write things down, even if they don't seem important at the time. i kept a day planner from 4th grade until two years ago. i tried using my phone instead, but folks, i'm old school, and writing things down on paper is how i roll. i love it. i'm not ashamed to be old school. i am 28 now after all. lately, pregnancy brain has been hitting me hard, and i can't even remember simple things. keeping a day planner will hopefully help me remember. if i can remember to write things down that is.

2. menu plan. gosh i was good at this one for two years. i LOVE making menus and it helps me wrap my brain around grocery shopping and making dinner on a daily basis. i love it. i need to get back in the groove of it. if you've never tried it, do it. it will change your life.

3. give my husband and daughter more positive attention. this one gets tough for me. when i'm stressed, busy doing something else, or just trying to zone out, i definitely don't give those that i love my undivided/positive attention. there are some days where brooklyn just gets in trouble or told 'no'. that's not ok. or james gets home from work and i've had a rough/crazy day and all i wanna do is relax and be left alone. i need to show him some love and spend more quality time with him. even if we're just chatting before we fall asleep. 

and that's it folks. i have three resolutions because that's what i feel like i can handle. simplicity right? i feel good about them and am going to work my guts out to make sure they are my focus this year. i want to be the best wife/mother/melinda i can be. 

along with resolutions for the year, i have set a goal for myself:

to read the book of mormon in 40 days. yes, this goal will hopefully be finished by february (i started january 1st). after that, i imagine i'll set some other goals, but for now, this goal is going to get me through the first two months of the year.

what's that? you'd like to do this too?

here's the link. and you're welcome.  :)

my september goal.

i love setting goals. big goals. small goals. you name it, i like it. writing goals down is also a favorite of mine. it really helps keep me motivated and committed to reach my goals. so, i thought of this goal for september, and i thought, what better place to 'write it down' than here. it keeps me accountable and hopefully i'll update about it as the month continues.

so, here it is...

my goal for september.

i will not spend money on things i do not NEED.

besides groceries, bills, and things of that nature, everything else is off limits. i really really have a spending problem. seriously. i see something i want and i obsess over it until i have it. not ok. i really need to learn how to control this. i also love saving money. so what the heck?! this will be tough for me. no buying yummy candles, clothes, and all those little things i do not need. i can do this. any motivation you have for me would be great!

besides all that, cream gables is in full fall mode over here. chelsea and i did a fall craft last weekend and i absolutely loved how it turned out. we used rub n buff (i only could find it at hobby lobby) on little plastic pumpkins and they turned out so darn cute. i love them. just a little touch of fall in my entry way.

i made muffins for dinner and used my fall/argyle print cupcake wrappers. holy moly. it looked like fall in a muffin tin. and of course, i've been burning my pumpkin spice candle like crazy. although, i need to slow it down because if i use the whole darn thing before september's over, i will not have a replacement. pace yourself melinda. 

/doing a little leaf art/

/i couldn't help myself. wallet switch!/

we are happy and ready for fall. can ya tell? it just needs to cool down a little and i'll be a totally happy camper.

h a p p y  w e d n e s d a y

PRODUCTIVENESS

(Brookie & Berkely chillin in the lobby at the Peery Hotel downtown SLC)

I love new beginnings: a new day, a new week, a new month...you get the idea. It always is a great motivator to me to keep up on things, start new things, get things done that I have put off for long periods of time.

I'm grateful for the new year. I love the fresh start. I hope to be productive in this new year. If I make no other resolution, besides flossing every day, then I hope to be better at this. Nothing makes me feel better about myself. When I get a lot done in a day and I can lay my head on my pillow at night knowing I was productive, I could almost just kiss myself. It is definitely a self esteem booster.

So here's to a year of PRODUCTIVITY.

I better go get started.



2011 Resolutions

1. give more attention to my husband

2. eat more fruits and veggies

3. be a better teacher

4. organize my top drawers & keep them organized

5. write more thank you notes

6. get together with my friends more often

7. try lots of new recipes

8. go to the temple every month

9. simplify

10. finish the book of mormon

*Christmas & birthday coming soon...

H A P P Y N E W Y E A R!