Saturday, February 1, 2014

New Year's Resolution Progress- January

I thought I would give a monthly update on how we are doing working towards our New Year's resolutions.  We have had some success mainly with our family goals.

Well Jacob so far has no signs of a mustache, he really thought after a month there would be some progress. He is still working on sharing more. He did great the first week and a half and kind of backslid. We still have 11 more months to work on this.

Joey actually made a new friend in his class. The teacher had changed the seating arrangement and he buddied up with the kids who was sitting next to him. I say WAS because the two boys became fast friends and were distracting each other, after about a week the teacher had to separate them. They still play together at recess. Joey is so wonderfully quirky, but that doesn't always work in his favor. I had to talk to the teacher and make her aware that other students were teasing Joey's new friend for hanging out with Joey. It broke my heart when Joey told me that his friend was getting picked on. Joey was afraid he would lose his friend, because of what the other children thought of him.

Jordan has been doing much better about not being on electronic. In part because he has lost the privilege of them from his attitude. That aside he had been making an effort to log off more, before losing them.

I have been doing just okay with getting healthier. I have cut back on my coffee intake, but still not drinking more than 8 ounces of water. I have done anything exercise wise either, it has been too cold to be outside. Okay that's an excuse, honestly I have been lazy. I still end up with coffee for breakfast but have been making a point to actually sit down and eat lunch. With the snow days I knew we all would be sleeping in and had allowed myself to get back in the habit of staying up later, however I was still in bed by 12:30.

I have set in place a cleaning schedule I guess you would call it, so I don't find myself trying to get everything done late into the night. I focus on full blown cleaning of only a room or two a day. I started packing snacks and preparing lunches during the day so in the evening I van just toss them in lunchboxes or backpacks. When I have things that still need to get done and hadn't finished I tack them up on our "Work for Hire" (you can read more about that Here ).

 I have made a point to spend at least an hour a day doing something I enjoy, even with all the snow/cold days. If the boys are home and I can't pull out my scrapbooking supplies, I send some time alone in my room either reading or crocheting. Last weekend I got some new yarn and almost have another blanket finished (it would have been done, but I ran out of yarn).

I missed signing up for classes for this term towards my degree. It's still on my mind to make sure I can get in for the next one. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to get a jump start on furthering my education, I have started working through a fabulous sign language site I had used a year ago. I starting Monday I have a two hour block set aside to focus on nothing but  brushing up my sign skills. I still need major work on my finger spelling. So heads up to my friend who know how to sign, I will most likely getting a hold of you to watch me sign and fix my errors.

As for a family goals, these have been the easiest to report progress on. As you can see every Monday we have been working on our Bucket list and marking a couple items off each week. We have decided to tweak our 100 books per person and have a goal of 400 books total for the family. My reluctant reader has been having a much more difficult time flying through books than the rest of us, and I don't want this to feel like an added pressure for him. We have revised his goal to four books a month, but he is welcome to read more if he choses to.

Our books completed for January are:

Jacob-  The Hat by Jan Bret, The Case of the Fidgety Fox by Cynthia Rylant, Dairy of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck by Jeff Kenny, Dairy f a Wimpy Kid: Third Wheel by Jeff Kenny, Dairy of a Wimpy kid: Rodrick Rules by Jeff Kenney, Freckle Juice by Judy Blume.

Joey-  The Treehouse Mystery and The Boxcar Children both by Gertrude Chandler Warner.

Jordan- The House of Hades, The Red Pyramid, The Throne of Fire all of which are by Rick Riordan.

Mine- Wild Card by Lora Leigh, The Birth Order Book by Dr. Kevin Leman, Twilight by Stephanie Meyer (I love this book, I've read it over 20 times since I bought it), The Four Doors by Richard Paul Evans.

Jacob is more than pleased with himself for reading the most books this month. Jordan told him to watch out that now he had more time to read he'll have the most for February...LOL Whatever it takes to get them reading. As you can tell we seem to find an author we like and grab every book we can by them. Joey has been struggling to find books that holds his excitement. For awhile it was The Boxcar Children series, but he has become tired of them. We'll keep looking once we can figure out which genre he enjoys most the easier it will be to get him books he'll enjoy (hopefully).  I tend to re-read books I have enjoyed in the past, I'm trying to branch out and find new books that I might not have chose before. My last rip to the library I just grabbed any 8 books without reading anything about them. I'm sure I'm in for some interesting reading. Although I know throughout the year my favorites will work themselves into my reading somewhere :)

No comments:

Post a Comment