- Since we left Brownfield we decided to look for a new church home. This is really hard for us because we loved our church home at Raintree Christian Church in Lubbock. But, the entire time that we lived in Brownfield we always planned on eventually moving back to Lubbock. Therefore, we decided to go to church and plant roots at Raintree. We LOVE our family and friends at Raintree, but when we moved to Sundown we decided this is a long term move. The community is great and the school district is where we want the kids to graduate from. We decided it did not make a lot of sense to continue to drive into Lubbock for church and being that far away from church made it very hard to be involved like we want to be. There are not many options in Sundown. We have a baptist, Church of Christ, and a Catholic church. We attended the Baptist church for a while and there are some families there that we really enjoy and would like to build relationships with; however, we just do not feel a peace upon us while we are there. Most recently we have visited Park Drive Baptist Church in Levelland. It is about 15 minutes from home and our daycare owner's dad is the preacher. Michael and I visited and we both just felt at peace. We think this will be our new church home and are excited to see what God has in store once we get plugged in and commit ourselves to the church. My first goal in 2011 is to decide on our church home, get plugged in, and see what we can do for the church at the same time as growing closer to our God as a family!
- My second goal is to make strides towards financial peace. We are going to start Financial Peace University and can't wait to see the impact that it has on our lives. Michael and I do well financially, but we have some old debt, and new student loans that we need to pay off! As well as, making sure that we are planning sufficiently for our future.
- This goal is a very important one to me. I am going to take more pride in my appearance. Since I have had the kids, I rarely put make-up on and would rather get an extra 20 minutes of sleep in the morning than to fix my hair every single morning. So this year, I am going to take more pride in myself and fix my hair and put on make-up every morning. Also, I am going to start working out and eating healthier. I did not want to make a cliche resolution of losing a certain amount of weight. Instead, I am going to start the C25K program and use an ap on my phone...myfitnesspal to track my calorie intake. I used to run daily...then I got married and it was so much more fun to hang our with my amazing husband...and eat! Then comes pregnancy...and Hello overweight Loralee!
- My fourth goal this year is going to be to spend more time with my 3 loves. God has blessed us so richly with our family. We could not ask for a better relationship with each other and I can't say enough about our amazing kids. We are so insanely busy and always taking on new things. This year, I am going to step back from a lot of extra things I do and just live life with our sweet family making awesome memories. Saturday nights are going to become date nights...1st Saturday: Michael and I 2nd Saturday: Braxton and I, Michael and Brylee 3rd Saturday: Brylee and I, Michael and Braxton 4th Saturday: FAMILY night. I am so excited to see the memories that we create with this new date night. One other thing that Michael and I are going to start again is our daily devotional together. We used to get up extra early and do a morning devotional together. We have gotten away from that and we are going to start again. It was so amazing how much closer it brought us, but also closer to God at the same time!
- I am going to start a 365 photo project. I am going to take a picture a day of our life. Whether it is like today's picture which will probably be of a pile of laundry or something that we are doing as a family, I want to document our lives better so that we never forget these precious times in our lives. Our kids say and do some of the funniest stuff and up until now we have a done a poor job documenting it. We always take a lot of pictures of the kids, but I want the everyday crazy stuff that we do to be documented so that we never forget. I am going to actually go back to last year some and write some of the stuff that we remember so that we don't forget. I am going to use this blog to document it. I will post my picture of the day along with any comment or memory that occurred that day...at the end of the year...we will have it printed!
- Anybody that knows me knows that the thing I HATE the most is housework! I loathe it...I dispise it...I proscrastinate at it...I HATE it!!! This year I am going to do a better job at keeping up with it. I am going to do a load of laundry a day until it is caught up and if we have one to do...I will just do it. No more proscrastination. I really like to hire somebody and have them do it....but as Michael has pointed out that goes in direct competition with goal #2 until we are more financially sound...no housekeeper.
So....here goes!
Happy 2011
The Van Wettering's
