New Years Resolutions

Bye Bye 2013
You will be missed…
You completed my family, allowed me to reach several professional goals, and you gave my family great memories.

Hello 2014.
You are full of hope and promise for “better” ness.

My friends at Freebielicious and I want to share some of our goals and
resolutions for 2014 with you! To help you get a jump start on the new
year we’ve also added some freebies that may help you reach your own similar goals. 

My
resolutions for home should be get more sleep.
That would mean I would
have to give up something.
Motherhood? Nope
Blogging? Nada
TpT? Ain’t
gonna happen
I just can’t make this my resolution because I am an overachieve and I want to accomplish my goal.
{Better-ness in 2014 right?}

Here is an amazing quote about parenthood

{pic found here}

 And it is so true…
One day E will sleep through the night.
It
isn’t going to be any time soon, but one day! {haha… it may never
happen!}
And one day my kids will want to hang out with their
friends instead of me.
And one day they will stay out so late I will have to wait up half the night for them to come home.
And one day they will move out and have a family of there own.

I
can sleep then. I am grateful I get to be a mommy to two sweet girls even if that means no sleep!
Which brings me to actual resolution.

My personal resolution is to show and
teach gratitude. I am so grateful for so many things in my life, but I
know I am doing a poor job at SHOWING this gratitude. How do I know? My
daughter isn’t as grateful as she could be. I am not modeling this virtue for her and she is lacking
this HUGE element in her life.  Entitlement is typical at age 4, but we
are going to spend 2014 showing our gratitude for things we have and
working for things we want.

To help me remember to show and teach gratitude, I made this sign to post in my room and in S’s bathroom.

(click here to grab this file)

But the sign is just one step.

One of our steps in this goal is to change S’s chore chart. She previously earns check for completing chores. When she gets her goal amount, she earns a prize from the prize bag.

We are changing her chore chart to a plus and minus chart.
She
has chores she has to do to earn her allowance. Then she can earn more
by completing more things. {Showing gratitude is one of her pluses.} And
she can get some taken away by not following our basic family rules.

We
decided to move from a prize bag to an allowance to start to teach S
the value of money. If she wants to get a toys, she needs to buy it with
her money. If she wants to play a game at a restaurant, she needs to
spend her money.

We also plan on having her buy gifts for others with her money, hence the plus category.

I also plan on doing activities with
her to show gratitude towards others regularly. How?
We are going to start by saying “Thank you.”
 We need to look people
in the eye to say thank you and give the reason why.
We need to write
thank you cards.
We need to do acts of kindness to others like bake
cookies for our local firefighters.
We need to donate books to out local
library.
 We need to give to others who don’t have as much as we do.

Since our lives are busy {like yours} I had to plan ahead on this area.
We overlook so many important people everyday!
{I am thinking about S’s Sunday school teacher who gives up two hours a weekend every week to teach S about The Bible. When is the last time we told her thanks?}

Here is what I did.

 I took a small Christmas gift bag and left over Christmas notecards. I wrote one person or helper on each card. I added the trash men, our sister, other family members, and even community helpers.
I also added two special cards that say RAK for Random Acts of Kindness and a heart for someone who in on our heart or has touched our heart. All these cards are folded and in our bag.
We can pull a card once a week and find a way to say thank you to that person/s.
{This is not just about giving gifts and spending money, just about showing gratitude.}

I need to SHOW S when we tithe to
church, instead of just doing it without telling her about it.
I need
her to help carry donated items to charity.
I need her to help pick out
the canned food items to donate.
I need her to give gifts to those
special friends at school who need a helping hand.
I need her to help pick out gifts for others and write the card to them.

And lastly, we are going to start writing down one thing a night we are grateful for in a journal. This is already a part of our prayers, but I want to extend it to others more and practice her writing skills at the same time.

I got a journal S played with around the house and tore out the used sheets. I put it beside her bed with a marker. When we say our prayers, we will each write something we are grateful for. {This will get in my showing and my teaching resolution.}

 I am in the habit of just “doing things” and checking it off the list. 
I am not showing my gratitude to my girls.
{And sometimes I don’t want attention from others for random acts of kindness, I just want to be kind.}

Hop on over to one of the sweetest bloggers I know,
 Jennifer from First Grade Blue Skies for another resolution and matching freebie!