#12 Hold FHE at least 26 times this year

I managed to help my family have Family Home Evening 26 times this year. We are busy people and we do a lot of things together already, but it was important to me to have an actual Family Home Evening every other week at least. We focused most of our lessons or messages on things that Jackson could understand so he felt included.

This is how we've decided to structure our FHEs:

Opening song (usually a song out of the Children's Songbook)

Opening prayer

Fun song (Old MacDonald, Dinosaur song, Itsy Bitsy Spider, etc.)

Family Business

Lesson or Message

Closing song (usually another Children's Songbook song)

Closing prayer

It seems like a lot but we don't usually take longer than 15 minutes. It's the perfect length for Jackson's active mind. Jackson even helps us with the prayers sometimes. :)

I will definitely be including another FHE goal for my 27 Things this next year!

#15 (Had to do with kindness)

I did the same thing last year. Kill with kindness! :)

#19 Learn to make a frosting rose

So I think I have the idea down. I may not ever get these perfect. My frosting wasn't the right consistency or wasn't warm/cool enough, and left me with ridges on the petals. I will probably try again another time when my life isn't crazy. But these are pretty enough to put on a cake, right?!

#14 21 Day Fix

This is another one of my goals that ended up changing. I originally wanted to complete a 30 day workout challenge. There are "30 day challenges" that you can download onto your phone. They are short workouts that work a specify area of your body. I was going to do the 30 Day Abs challenge. I started it and didn't care for it. So I started to think of a new goal I could do that would be similar.

I had a friend recommend the 21 Day Fix program. She had done it in the past and really liked it.

So I contacted a friend who is a Beachbody Coach (Laura) and asked how I could order the 21 Day Fix program.

I got containers. Here are a few of them...

I ended up eating a lot more carrots that I would normally. I don't love them. I switched to eating a lot of spinach and zucchini after a few days.

Here's what a typical breakfast was for me.

I tried the Shakology that came with it. Not going to lie...it was gross and I only had it that one day. But I've tried lots of protein shakes and haven't liked any of them. So it's probably just me...

I ate a lot of chicken and salads for lunches. And ate normal dinners, but was careful with my portions.

 I sweat a lot during my workouts. There was a workout every day, and it was on a weekly rotation. Monday=Full body cardio fix, Tuesday=Upper fix, Wednesday=Lower fix, Thursday=Pilates fix, Friday=Cardio fix, Saturday=Dirty 30, Sunday=Yoga.

 But I felt stronger!

Most days this was my face before/after a workout...

I'm glad I did it. I lost a little over 5 lbs and 5.25 inches (and I cheated a lot...oops). I started doing it again yesterday. This time I may not go the full 21 days (since Christmas Eve cookies are served in 18 days...) but I will be conscious of what I'm eating. I want to be strong again...and to fit into some of my cute clothes again.

#13 Run another 5k

I signed Christian and me up for a 5k a couple months ago. The Chanhassen Turkey Trot 5k. A great way to spend Thanksgiving morning!

Christian putting on his racing bib.

And a selfie before the race!

There were a LOT of people there. It took us about 4 minutes to get to the starting line after the race started from where we were.

AND...I finished. I jogged the entire time except at the top of a hill near the end. My head started pounding so I walked for about 15 seconds. Those 21 day fix workouts really helped though! My legs were not jelly at the end like they usually are.

They gave out cinnamon rolls at the end of it. Yum. Actually, they were not good cinnamon rolls. They were old and dry.

I waited a little while until Christian came to the finish line. I was 36:23 minutes finish, and Christian walked it in 57:50. There were so many people there that for part of the race it was really hard to get passed anyone. I'm certain we both of us would have had a slightly better time if it wasn't so crowded.

#25 Learn a new duet with Christian

This goal was originally to learn an organ prelude. But life happened (with Emma being born) and then my priorities changed. I had to adjust some of my goals to things I would be willing to spend time doing in my even more limited free time. So I changed it to another musical type goal. I wanted to learn a new duet with Christian. We learned "How Gentle God's Commands." Christian and I sang in church together on November 27th. I LOVE singing with my husband! And I'm grateful to have a piano in my home!

#17 Teach new baby to roll over

Done...and proof! I have a mobile baby!

PS When I made this goal in January of last year we didn't even know gender yet! Now she is here and moving around. A lot can happen in 11 months!

#9 Read the Doctrine and Covenants with Christian

Christian and I finished reading the Doctrine and Covenants together two nights ago. Every year one of my goals will be (and has been so far) to read one of the standard works with Christian. I also made a goal for personal study, which I'm still working on for this year (the Old Testament...and it will take me the WHOLE year).

I love making it a goal to read with Christian! And I've seen the blessings come from reading scriptures and doing family prayers with him. We started the Book of Mormon again last night (we read it last year together).

I think next year I'm going to plan a family trip (during a long weekend perhaps?) down to Nauvoo. Reading the Doctrine and Covenants put me in the mood to visit again.

#21 Sew Temple Dress

My temple dress from pre-baby doesn't exactly fit anymore. I've been borrowing my mom's when I've gone to the temple since moving to Minnesota. I really wanted my own though, and didn't want to pay a whole bunch for the dress and shipping from Utah. I decided to make my own and it made my list of 26 Things. I had some time a couple days ago so I sewed it all up! (I had cut the pieces out a while ago. My most hated part of sewing...)

The best part about sewing your own clothes is that you can make them fit you exactly the way you want them to.

Here it is!

#22 Road-trip or Vacation

(Copied from the family blog)

We went on an impromptu road trip with Christian last Thursday.

Christian mentioned having to go to Duluth for a dinner meeting for work, so I asked if it might be possible for us to ride along with him. He said we could as long as he could sneak away from work at the office early that morning. Christian texted me at 11 am saying he was on his way home! We ate lunch together and then got in the car with the two kids.

Christian still had to take some work calls in the car.

It took Jackson 2 hours to fall asleep. He kept asking to "get out." Sorry Jackson...

I got some nice fall pictures on the way up! I wish more of the leaves would have turned colors by then though.

 Duluth from the (almost) top of the hill.

We parked at the restaurant Christian was meeting at and walked around a bit first. Jackson was pretty adamant about walking and not being pushed in the stroller. I let Jackson walk next to me for about half a mile until I made him get in the stroller. The sidewalk was too close to the road and fast moving cars, and that was about as far as I could handle being panicky about him running into the street. While Christian was in his meeting the kids and I walked to a park. Jackson ate some fries but he was too excited about the park to eat much.

This very friendly seagull thought he might help Jackson out with the fries.

Jackson rode on things,

climbed on things,

and took a selfie with me. 

Jackson met a friend at the park, too. The boy was a kindergartner, and was really happy to have a little friend to show around the park. I talked to his dad for a while before we both had to leave.

Finally, Christian was done with his meeting and took us around to see the boats on the water.

Jackson really had a good time.

He kept referring to the water as a "bath." A bath for the boats maybe?

We left before it got dark and were home before 9 pm.

#20 Go Apple Picking

I've never been apple picking at an apple orchard. (If I have I would have been too young to remember.) Fall is my favorite season of the year, so I wanted to do something fun and specific to that season.

I wrote a really long post about our trip to Emma Krumbee's a couple weeks ago, so I'll just mention the apple picking part in this entry.

We picked a half a peck of Haralson apples.

Here are pictures!

I really like how this picture turned out. (My phone camera is awesome.)

Jackson got to be tall!

I made Christian take a picture of me. (I hardly get any pictures of me unless they are selfies.)

Emma slept the whole time.

#6 Make a Christmas Decoration

Cross stitch seems to be the project of choice this year, since this is my 3rd cross stitch. I DO need more things on my wall so it makes sense to me to do a cross stitch.

I made this from a pattern my mom bought me for Christmas (or was it my birthday? they are both right around the same time).

I love how it turned out!! It may be hard to tell in the picture but each of the pictures even has a little charm attached to it.

Since this cross stitch was a strange size I had trouble finding a frame for it. I checked Hobby Lobby, Joann Fabrics, and Michaels (online), but I wasn't interested in paying for custom framing. I found 5x12 frames being sold by a business through Amazon. (They had every size frame imaginable.) And there was a GOLD ONE! I had to buy it and it is perfect!

I can't wait to hang it up this Christmas!

#10 Make Cross Stitch for New Baby

This goal was made before Emma was born. I am making it a tradition to do a cross stitch for each child. Jackson has one that I made very shortly after he was born (actually, all but the date and measurements were finished while I was on bed rest, before he was born)...

And here is Emma's.

I will hang them up together. Currently Jackson's is in his room, but I may hang them up somewhere else around the house so I can see them more often.

I love my babies!

#26 Booklist

Last year I had 10 books on my booklist and that was difficult to complete with all the other things I had going on. This year I still wanted to make sure I kept reading, but I decided to reduce the number of books to read by half. So I picked 5 books, and 4 of them I chose from the ward book club list. The book club books even worked with some of the prompts I found online. (The prompts help me to have more variety in what I read).

I'll probably end up reading another book or two by the end of the year...but here's the 5 books I've read so far.

1.  A book written by someone under 30...More Than the Tattoed Mormon: Al Carraway by Al Carraway

2. A book published within the last year...Water From My Heart by Charles Martin

3. A mystery or thriller...The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

4. A memoir...Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth

5. A book with magic...Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J K Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Throne

All, except #5, are books I never would have even considered reading if it hadn't been for book club, and I happened to enjoy those ones more than I did the Harry Potter book. Ha! So I'm thankful for book club (even if I don't make it every month).

#16 Throw a Party

(Copied from my family blog)

Back on August 20th, Amber and I threw a baby shower for our friend Carly. (Amber and Carly are both friends from church.) Neither of us had ever thrown a baby shower for anyone. So the planning and executing was new for both of us. It was quite a bit more difficult than I thought to get everything together, but it was super fun and I got to cross off another goal for this year!

That morning was a rush to get everything done. Fruit needed to be cut up (thank you mom for bring veggies, I don't actually think I had time for even one more task that morning), balloons picked up, games/activity stuff gathered, white chocolate popcorn to make, cupcakes to decorate, and my kids still needed to be taken care of. I ended up bringing Emma with me, and leaving Jackson at home with Christian. Having Emma with me was really stressful at first. She cried while we were trying to set up.

We had the baby shower at an old (but also current) friend's house. Lynn Farmer. I grew up, and am best friends, with her daughter, Karisa. Her home was literally the perfect place for the shower. Big and beautiful...and also only 5 minutes away from me. AND as luck would have it, she had really pretty glass plates and tea cups from the 50's (I think). Something you'd see back then at a luncheon. She had a set of 12, and I had the exact same set for 8 (that I got from Candelyn)! So we all had cute matching luncheon plates.

We got the food set up right in time for people to start coming. Amber made the amazing blue lemonade drink.

I found two baby shower themed cupcakes on pinterest that I liked, so I meshed them together to create a nice cupcake for our party. I'm really proud of how they turned out. I had never piped melted chocolate before. I think I wrote out boy almost a hundred times with the chocolate for practice and to get some to turn out nice enough for the cupcakes. I tried doing some fun pictures, like dinosaurs, but those turned out pretty awful. I couldn't even tell what they were.

Amber put together a really nice table with stations. One to write notes on some diapers for Carly to take home with her. A "name the baby" station and we got to read off all the names as a group. My personal favorite was "Straw" picked by a boy in our ward, Connor, who came with his mom. Amber and I happened to come up with the same name, Stetson. Pretty crazy considering that it is a super uncommon name. Later, Christian informed me that it is a brand of cowboy hat, so I'm not sure how I've ever heard of it in the first place. I'm not really in to the cowboy thing... And the last station was for us to address our own envelopes for the thank you cards, so Carly didn't have to track down our addresses later.

Here is the lovely Carly! She made that dress, too! She's a better seamstress than me. I'll have to sew with her sometime.

Party guests!

We let Carly have the comfy chair.

We played a "get to know you" game.

 Tommy and their little girl, Emma, joined us for the party.

We played baby themed charades. I should have made them harder...since most of them were guessed correctly in under 15 seconds. The record was like 6 seconds, I think.

Carly opened gifts. So many boy clothes!

My mom was the designated baby Emma holder.

 Amber found a cute idea for prizes, which we ended up just using as a parting gift for the guests. Carly is having a boy, so the "he" is highlighted in blue. And then there is the popcorn I made. (I don't even like popcorn, so I'm not sure why I felt like I needed to make those...)

 Carly's daughter, Emma, liked playing in the starburst bowl.

Seriously adorable!

Me, Carly, and Amber. They are both cute and pregnant! (And, if I knew I was going to be in a picture with both of them I would have found time to wash my hair at least...lol.)

Lindsay, Carly, and Lynn. They had matching colors.

(Lynn, thank you for letting us borrow your house!)

Carly and Christy.

(Christy, thank you for taking lots of pictures! I didn't take nearly enough during the party.)

They are a great family! I can't wait to meet their little boy!