A New Year, a New Set of Goals

A brand new year, a new chapter, a new way to look at what is coming, a new attitude and trusting only in God to help guide my family and myself is how I'm going to approach each day. I'm looking at this year a day a time...at least that's one of my goals.

This year, I've set some goals for myself that I'm hoping I can keep and accomplish. I know each new year people make goals that they end up not keeping, but I'm hoping that by making a list, I can keep them and hopefully people will keep me accountable.

My life long goal while I live on earth is to always try my best to grow closer to God. He fills our daily lives with many blessings and yet we are still not pleased. Without God we are nothing and I am nothing. Without God, life is not worth living. I'm sad to say this, but I've never read the entire bible. I've read every book, but not every chapter. So with this in mind. I've made a point to pick up my bible every night before I go to bed and read one chapter. So far, I'm doing good. I've had to go from the old testiment to the new at times because I'll place my bible elsewhere but I always keep a new testiment by my bed.

Goal 1-Grow closer to God by reading the bible daily

Goal 2-Try and be a better wife

Sometimes I'm not the wife I should be either. I need to be more of an encourager and not a nagger. These days Robert works a lot! Meaning he's either out of town on business or gets home really late! He needs enouragment and needs love. Rather than be like, 'oh good, you are home, please help me do this and that because I'm the one who does it all the time', I need to let him know that I appreciate him working and let him know that I know he's had a long day. His love language is also touch. And no peoples, that doesn't mean just sex. I need to make sure I'm continually letting him know that I love him by hugging him, holding his hands, cuddling with him, etc...

Goal 3-To be a better parent

I think I'm a good mom, but I can always be better. Robert and I both work a lot!!! We don't see the girls until after 5:30pm to then put them down by 8pm. So we only see them 2 1/2 hours a day. They spend more times with their teachers then they do us. We have to work at the moment, until things get better and hopefully soon I can be at home. Any whoodles, I need to make sure that those 2 1/2 hours are better spent. Normally I come home to cook. While I'm cooking, I can be better about having Arianna help me in the kitchen. While cooking we like to dance and sing. Really! However, I could have Arianna learn during this process by having her help me in the kitchen maybe. She can pull up a chair and help me cook. Avonlea, is a bit harder. I always put our gates up so she is not able to escape from the kitchen. So she just runs around. I could place her in her high chair so she could watch us as we talk through the cooking. After cooking and eating, we take baths. During this time, rather than trying to be so quick about it, I can teach them about animals or each letter in the alphabet. Now we just talk a lot! After baths, we normally will play in their toy room. I'll let them play with whatever toy. I know I could take a little more time here and actually pull out 'educational toys'. Instead of barbies or whack a mole, lets actually build a puzzel together...Any ways, I want to be a better educator and mother. Any suggestions?

Those are my 3 main goals ALWAYS.

Now for my everyday goals that I want to just do and accomplish before the year is over.

*Be a better blogger. Right now, once a month is good for me. I need to get better. So rather than once a month, I'd like to be better by writing at least once every two weeks or once a week. I have friends who fantabulous at this. I don't know how they do it. I have so many things to write about that I know I can do it. I also just want to improve in blogging overall. I don't know how to do anything...change pictures, backgrounds, etc....I need help in this area.

*Run at least 5 5ks. I've decided not to run the 1/2 marathon due to the commitment I'd have to put into it. It was hard last year, and I just know this year would be harder with Robert's work schedule. I don't want to drop running all together. I need to keep the working out and the motivation for me last year was doing the 1/2 and two other 5ks. So my motivation this year is to spread these out and keep the workout. My first 5k for the year will be the Tom King 5k in Nashville during the month of March. I'm excited and looking forward to it. For sure of others I'll be doing will be Mercy Ministries and Susan Komen again.

*ORGANIZE. My bonus room needs H.E.L.P! As soon as after christmas sales came around, I bought 5 large storage bins. Why you ask? The amount of toys we have is ridiculous. I feel as though my girls have way too much they don't even know where to start. I feel they don't appreciate them as much. I want to start some kind of cycle with them. I want to take out, store, let them forget about them, and then take them out again for them to play with them. Actually I'm going to hopefully here soon, start looking through them and donate a lot.

*Pictures. I have a bazillion pictures. I load them, put them in a folder, but don't sort them. Yep, bad I know! I want to start going through them and hopefully get somewhere by the end of the year.

*Water. Yes, water. I'm a horrible 'drinker' all together. I normally don't take a sip of drink until I finish my meal. People always ask me how I don't drink during my meals, but it's just habit. I don't know why, but thats just how I am. That's with any drink. So I don't really drink at all. I drink more coffee I guess, but I do like water. However, I need to focus on drinking more water. A lot of water! I'm horrible!

*Socialize. I love making dinner (I'm really not so bad) for people and just having people over. I really do enjoy this, however I don't do it enough. I want to make a meal at least once a month and invite friends or family over.

*Spend my time better during down times-enough said! I could do better and do more of the above.

*Cook more! I need to actually cook more. I cook probably about 3 times a week and the rest we're kind of on our own. And by this i don't mean we eat out, I mean we'll pull out a can of soup, eat a sandwich or something frozen. I need to cook like 5 times a week!

*Coupon! Robert was AMAZING at this while he was home last summer. We literally saved hundreds. When he got his job we kind of fell off the wagon. I'm into it now and am organzing my coupons weekly. Today is publix penny item! And key is the bogo at publix weekly. We need to restock! This also helps us put more money into our banking account..so why not!

*Quit my job! I can't wait to do this. I can't wait to hand my boss that 2 weeks notice. I'm getting bored and bitter at my job, but I can't just quit due to insurance and not finding anything. It's not that easy. And when I say quit my job, I don't mean working all together. That means get a job closer to home (way closer to home), be a stay at home mom full time or get a part time job. We'll know soon. Yay!

So there you have it. My three main goals for life will always remain God and being a better person all around (wife and mother, that also includes friendships). If you have any suggestions to help in any of the areas I listed, I'd love to read them.

2010-An unforgetable year!

2010 was a busy year to say the least for our family. I know we're already 1/2 way through January, but I thought I'd post a review from last year. It was fun yet emotional. I will never forget it this past year.

*My first born, very smart, remembers things I have forgotten, funny, wants to know it all Arianna turned 3 in March! She had a princess themed birthday party with princess doll cakes. I'm not kidding when I say this, but she's got her birthday's planned for the next two years. Just ask her.

(Kristy, I'm making one of these princess dolls for your 30th birthday! HA!)

*Call me crazy, but I ran the Nashville Music City 1/2 Marathon. What an awsome experience. I would do it all over again. I had never ran in my life prior to this. I had to really committ myself and continually tell myself, "I can do this!" I was not going to give up! I had to train 3-5 times a week with Saturday's or Sunday's being my long mile runs. I literally ran the entire race the day off praying and repeating in my head, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." When I finished I couldn't help but get emotional. I was so happy! I felt like I had accomplished so much. Crossing that finish line was such an ordeal for me.

Here I am with friends (Emily and Ryan) and family (Angela and Randy) who also ran the race. A lot of my training was done with Emily and I totally appreciated her encouragment. Thanks!

*Who can forget the 2010 Flood?! Many homes were flooded, causing families to become homeless for a short while. The water was practically in our backyard (notice the corner)! Yikes! We have a small creek, dry most of the time, that runs along those back trees. This is what it became...a lake! We had water front property.

*The Eddy Family goes on vacation to Arkansas. Yep you read right. NEVER AGAIN! Meaning vacationing in the state Arkansas. The location was chosen because it was less than a 5 hour drive for the family and we were able to find a place to fit 15 people. I had fun with the family, but Arkansas was just boring! All we did was swim and canoed. We didn't know what to do or where to go. Every town around us had nothing. Not my kind of vacation. Oh and my daughters got really sick causing one of the families to leave a day early. :(

*Robert graduated with a Masters degree in Accounting!!! I was such a proud wife. After two years of working and going to school at nights, I know he was relieved it was over. I sure was! Sorry, no pics on this computer to show him off in his robe.

*Awwh, My American Idol Experince. Auditions came to Nashville, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Yep I was one of those! I can't say I regret spending 13 hours of my day doing this because I know for a fact that if I hadn't gone, I would have thought, 'what if?' This was my last year to give this a try. I'll be too old next time around. Well, unfortunately, I didn't make it through. Out of thousands that were there, I maybe saw 100 tickets given away. I'm ready to start watching this seasons American Idol just to see if I see any of these peeps or myself in the crowd. Ha! Oh and you wouldn't think it by looking, but the blonde kid had a voice!!!! This was literally his 4th time trying out too, however he's got a lot of time. he's only 17. I hope to see him.

*My baby, not so baby anymore Avonlea turned 1! She's a hot mess! Avonlea makes me laugh so hard. She's so funny and she's at that age where I wish she would stay her size. She's big enough to walk, yet small enough that I can still hold her and pretend she's a baby. Here she is getting into her very first cake ever!

She was truly enjoying it!

*Dave Ramsey's 13 week Financial Peace University Class led by Ryan and Emily. We decided it was time for us to keep track of our financial spendings and be debt free. Yep it takes sacrifices, but what a feeling. We were already somewhat good at it, but wanted to get better and start living a life like no one else. What a fun and encouraging class it was. I would encourage everyone to take this if you want to get out of debt and live at peace. We're done with credit card debt! Yay! Now we're tackling student loans. The opportunties for me being a stay at home mommy are right around the corner! Yay!
*DC trip! This was so fun. What drove us to go, was Glenbecks "Restoring Hope" rally. He listens to him ALL the time. We made it a long weekend and went without the girls. We had so much fun yet didn't see everything. I got to see some friends from the area and do what tourists do best! We can't wait to go again in September.

Here we are at the mall in front of the capitol. What a fun place to be!

*My 10 year high school reunion! I was not going to let anyone stop me from going. I had been looking forward to this day forever. I seriously had so much fun catching up with everyone. That's all it was about, not because I cared about them or even liked them back then, but it was fun seeing the people I went to High School with. I had so much fun knowing what everyone was up to, what they looked like, and where they were in life. I will most definitely go to our 20th.

Here we are all prettied up! Seeing one of my crushes! I really thought he was so cute back in the day. He was a soccer player and well I looked forward to being in any of his classes. Sadly, he never liked me. Yep, I'm sure I talked Kristy's head off as she too liked his Australian buddy Tyson. :) Reconnecting with friends was the best part of the night! We shared so many funny memories of teachers and people and some bad highschool memories too.
*Robert gets a job as an Auditor for Crosslin & Associates. After his contract expired with Rural Development back in May when he graduated, he didn't have a job. He took the summer to study for 3 parts of his CPA. Looking back now, I'm so grateful he did this. It would have been really tough for him to work the hours he does now and study at the same time.

*My sister Noemi announced she was pregnant for the 3rd time. We're all crossing our fingers hoping it's a girl.

*Several friends (3 to be exact) have babies all within a day of each other!!! Laura had Grayson, Amanda had Emelia, and Kim had Sloan.

*One of my closest friends-Renee announces she's pregnant with her first! yay!

*Once Robert got his job, it was time for girls to go into daycare. This was very hard on me. REALLY! I did a ton of research, toured many area daycares and finally found one that was reasonably priced. Because I want to be home with them so badly, leaving them in Daycare from 7am-5:30pm was so hard for me. My mom used to do it but because of her health conditions, was unable to. 10 hours in a daycare with other people is a long day! I miss them.

1st week of school

*Mom turns 50! My wonderful mom deserved a BIG party. So us girls planned a nice birthday surprise for her. She enjoyed every minute of it. We even did a slide show of her from when she was little until now. It was hard trying to sneak these pictures from her house without her knowing. We did a fall theme since her favorite season is fall too. We invited all her close friends and had a big dinner feast for her. It was awesome.
*Susan Komen's 5k race for the cure. This was something I participated in just to honor my moms victory of breast cancer. This meant a lot to me and I will be running it again. This year my goal is to have her do it with me.

*Mercy Ministries 5k race. Another wonderful experience with meaning behind it! Not only is Mercy Ministries a great organization to help young women with dibilitating circumstances, but I ran with friends, and my dear husband.

*My birthday-29! Yikes, I'm almost 30. My birthday weekend was great! I seriously did something every night! It was so much fun. Friday night I celebrated at yummy Chuey's with these wonderful girlfriends.

and with some of their spousesMy cutie husband all professional! Saturday morning I got up and met Kristy at our usual spot-Starbucks! Great conversation as usual and guess what...my friend here hates whip cream, but for my birthday she asked for it! We then went ice skating! It had been forever!!! But I actually picked it up pretty fast. I never fell. And then following that, got together that night to eat and play a scavenger hunt which was OMG fun!! I felt like a little kid running around.

Here I am. Yes. In a bath tub with 3 pretty awesome guys.

They proposed at Kroger! And finally we ended my birthday night doing an indian dance at the Shell station. Oh and one last thing, Robert surprised me with tickets to the Christmas Spectacular-The Rocketts. Tickets were for December 3rd, but we celebrated my birthday that night anyways by not only going to the show, but going out to a nice dinner and then going to the Flying Saucer to meet with some friends. It was a fun night. *My made my very first turkey ever!!! I was literally stressed out. It turned out delicious though (even though the picture doesn't show it) and very juicy.

*My mom was once again diagnosed with Breast Cancer right before Christmas. When she found the lump, we all feared but knew God was in total control. Results came back and she again had stage 2 cancer. She's fighting the hard battle!

*Robert passed the last portion of his CPA!!! He's now a certified public accountant. He passed all 4 parts of the test the first time around. I'm so proud of him and all the time he put into studying. This was a huge deal! HUGE! Great Christmas present without a doubt. God truly blessed him.

*Christmas was wonderful with both sides of the family. For pictures scroll down a couple blogs and you'll see them there.

*Celebrated New Years eve with great friends!

Guys did their own thing as you can see.

Here is the hubs and me ending the new year! Happy New Years!

Overall 2010 was a great year. It was filled with happiness and sadness that have helped us move forward. God bless you in this new year. Looking forward to seeing what 2011 will bring.

Taking it back to the 80's!

My hubster turned 30 today!!! Happy birthday love.

He's no longer a 20's kid, but an adult now! Hard to believe that I've known him for 11 years now.

This past year has proven to be quite challenging and stressful for him. I'm so proud of him for all he's accomplished and God has truly blessed him/us. 2010 is a year he'll never forget (also his last year in the 20's). He received his Masters degree in Accounting, passed each of the 4 parts of the CPA all in the first try, and has a real accounting job now as an auditor for Crosslin & Assoc. In his words, "My life is just now beginning. It's been fun, but it's just now starting."

So for his 30th, I decided it would be nice to get all his close friends and family together for a big 80's celebration. Robert was born in 1981 (**me too**) and so I decided it would be fun to go back to that decade.

We had so much fun. Really. I decided to put balloons everwhere (floor and ceiling-old school, think proms back in the day). I picked tableclothes that were colorful and on the center of each table I put a rubix cube, casset tapes, simon says and pictures of Robert. I also put a whole bunch of pictures of him throughout the room from the time he was born until about 9ish years old.

Here we are back to the 80's. Robert went as Marty Mcfly (from back to the future) and I went as an 80's punk rockster type...whatever you want to call me. I put on the scrunchie, hot pink eye makeup and leg warmers.

Instead of the typical cake, I decided to do his favorite dessert-Brownies and ice cream. I had a friend sketch pac man on the brownies.

Here's the room prior to everyone arriving.

To make it seem 80's, I had Robert's dad (without Robert knowing) bring out the nintendo and atari. It was a hit!
The guys playing pool...check it out..they dressed! I was so happy people dressed.

We had 80's karoke!!

Foosball table!

Lots of great people to make this party the best eva!

And last but not least...we took it back to the 80's by dressing up. It was probably the hot topic of the night and the most funny. Check everyone out. I think they all did such a great job.

My friend Emily sporting out her hightops (notice the bow).

Nick and Kacey

Robert's sister Angela and Randy

Damaris and her friend Alma

Me!

My beautiful 80's sisters...1981, 82, 83 and 87.

Jaime and Eunice

I think Noemi's outfit cracked me up the most...especially when my mother-in-law said she used to wear this kind of stuff. Too funny! She came in 3rd place (we had a fashion show too!)Brandon and June came in 2nd.

Gina, rockin the sporty look.

Heather and PhillipToyo came as Urkel (He did great!-3rd place)

Ryan and Emily as 80's teenagers (Honorable mention)

Rocker couple who won first place-Mike and Annette

I think overall the party went really well, from the fashion show to karoke to video games. Robert really enjoyed it and that's what mattered most of all. It was a fun night and lots
of great memories. Happy 30th Birthday....I'm ready to see how this first year for you in the 30's will play out. :)