School Year's Resolutions

*** Check out an earlier post of Emma-isms for today, below***

Kelly over at PTT has a wonderful idea- focus on goals for your family throughout the year. This is such an inspiration, especially since Kelly added her own special note to her idea, which is:

I believe the better me I can be, the better mom I can be.

Nothing could be more true. How can I expect to keep my family happy and on track if I am no where near achieving those things for myself? At first I struggled with this idea. Change is hard, so I began to think about what we were already doing right... things we had already implemented just before the start of the school year.

• Family reading time, every day.
• (More recently) Eating healthy by making meal plans and allowing everyone to choose a meal for the week, then finding lower fat versions of the recipes.
• Being more diligent about our routines and schedules and wavering as little as possible once school started. (Anna's post school routine of snack, 1/2 hour of TV to unwind, home work, clean room... all the way up to bed time routines)
• Being less negative when disciplining the kids by correcting them, but by also giving positive reinforcement by highlighting and praising them when they do something the right way.
  

Things I resolve to work harder on:

• Exerting more patience in my life.
• Dealing with negative forces as tactfully as possible.
• Make an actual exercise schedule and stick to it, 3 times a week (dusting off the exercise equipment on the porch!).
• Take over the bills to relieve the stress on my poor forgetful and over- worked hubby, therefore creating a less stressed family environment because the bills are getting paid on time and our (insert utility here) isn't getting turned off. (Like our water yesterdayLOL!)
  
• Being more diligent about returning important phone calls
• Making appointments for the family (mostly myself...moms, you know how that goes), because a healthy family is a happy family.
  

I will add more to the list as I think of them, mostly to keep myself accountable. ;) This was actually a really pleasant experience for me because I had not realized how well the improvements we made a month ( or so) ago had been working. if you like this idea, head over to Kelly's blog, leave a comment and/or leave a link letting her know you are participating. I hope you all have a happy and healthy school year!