Hello, 2016

*Hello, 2016!  I cannot even believe that you are here already.  It seems like just yesterday we were welcoming 2015 (on bedrest with a big ol’ pregnant belly, remember?).  Your arrival means that my baby boy is almost an entire year old.  It means that I am rapidly approaching thirty-one (insert wide eyed emoji here!).  It means my big girl is halfway through her last year at the elementary school with me and one step closer to middle school.  It means my baby girl is rounding out the second half of second grade and rapidly approaching third grade.

As much as I want to slow time down a bit, I also eagerly look forward to the new year.  I’m a big fan of all things ‘new’.  (Just ask my husband and he’ll tell you!)  I get excited about new beginnings.  Fresh starts make me giddy.  The idea of a clean slate gets my heart racing, in a good kind of way.  I look forward to this new year and all the changes it will bring.

Unlike years past (see exhibit A and exhibit B), I did not make any resolutions.  Those never work out for me anyways.  I do have a few loose goals I want to work towards.  “Loose goals” means I am giving myself lots and lots of grace!  A few of these goals are:

• More home-cooked dinners around our kitchen table. (That didn’t work out so well last year, so we’ll try it again!)
• Daily devotions, alone and with the girls.  (I’ll still follow along with She Reads Truth as usual.  The girls were given Jesus Calling for Kids as a Christmas gift and so far, we are loving it.)
• Fifteen minutes set aside every night for family reading.  (We read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe together at the end of 2015 and the whole family enjoyed it so much!)
• Blogging, at least three times a week.  This little blog of mine is slowly growing and I love that you guys come and hang out with me.  I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen here in 2016.
• Read, read, read.  (My first book of 2016 is Just Mercy and Y’ALL!! I definitely recommend.)

While I didn’t follow suite with yearly resolutions, I did choose a word for the year again(see here and here).  One Little Word to focus on during 2016.  It might be more honest to say the word chose me.  Way back in November when I started thinking and praying about what I wanted my one little word to be, one word kept popping up.  I spent the next two months trying to come up with something better (ha!), but I kept coming back to that original word.  SO I GIVE IN.

For 2016, my one little word is SAVOR.  To delight in.  To enjoy fully.  That’s how I want my 2016 to be.

Regardless of where I am, what I’m doing or how things are going.  I want to delight in this life of mine.  Delight in my marriage.  My children.  My family.  My job.  I want to look through the lens of enjoyment and find all the good, all the time.  Because you guys, THERE IS SO MUCH GOOD.

I want to slow down and enjoy fully the ordinary of my day.  I want to cook with my girls and do a whole other type of savoring.  I want to run after my baby boy and fully enjoy his giggles and his rolls and his dimples.  I want to snuggle on the couch and get lost in a few episodes of Netflix with my man. (The real meaning of Netflix, not the new–I would never talk about that on this blog! (<–Insert another wide eyed emoji here.)

Join me, would you?  Let’s savor this life we’ve been given.  Let’s add to our list of Happy Things daily.  Let’s linger in the slowness of our life and delight in our smallness.  Let’s enjoy fully.

*Photo via Zazzle.