Goals for 2012

I hope everyone's Christmas was enjoyable. We had a nice quiet day at home, just the four of us and then we went to visit my family in southern Utah. My oldest sure loved playing in the snow!

Also a really cool thing happened - I won a giveaway! I won a Shabby Apple dress! The Mullholland dress to be more specific. It is so cute!

I love starting a new year. It means starting over, having renewed motivation, and trying to be better. It may be cliche, but I'm making my own goals for this year and to ensure I don't fail I'm going to share some of them here with you.

You probably already know the SMART mnemonic for setting goals, but a little review never hurt anyone. 

 S - Specific, the more specific the better. This makes it easier to evaluate if you're on track or not. Ask yourself the five 'W' questions:

• What: What do I want to accomplish?
• Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.
• Who: Who is involved?
• Where: Identify a location.
• Which: Identify requirements and constraints.

M - Measurable, again you need some way to evaluate your progress to keep you on track to your end goal.

A - Attainable, make sure your goal is within your reach. Don't set a goal to run a marathon in 2 hours if you've never run before! It takes years of training to reach that level of athleticism and some may still never be that fast.

R - Relevant, is the goal you're setting worthwhile? If not, then you will find it hard to push yourself to make it happen.

T - Timely, give your goals an end date. Open ended goals will often result in failure if you don't have a deadline. 

(source)

So with that review of how to make goals I'm going to share a few of mine with you. I'm just going to share a brief synopsis of my goals with you and not the full SMART versions I've done for myself.

- I would like to lose the rest of my pregnancy weight while continuing to breastfeed. More specifically 12 pounds by May, I'll need to take it slow so I don't affect my milk supply. I plan on regular exercise and using the Cinch system to help me with this. Cinch is the #1 inch loss plan and thousands of people have had success because Cinch helps you burn fat while retaining lean muscle, which helps prevent the yoyo effect many diets have.  

Merry Christmas!

Unfortunately I haven't gotten any fun crafts done lately, but I just wanted to pop in and wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year! I'll leave you with some cute pictures of my boys by the Christmas tree. I don't have a fancy camera, just a standard digital and I just played with the settings to get these. Give it a try, it might take a while to get all the settings right, but its so worth it! Here's a great post I used to help me figure out the right settings.

Merry Christmas!

Pinterest Inspired Christmas Topiary

So this post has been sitting in my dashboard for almost a week. Each time I tried to sit down and finish it, something came up, such is life with two kids.

A while back on Pinterest (follow me here) I saw a couple different ideas I really liked. You may have seen them too...

 source: lucydesignsonline.com via Pinterst

source: nedesignbuild.com via Pinterest

I love both ideas, but the first one didn't have a tutorial, so here's my version of their idea. Both are made out of tomato cages, but since it's late in the year and I'm not a gardener, there was a distinct lack of said cages. To make my own outdoor Christmas tree I had to improvise.

The hardware stores may not have tomato cages this time of year, but they do have plastic bush/tree stakes. I grabbed three of those, but four probably would have been better considering the planter I used.

So you'll need:

3-4 tree stakes

Christmas Garland (I used 3 from Dollar Tree, each was 15 ft long)

A pot or planter (mine was from Dollar Tree, but you may already have one)

Lights 

Christmas Ornaments, if you choose

wire and glue, optional

Start by drilling holes in the planter where the stakes are going to be inserted.

Glue could be good too. I didn't use any by you may want to.

Wire the tops of the stakes together and you have the form of your tree.

Next, you'll wrap your garland around the form. Don't pull it too tight or it will bend the stakes inward. You may find that you'll need some wire to keep the garland from slipping down or out of place.

Finally, decorate. I used a string of 100 lights and some spare shatterproof ornaments. I also filled the planter with some rocks from the backyard to keep it from falling over. All in all it cost me about $7.

The little man helped me a little so he wanted to pose with the tree.