2009 Family Goals

For family home evening yesterday we decided to make a few New Year’s resolutions as a family, type them up and print them, and hang them up on the wall. I tried to explain the idea of making goals to the boys, and I gave them an example – that we (the parents and kids) would all try harder not to yell at each other, and we talked about how we could remind each other about this goal and try to do better. Michael came up with the goal to not only read the illustrated scripture stories books with the boys, but to also read the scriptures together as a family each day. And Michael also wanted to include having a family trip sometime this year on the list, which sounded good to me. So, we asked the boys if they had any ideas for family goals. Kolby promptly answered, “Don’t go under cars.” And then he added, “And don’t walk in the middle of the street.” He even insisted that I write those goals on our paper. Eli’s idea of a goal was that he could play the piano with Kolby next time he was practicing (maybe a 3-year-old isn’t quite old enough to grasp the idea of New Year’s resolutions). But then Kolby came up with a great one by himself without any prompting from us: Be reverent in church. I liked that one. The last one we added to our list is something we’ve been working on a lot lately, and the boys are doing quite well with most of the time. It is that they need to ask what they can help with, and continue to ask and help until the job is done. It’s pretty cute – even Camden now has started to come up to me when I am getting lunch ready and say, “Mommy, what can I do to help?” And I’ll have him get out the milk or set bowls on the table. The boys really are good helpers. Anyways, those are our 2009 family goals. We’ve done pretty well with them so far (for the last day and a half).