Transform Family Conference Recap

This past weekend we had the Transform Family Conference at our church.  It was an awesome few days of being encouraged and challenged in growing and strengthening godly relationships within the family.  We were privileged to have Mike and Judy Brisky from Gateway Church in Southlake, TX come and be with us throughout the weekend.  Mike is an associate pastor of marriage and family ministries at Gateway.  It was very beneficial to hear both him and his wife teach on family relationships from God's Word as well as share from their own experiences in marriage and parenting. 

"By wisdom a house is built,

and through understanding it is established;

through knowledge is rooms are filled

with rare and beautiful treasures."

Proverbs 24: 3-4  

I wasn't able to attend the main session the first night because I was helping to get refreshments prepared during that time, but I was able to attend the second night where the main topic was "The Transformational Family".  Mike and Judy spoke about some foundational principles that godly families are built on, such as character, vision, and relationship.  They shared that, the more we follow God's principles the more He releases His blessing on us.  I believe this and have seen evidence of it in my own life.  They focused on the relationship between husband and wife and how creating a respectful, loving, honorable environment between "mom and dad" will set the tone for our children.  They also gave us some practical ways parents can be building relationships with their children and encouraging them in their faith. 

Another session focused on how our words can transform relationships.  Proverbs 18:21 says, "The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit".  The words we speak to others do have the power to bring life to someone, building them up, or to bring death, tearing them down.  How can we use our words to encourage the relationships in our life?  I was reminded to think about the way I use my words and how I want to be intentional to speak words of truth and edification into the life of my husband, future children, and others I'm around. 

Mike also talked about the importance of honor and what it looks like to honor yourself, to honor your spouse, and to honor others.  Most importantly, they encouraged us to be faithful in honoring God.  To honor him with our wealth, our words, our attitude, and our relationships. He stated, "When you honor God and others, God will honor you and so will others". 

So, after this weekend I am encouraged in my role as wife and soon to be mom.  I took away some valuable information and teaching to process. I must also add that as I was hearing these things I felt very thankful for my parents who exemplified and practiced all this in our home as I was growing up.  Thanks mom and dad! I learned it first from you! I love you!

I can't help feeling excited as Zach and I are just beginning our family and we have a "blank slate" to begin the journey of parenting our children in the Lord's ways!  What a joy it will be!

My Principles for Setting Goals for the New Year

I have made New Year’s resolutions in the past, but after many experiences of setting over-zealous and unfocused  resolutions, I have learned a few helpful guidelines for creating goals that will stick around past the end of January.   

1.      Pray over your goals.  When you sit down with your pen and paper to write out your goals, I would encourage you to pray over them.  Listen to hear and examine to see if the goals you want to focus on are in line with God’s will for you.  Our goals should make us more available to His presence and working in our lives. 

2.      Set realistic goals.  I remember one New Year setting a goal that I was going to exercise every day.  For some that might not sound so unrealistic, but keep in mind that at this point I was doing good if I got out and jogged once every two weeks.  Well, you can guess how long that lasted.  First off, the success of this goal was defined as “every day” when I didn’t even have the habit built up yet.  All I was doing was setting myself up for failure.  A more realistic goal would have been to exercise at least 3 times a week (and forgive myself if I only got 2 in, keeping at it). 

3.      Keep your goals simple (numerically).  I’m a simple girl at heart.  I don’t like a lot of clutter, I don’t like having too many songs on my iPod, and I don’t like juggling a lot of things on my plate at once.  I’ve found that I thrive when I have just a few things to focus on, including goals I want to work towards.  This is another helpful tidbit learned after several well-intentioned lists of 8-10 goals that only made me feel crazy and discouraged when I couldn’t master all of them at once.  Did I forget I was human? 

4.      Aim for grace-filled consistency, not perfection. Many times, the reason we end up failing at our goals is because we aim for the wrong target.  We aim for perfection, when what we ought to be aiming for is something I like to call grace-filled consistency.  Perfection says that we have to get it right every single time.  Hello! This is impossible and leads only to discouragement and eventually, giving up.  On the other hand, grace-filled consistency says to do your best and when you mess up (or eat that second or third donut you said you weren’t going to have), because you will, forgive yourself and keep going.  Covering our resolves in grace is what allows us to not give up and continue to steadily form consistent habit in our lives. I am all about grace these days.  By nature, I am prone to become discouraged, immobilized, or just give up when I don’t meet the expectations I have set in my mind for myself – often times, I confess, due to my own laziness or tendency to become distracted by less important things.  However, even in this, I have to accept God’s grace in my life, allowing it to wash over me, and continue to pursue my goals. The key is to aim towards developing a habit of consistency, not perfectionism.

With these principles in mind, here are my goals/resolutions that I have set for 2012.

Goals for 2012

• Be more active - Exercise at least 3 times a week and lose baby weight by summer time.
• Continue establishing and developing the habit of regular morning, evening, and weekly routines that I began last year in order to continue growing in personal discipline and maintaining a peaceful home. (I realize that I will have to restructure this some when the baby arrives).
• Finish reading the Bible all the way through. (I began last year and will finish it out this year).
• Memorize two Scripture verses a month.

I think these are simple and attainable, challenging me in new areas but also building on new habits that began last year as well.  I also plan on setting one goal or task a month that I want to complete.  My goal for January is to have the nursery set up and organized by the end of the month.

What about you? Have you made any resolutions for this upcoming year?

A Monthly Menu Plan for January

Photo courtesy of Real Simple

Typically, I have been planning out our meals for a week at a time, but this year I am going to try something new and create a basic two-week meal plan that I can repeat at least once.  This way I will have around a month of meals planned at a time, making it a lot simpler on me, and we'll only end up eating the same thing about twice a month.

My plan is is to sit down a few days before the end of each month and map out a different menu for the upcoming month.

For this month, I chose "comfort food" meals for winter that can easily be made into double batches and frozen for later.  Hopefully this will cut down on the amount of cooking I have to do later on in the month.

Our January Meal Plan

Week 1&3

Monday, January 2 - Chicken Tortilla Casserole with a vegetable and salad

• Make two batches and freeze the second for later in the month.
• Additional days: Monday, January 16, 30

Tuesday, January 3 - Shrimp and Black Bean Wraps
                                     with corn, chips and salsa

• Additional days: Tuesday, January 17, 31

Wednesday, January 4 - Leftovers

•  I work on Thursdays, so today is a good day to prepare Sweet Potato and Lentil Stew and refrigerate it for tomorrow.  That way when I get home from work, all I have to do is heat it up.  Make enough to freeze some for later as well.
• Additional days for leftovers: Wednesday, January 11, 18, & 25

Thursday, January 5 - Sweet Potato and Lentil Stew with corn muffins

• Additional days: Sunday, January 8

Friday, January 6 - Homemade Pizza and salad

• Double the dough batches and freeze the extra for later.
• Additional days: Friday, January 20

Saturday, January 7 - Leftovers or Eat Out

• Additional days: Saturday, January 14, 21, & 28

Week 2&4

Monday, January 9 - Spinach and Cheese Enchiladas with rice and beans (adapted from a Real Simple recipe)

• Make a second batch and freeze for later
• Additional days: Tuesday, January 24

 Tuesday, January 10 - Stir Fry

• Make White Chicken Chili on Wednesday, January 11 for the next day and refrigerate.  When I get home from work all I have to do is heat it up. Prepare enough to freeze some for later in the month.

  Thursday, January 12 - White Chicken Chili

• Additional days: Sunday, January 15 & Thursday, January 26

  Friday, January 13 - Apple Cider Chicken (Please try this! It is SO good!)

• Additional days: Friday, January 27

Thursday, January 19 - Homemade Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese (I have a really good recipe for tomato soup that I will be sharing this month.)

• Take extra pizza dough out of the fridge to thaw overnight.
• Additional days: Sunday, January 22

Monday, January 23 - Leftovers for Zach. I will be having dinner at a ladies church event.

• Take extra spinach and cheese enchiladas out of the freezer to thaw for tomorrow evening.

Sunday, January 29 - Something simple. Probably spaghetti or leftovers.

• Take extra chicken tortilla casserole out of the freezer to thaw for tomorrow evening.

Voila! A whole month worth of meals.  I think I'm going to like this system.  Planning out your meals a month at a time and figuring out what ingredients you will need to buy takes a little time to sit down and do, but once you have it done you don't have to think about what you're going to make for dinner for a whole month!  Another perk is you basically have your grocery list finished for the month as well!

I hope you find a recipe on here that you may want to try out yourself!

Happy Monday!