A Glance Back to Focus on the Road Ahead

Our family had declared 2019 as the year of growth. We set some specific goals at the beginning of the year. Near the end of 2019 we sat together as a family to review what we set out to do and if we accomplished what we hoped to do. We all agreed we started out fairly well on our meeting the specific ways we hoped to grow in our lives. However, until the end of the year, if the goal hadn't changed into a habit, it likely fell to the wayside.

Even though we didn't accomplish everything we set out to in 2019, it's safe to say that adding Heidi to our family made all of us grow in completely new and unexpected ways. Heidi has taught the other seven Hesses to be more selfless, more patient, more compassionate, more understanding. We have to continually put her needs above our own.

This has looked different for each of us, but some specific ways we have adjusted are: Anne took over reading the school lessons in the afternoon (and I am SO glad we're in a good place for the start of 2020 where I've been able to start teaching again!). Abbey has set aside her own for-fun books and gotten Heidi up from naps, changed diapers, and helped with dinner. Maggie has a special knack for making Heidi break into gales of laughter. Caroline will drop anything she is doing to sing to Heidi and help me rock her to sleep. Ruth has willingly released her slot as “baby” for her preferred status of “big sister”. Ruth rarely complains that Heidi takes so much of my attention and has gotten involved with Heidi's therapies and encourages her to do all the new things (walk, climb the stairs, don't hit yourself) and has even provided the nickname we all started using; Heidi Boo-Boo.

I know all the cool kids are calling this year, 2020, the year of vision or the year of perfect vision as a play on 20/20 vision. I haven't been a cool kid for a long time so our family is taking a different track for the year.

My original idea was something along the lines of “2020, the year we don't do anything new” or “2020, the year where get lots of sleep”. Of course, when raising a family, you'll never have a year where nothing changes. Children, by their very nature, are constantly growing, learning, and changing. And of course, I want to see those things happen, especially for Heidi in her first year home.

As Trent and I discussed what we hoped to see happen in 2020, we realized what we hope our family can learn is to change some habits to create in our minds a constant state of thankfulness. We have dubbed 2020 to be the year of gratitude. 

I've purchased some inexpensive journals for each of the kids to keep track of three things per day that they are grateful for. It is my hope that as they go throughout the day they'll make mental notes of something that happened or an instance which made them grateful.

“...godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and neither can we carry anything out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.” 1 Timothy 6:6-8

Practicing gratitude leads to contentment. While we have plans of some projects we would like to accomplish this year, if they don't happen it is my hope that we will not be continually striving for more and more worldly things and instead be content with our food and clothing. In an effort to raise children who are not spoiled by all we could give them in terms of possessions, we hope our whole family can show a testimony to the world that contentment and joy come not from what we have but Who we know.

“Give thanks to the LORD and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done.” Psalm 105:1

Hello 2019, Goodbye 2018

Earlier this week we said goodbye to 2018, the year of generosity.

I mentioned previously that the year started out with much excitement and anticipation. Our focus was not on the dollar amount given, but on showing the act of giving to our children.

Then in June we started our second adoption. While we were still giving, our focus changed more to acts of service than items or money given in order to save as much as possible towards bringing sister six home from China.

And then, the most incredible thing happened. Our year of giving generously turned into receiving the generosity of others. It has been extraordinarily humbling. Many people have donated their hard earned dollars toward helping change the life of a little girl we haven't met yet. The fact that our friends and family deem us worthy of receiving their funds is truly humbling. Not a single person has given in a way to bring glory to themselves.

Matthew 6:1-4 says

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

It is my earnest prayer that those who have given so freely to our family will receive even more than they have given (on Earth and in Heaven). That has certainly been the case for our family in 2018. 

We then welcomed a new year, 2019, the year of growth. 

Each child has set their own goals for areas of growth this year in three categories, Spiritual, Mental, and Physical. They considered these things on their own and came up with their unique goals. Some of them really surprised me in their intensity. While I don't think their goals all fit perfectly with the category title, it was still something they felt strongly enough about that I decided it wasn't necessary to change them.

Anne made up nice little papers for each person in the family to write their goals, so here we all are!

Mama: (that's me! haha!)
Spiritual: Read the Bible in a year again, Bible Studies at Change of Pace, and Self-Control with reading books (this last one may seem weird but I struggled at the end of 2018 and found reading books on my device extremely addictive. I deleted the BookBub app off my phone to help curb the instinctual picking up of the phone and reading....)

Physical: Exercise 2-4 times per week (not for weight gain/loss, but just to be more healthy). And just three days into the New Year and I have already injured my back from running on the treadmill so I think I'll stick to fast walking on my treadmill days. I have Scoliosis and tend to have back/rib/shoulder/and wrist pain as a result of the curve in my spine. However, the physical therapist I saw last year for a shoulder injury was telling me if my core and back were stronger I wouldn't have as much pain. So late in 2018 when I was having rib pain again I started joining my sister about two times per week at the gym. I'm hopeful to keep it up as a lifestyle change.

Mental: I want to learn to farm lavender and plant several rows this spring.

Anne: age 11
Spiritual: Self-Control and Kindness
Physical: Work at getting better at softball
Mental: Read the Bible more and try to learn more Chinese

Abbey: age 9Spiritual: Obeying mom and dad without complainingPhysical: How to spend money wiselyMental: Learn more about the Bible. Read the Bible in 1-year

Maggie: age 8

Spiritual: controlling my temper
Physical: growing better at soccer
Mental: how to do division

Carrie: age 5

Spiritual: niceness (she desperately wanted our word of the year to be "Niceness")

Physical: coloring (I guess this is fine motor skills, right?)

Mental: Math

Ruth: age 3 // we helped pick her goals ;) 

Spiritual: Self-control, especially the volume of her voice, especially when angry

Physical: Eat and drink enough to grow bigger and bigger

Mental: speak more clearly and learn to read

Dad:
Spiritual: do an in-depth study on what the Bible says about salvation/heaven
Physical: run on the treadmill or outside 2x per week
Mental: Learn, research and scout for deer hunting spots to help Anne and I hunt deer in November.

Do you guys choose a word of the year? How do you manage to stay on top of your goals throughout the year? 

The Year of....

SELF-CONTROL.

Each year we choose a word to focus on as a family.

We have decided 2017 will be the Year of Self-Control. This was Abbey's idea. I liked it because self-control can look like a lot of different things.

A big one in our home full of girls is self-control of our emotions. This will likely be the way most of our children (and let's be honest, me) will place our focus this year.

But Self-Control can also look like a lot of other things:
FOOD
-the way we eat
-what we eat
-how much we eat
MONEY
-the way we spend money
-what we spend money on
-how much money we spend
TIME
-the way we spend our time
-what we do with our time
-how much time we spend on certain things

The list can go on, but Emotions, Food, Money, and Time are the four areas I want to try to focus on most in 2017. In general, on a personal level, I don't struggle terribly with food or really even too much with money. I tend to lean towards being conservative in many aspects of my life (other than having children. Give me all the babies).

I was inspired by a friend to not buy any clothes for a year (read her blog or buy her little book on how to do it at Green Chair Stories). Trent is also a rather conservative guy, and doesn't enjoy too much that would be considered "extreme". I am personally going to attempt in 2017 not to buy any clothes for myself for the whole year. The only exception I am going to make is while we are in China, I may buy a traditional Chinese outfit for myself because who can say if I'll go back to China any time soon? It has been interesting, even just in January, how I realized that I have become an impulse shopper because shopping online is SO easy. It has been really good for me to be more self-aware of the way I spend time scrolling through online shops and purchasing a couple things because they are cute.

The girls will certainly be working on self-control in it's most basic form. Emotions. Each of our girls struggle in their own way. Most commonly we see frustration boil over into tears, or quickly lashing out at another sister, or running out of the room crying, or anger. I plan to be very intentional on helping them through those things this year, mostly with prayer and calming techniques.

Obviously this year will look very different in a couple months. We will be adding a fifth daughter to the mix, she will be having surgery, and we will all be adjusting. I am thankful that we have a another two to three months to work with the oldest four girls before we bring Ruth home and begin a whole new adjustment period. I'm sure it will give the girls time to practice their newfound skills as we all work to show each other grace and understanding.

I hope 2017 will be a fantastic year for you all! Looking forward to another year of blogging!

 

The Year of Hope

Do you all participate in "One Little Word"?? I honestly didn't even know this was a thing until recently, although my husband, girls and I have been doing this for several years now.

We have declared 2016 to be "The Year of Hope".

I'm excited to share more with you all in the coming weeks and months as to just what this word means to our family.

In the meantime I painted this cute little sign and thought how fun this would be to offer at a really low price for all of you fine friends of mine. It's available now here in my Etsy shop.

 

I can't wait to hear what word your family chooses to think about this year. As noted previously, I'm not really "fully open" for custom orders until the end of January, but I consider this a "soft opening" for a very simple yet important word for each of you.

 

If you need the link again: here it is! Mama Hess Painting's Etsy Shop!!