12 months of Christmas

we encourage the kids to read their scriptures every night.   i read to my blond curls out of the friend magazine every night.   it's a magazine put out by our church for kids.   we read and re-read the articles.   one of the articles we read was this one - my gift to Jesus .   it's about a family tradition for Christmas.   every person decides on a gift they are going o give Jesus.   their gift is being better in something.   the girl in the story choose to be nice to her sister for instance.

i've been really trying to find ways to encourage the kids to be better on a daily basis.   just trying to find better habits for everyone.   i decided that this was a good one to add to our good habits.   i started us on the 12 months of Christmas.   we totally missed january but i think you should start thing when you get there and not wait for a more significant time or a better time.

this is how i decided to do it.   the first sunday of every month, we set our goal for the month.   we write it down and put it in a paper pocket that we put up on our flat tree.   (the kids didn't want to take down our Christmas tree so i figured we might as well put it to use.)   february's pocket was shaped like a heart, march's is a clover, april's will probably be an egg, yada yada.   every sunday, we talk about how we have done on our goals that week.   we write about it in our journals.   (that's another thing i've been trying to encourage.   2 for 1 goals, be nicer and write in your journal!   i am good.)   i figure it helps keep the goal in mind if we talk about it and write about it every week.  we can help each other with our goals this way as well.

this last month, everyone made a little progress.   i think as it becomes more of a habit, it will stick better.   everything is a process.   and, you just have to keep at it.   here we are in the second way of march setting march's goals.   everyone was sick last week so we totally missed everything last week.   you just have to let those set backs go and keep moving forward.  

there ya have the "big plan" at our house.