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After a great week of Christmas, please take a moment to reflect on the 2011 year and both the good and use that as your foundation to 2012. So many times, people focus so much on the negative, that they look past the good things that are happening around them. So, out with 2011 and in with 2012. So what are you going to do different this year? How will this be the best year of your life?

For me, I have a list of goals that I would like to complete, which I will share tomorrow, but I want to be grateful and live for today. I want to live like today were my last, because if something where to happen to me today, I would want all of my family and especially my boys to know how much I love them.

So make 2012 the best year of your life, and from my family to yours, Happy New Year!

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Today was everything that I had hoped. The boys had a great Christmas day, we went to church as a family, we were able to see and spend a lot of time today with family and friends as well. And isn’t that what Christmas is all about?

As I reflect on the year thus far, we have been truly blessed. We have our health, we have two wonderful and healthy boys and we have a wonderful support system.

I am taking the rest of the week off to spend time with the boys and family. So from my family to yours, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Years.

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As I type this out today, I sit with excitement in anticipation of my sons 1st Christmas. The boys will have no memory of tonight. We will take the boys to church tonight for the Christmas Eve Family Service at 5pm, then we will feed them, put them down at 7pm and then I will return to church at 11pm for the late service. The 11pm Christmas Eve service that I started attending when years ago and it is just a tradition that I will continue as long as I live.

And to keep with tradition, I am pretty sure that I’ll be checking on Santa’s progress with NORAD throughout the night, I just never disclose that I am 35 when I email and ask for updates of when Santa will be in our area. I can’t help it, I’m a big kid too. I’ll stay up late watching It’s A Wonderful Life when I return from church after midnight and fall asleep sometime after 3am. A few hours of sleep is all I will need, as I can not wait until Christmas morning and seeing the boys play with new their toys.

From my family to yours, Merry Christmas.

 

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What does the true meaning of Christmas for you? Is it giving gifts or others or receiving gifts? Maybe you are like me and would rather receive nothing, but give to those less fortunate.

I watched the movie about Dax Locke and his mother’s goal of raising $1.7 million dollars to run St. Jude’s for 1 day in Dax’s memory. We are going to contribute, will you? Here is the link to read more about Dax Locke and be sure to get a copy of Matthew West’s song The Heart of Christmas. This movie will change your life.

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My wife and I had been married for 3 years when we found out that we were expecting our little boys. Now going on year 4 of our marriage, we have two little boys, how is our life going to change? What new traditions will we start together as a family of 4 now?

So here is what we have started thus far for our new traditions:
1) Saturday morning breakfast – every Saturday morning, the boys and I get up at 6am, I feed them a bottle and we come downstairs and watch the news together.
2) At our church, which is a Methodist church, we observe communion once a month. Even though we take the boys to the nursery during the service, we do get them and take them to the front of the church for communion. For my wife and I, communion is a very sacred thing and we want our boys to experience that with us, as a family. The boys are too young obviously to partake in communion, but the ministers pray over them as we proceed to take communion.
3) My wife and I alternate the feedings with the boys. Most week nights, we both feed the boys at 6am and at 7pm and then obviously on the weekends, we have them all day, but we alternate feeding the boys each night, so tonight I get one and then the next night, I would feed the other baby. And whoever we feed, we put down to sleep that night.

My wife and I have tried to combine some of the traditions that we had already established and now we are creating new traditions with the boys.

What traditions have you started?

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To help prepare our two boys for their future, we setup a savings account for them at our credit union. To start off, we put $25 a month, per child to open the accounts, but have tried to maintain depositing another $50 per child a month. We have also been able to add about another $200 per due to gifts from their christening at church. This year, instead of gifts from both my grandparents and also my wife’s grandparents, they will be giving them money for Christmas to help with our long term savings goals for the boys.

A few things to consider:
1) Setting up an account at your local credit union. The benefits that I found were: no monthly fees, higher interest rates, and they provide a monthly newsletter, so when the boys get older, they will be able to color the handouts and also learn more about saving money.
2) Ask parents/grandparents for money for your children than a gift, esp. when the children are young. Why get a toy that will have a short life span, when money can grow in interest over the years.
3) You are teaching your children a valuable lesson about money and saving money. Our goal is $50 a month per child, not factoring in interest, gifts from others, etc. So by the time the boys are 18, that will be a nice starting point for the boys.

Hope these help.

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As I’ve stated previously, we are on a budget this year and for years to come. Our financial goals have changed and we have to change with them. We now are trying to pay down debt and save for the boys future, so our view of Christmas shopping had to change as well.  In a day in time where our society is over spending, we decided to take a different approach.

With only 10 days away from Christmas, my wife and I decided that this year we are giving photos of the boys to our immediate family. To save money, we took the photos, had them printed for about $0.10 a piece and then bought frames, which were on sale. Then for the rest of our friends and family, we decided to have people over for dinner one weekend. As we get older, the need to receive a gift lessens and the need to be with friends and family increases.

With this being our boys first Christmas, we have decided to get them a few small things, as we have found out that their grandparents will be getting them the more expensive toys. I think that it is more important to spend less on them this year, when they don’t really understand what Christmas is yet.

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My wife and I are often times amazed at the questions that we are asked while we are out in public. Some of my favorites and in no particular order:

Are they twins?
Did you get them at the bulk asile?
Were they a BOGO (buy one get one)?
Did you use drugs?

I would love to say that these questions are not asked very often, but I would be lying. But, the way that we look at it, is that we were blessed with twins and that it is our responsibility to raise these two boys. Now, we can either laugh off these comments or respond and most times, we just laugh them off, but there are occasion that I do have to run my mouth.

Are they twins? – Nope. We had 1 and then while walking around the block, we saw the other just sitting on a bench by himself and thought, why not?
Did you get them at the bulk asile? – Yep, they were right beside your last two brain cells.
Were they a BOGO (buy one get one)? – Are you really comparing my children to shoes? You have to be kidding me.

Life is short, have fun and don’t take things too seriously.

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