It’s the new year. Wow! That was fast. 2012 was quite good and while trials were experienced, we’re thankful and looking forward to see what will come of the new year and how God will grow us even more. The year for us has already started quite busy as we (Ben) has undertaken the task of planting a backyard orchard culture (more to come on that later) in our yard and I have been working on a few things myself. The big girls got to spend a few days with their Auntie Linda and Uncle John while Ben and I took care of the babies and some other things. We’re all back together now and we’re ready to get back into our routine with school and work tomorrow.

Some learned, links, and thoughts for the new year…

Serve my girls with even more gladness this year. I think I easily get frustrated that I lose the serving with gladness part much too quickly. I am here to serve them, not the other way around, so it’s something I need to improve on.

This post about God will be doing 10,000 things in your life, though you may only be aware of 3.

Love Allison’s post on contentment.

I want to work on memorizing more scripture like this lady. Scripture will help me fight the constant battle within my heart to love God more above all else.

I’m thankful for hobbies such as crafting and blogging. It’s an outlet that I really enjoy and I’m thankful for all the opportunities that have come from it. And really, much of the thanks are to you my readers. Thank you for taking notice and sharing what you like here.

Don’t let useless things rob you of your joy. Stop reading the blog that annoys you (I know it’s hard as I am totally guilty of this! And if you don’t care for this space, don’t waste your time here, please don’t.), don’t sweat the small stuff , and whatever the circumstance, find the fun and engage it.

I had a few other things I wanted to link to, but now I can’t remember. Oh well. I have some new ideas for this space along with continuing along with other things I have already been doing. If you have any suggestions of what you would like to see here, things I could do better, or any other blog thoughts in general, please share.

I’m quite excited about this new year. Last year was full of surprises and I’m sure this new year will be much of the same. Life is just like that though, there are always surprises, good and bad. We’re just six days in, but hello 2013, let’s do this!