Happy Halfway Through February New Year!!  I know, I know, it’s a bit late, but better late than never I say!

If you’ve been following our blog for a while then you know I am a planner.  It is of course pretty much a given then, that I am a big fan of New Year’s Resolutions.  I am definitely a ‘reach for the moon, even if you miss you will still land among the stars’ kinda girl!  I love to set goals for myself and our family and although we don’t always achieve them, I really believe that they give us direction for our year, a plan towards the things that are most important to us at this point in time.

At the start of each new year, Matt and I usually sit down and come up with a ‘Top 5’ goals that we would each like to achieve personally.  We like to have a couple of ‘family goals’ as well.  I then put these up on our whiteboard, so they are there in plain site for us all (even the kids now that they are learning to read) to see them.  The whiteboard also usually has a rolling monthly ‘to do list’ and our weekly meal plan on it.

Our kitchen whiteboard

We went round the table at breakfast on New Year’s Day morning and asked what our New Year’s Resolutions were;

Lexi – “to build a swimming pool for my birthday” (hmm, think we might have to talk about ‘realistic goal setting’ before next year!)

Toby – “to learn how to ride my skateboard without falling off”

Jack – “to read all of the Narnia Books in the series, even the boring ones”

Matt – “to learn how to better deal with things that don’t work or go wrong”

Jess – “to have some time to myself to do something fun before bub comes”

We have really struggled this year though, to find what the Fealy Family focus is. We don’t have any big holidays planned, we’re not really sure what our careers are doing at the moment, we don’t have a clue how a typical farm year plays out so it is tricky to make plans for going away, we aren’t living in our own home so no major renovating is going to happen, and we’ve kind of forgotten what we used to do for fun!

At first, I was really frustrated by this, worried that we had ‘fallen off the wagon’ and weren’t going to achieve anything in 2014.  But, as the first month of the year has gone by already, I’ve come to the realisation that it is ok not to have some major project planned, that this year can just be a year of consolidation.  I’m calling 2014 a Building Block Year.  Sure, not as exciting as the year we had last year, but I think ‘building block’ years are just as important in the scheme of things for the big dreams!  These are the years that lay the foundations for the long term goals to eventuate. This is a head down, bum up, work hard, look around, time out to think and plan, year.  I hope this makes sense to all of you, it does to us!

I did manage to come up with a Top 5 for myself which I am going to share here just so you can hold me accountable (and I can check back and see how I went in 12 months time)!  These are not ‘I’d like to’s or I will try to’s”, these are my ‘I will do’s for 2014!

Jess Top 5 2014

1. Get the trip blogging finished and blog more regularly.  Learn some new blog/writing skills.

2. Get baby nursery organised and baby things purchased and ready to welcome Bub No 4.

3. Re-instate ‘Bell Girls Weekend’ for 2014 (a yearly weekend away with my Mum and sisters)

4. Lose 10 kilos after Bub is born through daily excerise routine (30mins everyday!)

5. Finally print out a photo album of baby photos for each of the kids for their birthday’s.

I’m also going to do this great idea that I saw floating around Facebook at the start of the year;

I love this!

And Our Top 3 Fealy Family Goals 2014

1. No TV during the week

2. One week away camping, with at least two long weekend camping trips.

3. One ‘family only’ outing per month.

I feel better and much more organised already just for putting these up on here!  So, what about you?  Do you make New Year’s Resolution’s or goals for the year?  Put them down below and I’ll check up on you in a year’s time!!

Well, this is quite a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our Blog followers!!  Welcome to 2014, may it be a great year for us all!  One of my New Year’s Resolutions this year is to make the time to blog at least once a week, so, given that it is already the 7th of January, 2014, I had better get a post done today or else I am off to a very rough start!!

I think most of you have heard through the grapevine – aka via Facebook – that the Fealy Family had a very different Christmas this year!  The festive season for us started out with so much promise, of being a great period filled with family time and aspirations for all sorts of Christmas craft, baking, decorating and celebrating …………………………………

On Dec 1, we got a kick start to our Chrissy spirit with some pine cone decorating

Fealy & Johnson kids decorating pine cones

The gorgeous avent stockings Grammy made, went up

Christmas baking got underway with Chrissy cupcakes and reindeer brownies and yum yum balls for the kids class break up parties

Cousin time with the Johnson cousies

And the Campbell cousies came to stay for a week (yes – that is 6 boys and 1 lonesome little girl!)

But then, on Christmas Eve, Jack took a fall off the trampoline (yes – the new trampoline which we had decided to give the kids early so they could use it while all the cousins were visiting, but didn’t get a chance to put the sides up on it yet!) and broke his arm.  He did such a good job of the break, breaking it in two places, which meant after a trip in the ambulance and a night in the Mareeba hospital where they tried unsuccessfully to set his arm, we headed to Cairns early on Christmas morning (another ride in the Ambulance) so Jack could have surgery and some wire installed in his arm to help  it straighten and hopefully heal with no problems!!  Not quite the Christmas we had planned – aaaargh!!  Nevertheless, we made the best of it and were very grateful to our extended families who looked after Lexi and Toby for us over Christmas and made sure they were still thoroughly spoilt and filled with Christmas goodies while Matt and I were at the hospitals with Jack!

6:30pm Christmas Eve sees Jack being loaded into an Ambulance in our backyard

Jack & Mum head off to Mareeba hospital in the ambulance while Dad, Lexi and Toby pack a bag for Mum & Jack, have quick showers, pick up some takeaway for dinner and meet Mum & Jack at the hospital

Christmas Eve in the Mareeba Hospital Emergency room – yep – that’s poor old Tobes asleep on the floor again and Lex asleep in my arms

Jacko, very drugged up in Emergency after the Dr’s had a go at trying to set his arm – no luck!

Christmas morning in Mareeba hospital and Santa has been! (Big thank you to the lovely two nurses who wrapped some donated gifts for Jack and put them at the end of his bed!)

Meanwhile back at home Santa had been there too and Dad sent a photo of our Christmas tree to Mum & Jack in hospital

Then Dad, Toby & Lexi arrived at the hospital to open some pressies with Jack before he headed off to Cairns

Opening pressies

I was so disappointed not to be able to enjoy a quiet Christmas Eve of just our little family at home as it had been a very busy few weeks of mango season craziness and visiting cousins.  We had been looking forward to cracking open our Christmas ham, listening to Carols and wrapping presents.  I was bummed not to see our first ‘real’ Christmas tree which Matt went to so much effort to get for me (the tree is a whole story in itself – but lets just say I may have gone a little ‘crazy, pregnant, hormonal mumma’ over the need to have a real tree this year!) with all the presents underneath it, and I really missed sitting at the table with all the extended family together and eating yummy food.  BUT, it wasn’t all bad.  Matt and I enjoyed the quiet time we got together at the hospital, Jack enjoyed his one on one time with both mum and dad, and we got to see first hand the kindness of others at Christmas time.  Jack received gifts in both hospitals, kindly donated to the children staying there by various community organisations.  A Santa and a group of people singing carols also visited the children’s ward on Christmas day delivering gifts, such a lovely thing to do as all the kids loved it! Matt and I were grateful to the nurses who helped track down a meal for us on Christmas day when we were starving, not having had time for breakfast and then getting to lunch time and waiting for Jack in surgery and realising there was nowhere open on Christmas day for us to buy anything to eat!  We also saw how very lucky we were that Jack ‘only had a broken arm’ when we saw how many very sick and injured children there were in the hospital over Christmas.  In the bed beside Jack was a little boy with two broken arms, so when Jack was feeling sore and sorry for himself we just had to look to the little boy in the other bed!  It was a reality check for us to realise just how lucky we really were!

Back in the ambulance at 7am Christmas morning and off to Cairns Hospital

Waiting to be seen by the surgeon in the emergency department in Cairns – Jack loved his Christmas present from Aunty Kate which keep him amused with one hand!

Waiting to go into the operating theatre

Christmas lunch 2013 for Matt and I while we waited in the ward for Jack to be delivered back to us after his surgery

Jack post surgery

Jack & Matt Christmas night playing with Jack’s lego kit that was delivered by a Santa in hospital

It’s not Christmas until you’ve built some new lego!

Lexi and Toby meanwhile were having a great time!  They spent Christmas Lunch with Grammy & Grunda and the Campbells over at Ma & Pa’s house in Malanda and got to have a swim in the Johnson River to cool off after lunch.  Then, that evening Grandma and Amy came and picked them up and took them up to Ben Avon Station so they could have Christmas Dinner with all of the Johnson Clan – talk about spoilt!  They then spent the next two nights staying at the station and playing with all the cousies up there!  I don’t think they missed mum and dad at all – even though we really missed not being able to spend Christmas with them!

Lexi & Madi – Xmas 2013

Jayde helping Toby build his new lego at the station

Swimming at Station Beach

Girl cousins!

Feeding the horses

Jack was finally allowed out of hospital and able to go home at lunch time on Boxing Day.  He was granted his request of Chinese for lunch before we left Cairns and then we headed home for a quiet afternoon of opening pressies and an early night to bed for a good sleep in our own beds!  The next day we headed off to the Station to pick up Lexi and Toby and say a quick hello to all the family up there before they moved on, a quick stop in to Ravenshoe to see the Campbells and Grammy and Grunda, another quick stop in Atherton to deliver Uncle Jimbo’s presents and then home at last for a small amount of family time before Matt started back in to Mango Madness in the packing shed the next day.

Back home at last to open some pressies

Matt thought it was awesome that he could play with all Jack’s presents without a fight!

Guess who got a ‘gumtree’ new bike for Christmas?

Taking the new bike for a spin!

Yep – Fealy Bub No 4 is definitely growing – no excuses of eating too much Christmas dinner this year!!

So that was our Christmas for 2013.  Definitely one we won’t forget, and a crazy way to end what has been a pretty big year!

How was your Festive Season?  Hope it was a good one!