You make me brave
No fear can hinder now the love that made a way // 
No fear can hinder now the promises you made //
​You make me brave //

this song by Bethel Music inspired my 2017 word of the year. b r a v e.

i want to be brave. 
brave in motherhood. brave in my relationships. brave in my friendships.
brave to stop & let go. brave to run & hold on.
brave to say no. brave to say yes. 
brave in being openly creative. brave in being comfortably introverted. 
brave in my day job. brave in my day dream.
brave in challenging myself. brave in giving myself grace.

2016 was a year of self-identity. being proud of myself, of my body & what it did. being proud that i went back to work full-time even when i didn't want to. recognizing that i was capable of more & that my ideas & creativity were meaningful & purposeful. proud that i took a step of vulnerability & shared with the world my struggles through motherhood. i learned to love unconditionally. i learned how to handle comparison. i told myself it was okay not to please everyone. in summary, i can't say i had many lows, although there were some events i wish didn't occur. but it was a year of peaks & highs & for that i am so satisfied.

ok, now onto the less poetic stuff ;)

aside from my personal reflections for 2017, clint & i sat down together like we did last year & came up with some goals for our family -- all of which conveniently start with the letter "f" so i've been calling them the "four f goals" since last year ;)

faith. we want to take time individually & as a family to read God's Word through daily devotions. we both agree that this will be a top priority, especially reading & praying with eliott. we want to give God our "first fruits" meaning taking the early minutes of our day & instead of checking our phones or rushing to get to work, spend that time with God in prayer & in the Word. we want to continue being dedicated to supporting our good friends' church plant, CenterSet Church. 

family. we committed to spending at least one date night a month just the two of us. in addition, we'd like to carve out some weekly "face-to-face" time just to talk & catch up on life. every year we take one big family trip however this year, we decided to take smaller trips over the weekends & make memories just us three. watching eliott grow so quickly has left us in awe of how time flew. we are definitely thinking of expanding our family & hopefully we will this year.

finances. we've both been very blessed with great jobs & never really had a "tight" budget to follow. however with our growing family, we are slowly feeling our space getting tighter & tighter. our goal would be to purchase a bigger home. even if that doesn't materialize this year, continuing to watch our discretionary spending & keep our savings account growing would be considered a great success.

fitness. so proud of the fitness goals clint & i both hit in 2016. after gaining & losing 30lbs with my pregnancy & clint running his first spartan race, we are ready for new goals. clint wants to run a half marathon & i want to complete a 10k....a 5k would be ok too :) we want to get back to weeknight gym sessions & continue eating healthy but allowing ourselves to enjoy life & eat a "cheat" meal more than we think we are allowed to :)
​
here we go 2017! how about you? any goals? what's your WOTY?