Every year I like to go through the previous year’s resolutions to see how I did. I always make goals that are somewhat attainable, so I can try my hardest to work through my yearly to-do list. Let’s see how I did!

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1. Spend 30 minutes a day (at least 4x a week, let’s be reasonable here) doing something productive or organizational around the house – cleaning up the kitchen, doing dishes, folding laundry, sorting mail.

I started off pretty well with this one, and I actually had a cleaning person come to my house twice a month until June! However, after William was born, things have really piled up again. I’m sure my mom is sitting at her computer reading this paragraph and shaking her head, because my house kind of looks like a tornado ran through it right now. I can only try to do better in 2013!

2. Read at least 50 books this year (same as I did last year) – if I hit that, read 75! Additionally, record my reading adventures more on my blog – I’ve been reading so many good books, and want to share them with others.

Not so good! I did make it to 25 books. As it turns out, I was too tired most of the year to read – what with growing a human being and then taking care of baby William once he arrived. I did enjoy the books that I read, though, and discovered some great authors.

3. Finish designing our family photo albums and get them printed. There is no excuse for not having an album from our honeymoon seven years ago. Get caught up before things get busy! Yes, this is a repeat resolution from last year since I feel that I didn’t do well with this.

I did better with this resolution! My anniversary gift to my husband was our honeymoon album! I’m so thrilled to finally have a book of those pictures. I also designed one of our family albums, but I haven’t had a chance to have it printed yet.

4. Maintain a healthy weight during my pregnancy and eat well afterwards in order to drop any excess, hopefully by the end of 2012.

I did this and reached my pre-pregnancy weight by the end of the year! Of course, after having a 2nd child, your body changes even more, so I still have more weight to lose this year!

5. Spend at least one day each month sorting through things to get rid of or donate. I actually started doing this a while ago, but I need to continue, since we are going to be clearing out my office for the new kids’ room and swapping Zachary’s current room with my current office.

I did pretty well with purging things. Not only did I donate a good deal of clothing and items we didn’t use anymore, we also had 2 garage sales at the end of the year! It feels great to trim things down.

6. Be a better blogger. That includes redesigning this blog, too. Another repeated resolution from last year.

This happened! I love my new blog design and I have been trying hard to post at least twice a week or more.

7. Shoot more for myself and capture more details of family life. Capturing my life no matter what format it’s in (DSLR, iPhone, Point & Shoot) is important to me, so while I would LOVE to use my DSLR more often for personal stuff, it’s often more convenient not to. My goal is to just shoot as much as I can, with whatever I have available.

I’ve been doing really well at shooting more, even though most of it happens on Instagram. 🙂 You guys have seen my “Snapshots from a happy life” posts, so you know I have definitely followed through here.

8. Make a concrete plan and to-do list of what needs to be done to get the kids’ new bedroom and my new office finished in a reasonable amount of time BEFORE baby #2 gets here. June is much closer than it seems!

This happened, too! We finished up the office and the bedroom about a month before the baby arrived.

9. Take more time out of each week (or at least each month) to spend on marketing for the business, such as working on my photography blog, business facebook page, or meeting with other vendors. Another repeated resolution. I feel like I could have done a lot more than I did last year, and want to make this a focus as well in 2012.

I didn’t do so well here because I felt so lousy during most of my pregnancy.

10. Start meal planning at least 3 nights per week so we always know what we’re having for dinner – and most importantly, it’s good for us. Have reliable alternates with items that are “in stock” so I can whip something up on tired nights or non-planned nights.

I did great with meal planning, especially in the beginning of 2012! Things tapered off around the end of October – I was just so tired! But I spent the entire year building a great foundation and have started up again this month.

11. Put together a rough schedule for each day, and follow it. Working at home, sometimes it’s easy to slip into taking lots more breaks than you normally would, so I want to have a good idea of what I should be doing at what time, with a goal to stay on track so I can keep up with my backlog.

I ended up not creating a schedule. It just didn’t work well for me. But I’ve been trying hard to manage my time so that I can get everything done without going nuts.

12. Spend lots of time with family and friends, and make more wonderful memories!

I definitely achieved this! While 2012 was a crazy year for me, I did make some amazing memories and spent some wonderful times with my family and friends.

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How did you do in 2012? Were you happy with what you achieved? Overall, I’m pretty pleased with how the year went. It was a challenging year in many ways, but I feel that I did get a lot done (especially since my motto for the year was “Get Things Done”).

Wondering what’s in store for me in 2013? Come back tomorrow to see my 2013 resolutions!