I love the way we started 2020: I went to bed at 8:30 p.m. on New Year's Eve and slept for eight hours (yes!), I went to a morning Orange Theory class, and then we spent the day at home organizing my office and the garage while the boys biked around with friends. I love starting the year with the habits I want to continue. I also potted new succulents for my office since I have a loose tradition of planting something new on New Year's Day.

This is going to be a big year and I'm excited to get it started.

Big things happening in January:

+ Third trimester begins!

+ The boys return to school. I love the holidays but I also really love our school routine and the quiet work hours I get during the day.

+ Trip to Austin with Cedric. I've taken Dash with me on a trip to Austin for the past two years and I wanted to make sure to fit in a trip for Cedric before our baby girl arrives.

+ Chris takes a weekend trip.

January goals:

+ Start an allowance system for the boys. The boys are really interested in money but so far their/our management of it is not systematic. I really like the principles outlined in The Opposite of Spoiled which includes a regular allowance not tied to chores/responsibilities and using three different jars for save, spend, give. To make this easy for us I want to get several weeks worth of allowance from the bank so we aren't scrambling for cash every week. I also ordered these three-part piggy banks (save, spend, give) for the boys.

+ No added sugar challenge. I've mentioned that I loved my month of no added sugar last February as part of my 12 monthly health challenges. Chris and I decided to start the year off by repeating this challenge. I reviewed my post on what I ate during a month of no added sugar to prepare and am already enjoying it.

+ Get the boys' new room and nursery painted.

+ Make mega list of everything we need/need to do before baby and start getting stuff done. Twelve weeks until the due date – it's go time!

+ Start working on our 2019 family photo book.

Recurring monthly goals:

+ Track spending in Mint.

+ Have a budget meeting with Chris.

+ Put phone away at 5 p.m.

Happy January!