It’s the end of the year, which means it’s time to set our 2024 goals! Come along on this journey with us, and we’ll definitely be sharing our progress on our Instagram!

Some of these goals are quite personal, and some of them are missing a little context. We’ve posted them the way they are because we want to be transparent and authentic with you while respecting all others who may be involved with each goal. We’re truly excited for this new year of the Gregorian calendar. (If you’re wondering what we mean with that, we’ll share more in March, when the Hebrew New Year takes place.)

Lets Start Personal

1. We’d love to only travel ONCE to Ontario. This means we’re saving our money, and everyone in Ontario is doing well! Win-win, if you ask us! That being said, we can’t wait to host more of our family and friends in our new province. We’d love to show them what we love about New Brunswick
2. We’ll be celebrating our 15th marriage anniversary this June, and we’d love to celebrate it in a unique way. Good thing we have 6 months to plan it!
3. But let’s first toilet-train our almost 2-year-old! It has its ups and downs, but we can’t wait to be back to having just one baby in diapers.
4. By the end of this year, we’d love to own a vehicle that fits us all (and maybe a big load of groceries as well)!
5. This September, our oldest daughter officially enters high school. We can’t wait to start focusing on her future, whatever that may look like.
6. Grow our homestead – sheep are a high up on our list of 2024 goals!!!

Cooking up a Storm

1. Add to our kitchen, including a dishwasher. Our kids are great dishwashers, but there’s little better than the convenience of a machine that does it all for you (except the putting away).
2. Enjoy one NEW recipe/cuisine every week. Years ago, we did this, and it was so much fun! Our kids have great palates and are willing to eat most things. Within the confines of the Biblical food laws, this will be interesting and so enjoyable.
3. Make ALL our own bread products: tortillas, buns and loaves – even pretzels and waffles! We do this already, because it’s a million times better than (especially organic) store-bought bread. For some reason, just because something is organic means that it has to have a lot of seeds and multigrains in it? Not in our books, and we love an amazing loaf of white bread; soft and freshly baked.

Getting out of our Comfort Zone

1. Grow our @velthoveandco Instagram page to 2000! We’re continually improving our hashtag game, and we are excited to continue being authentic on social media.
2. Create a business email list. This list will be focused on our branding work. We will be sharing education for small businesses. From how they can make the best of their own resources to improve their photography game until they can afford to hire us, to simple social media strategies.
3. Create a personal life update email list. This email will go out bi-weekly and include snippets of our daily lives. We can’t wait to share recipes, menus and fun facts about our family.
4. Capture at least 12 brand shoots, big or small. On average one a month. That seems doable for now, but who knows what the future holds!
5. Finish our brand shoot preparation guide! This will be such a huge help to us and our clients. Let’s ensure that everyone is on the same page about how best and most effectively prepare for working with Velthove & Co. and get the best results.
6. 300 Instagram posts on our @velthoveandco instagram page. This will definitely help towards our Instagram growth goal as well!

Stay Centered in Christ

1. Grow our Sabbath gathering size. Another Torah-observant family has recently moved to our area, which is such an answer to our prayers. We cannot wait to assemble on Sabbaths on a more consistent basis. We’d also like to reach out to others in our area for continual growth in our fellowship and our Torah observant social circle.
2. Dianne is starting to see her lack of Bible knowledge, and one of her main personal 2024 goals will be working on improving that this year. One resource we’ll be using is TorahResource.
3. Something that is on both of our hearts is that we’d like to come to complete forgiveness for wrongs done towards us this past year. There is one that stands out in a big way. It led to our loss of our dear dog Trigger. It’s been hard to come to terms with the measures taken and the final result.
4. Lead with love, in everything we do. Whether it’s parenting or being out and about; we want to be the shining lights that Jesus commands for us to be.

Less Specific, but no Less Impactful

1. We want to continue to grow as parents and educators. No good teacher will say that they’re done learning. We want to learn how to be better leaders. We also love learning alongside our children while using curriculums such as Gather Round and Teaching Textbooks.
2. Working with amazing individuals in the wedding industry on a branding basis sounds incredible; intertwining our two big loves – brand photography and wedding portraiture.

Last, but not Least

1. We haven’t had a full outdoor family session since moving to the East coast. It’s high time that we have our own epic ocean-side family shoot!
2. Now that we do not have a puppy, we’d love to see our flower beds, especially at the front of our home, finished. Currently the grass is thriving, but we need to replant some of the Hydrangeas.
3. We hope to finish our Airbnb basement by the end of the year. This addition will include two bedrooms, a laundry/bathroom and a small sitting area. This will allow us to host larger families/parties and maybe even our own family!

Some of these 2024 goals are a bit scary to share, but we know that getting them on paper increases the likelihood of hitting them by far! Which goal are you most excited about us hitting?

All the images are from our brand-shoot captured by Madison Massey Photography back when Dianne was just pregnant with Lindsey.