O'Briens win at ALL costs!

This past weekend I attended Time Out for Women in slc w/my mom. I could blog & blog about my renewed thoughts, perspectives, and things attained. I cant say enough good things about this program. But today I thought I would blog about just one concept that was renewed for me.

One of the presenters reminded me of our family motto, by suggesting each family should have a mission statement. We sort of do, though it really has never been formalized. It has come to mean different things to us {especially nate & I} over the years, but we havent really talked about what it means with each other or our kids. I was really inspired to formalize this family motto and discuss it with my family, capture it in our home to remind us more frequently of what our goal is.

So on first impression {especially if you know us, and even more so if you know NATE!} it seems arrogant & competitive, and hardly at all spiritual. We have said this on a regular basis since early marriage, well actually i shouldnt take credit, nate has said it to himself for far longer then even that, its his mission statement and it has become our family motto.

"O'Briens win at all costs!"

I realize that years of saying this to our kids on occasion, could have eluded to extreme expectations on our parts, but .... when we sat down to establish exactly what this means they pleasantly surprised me with at least a little understanding.

What does our family motto mean to you ...

Storie " Doing better then before and working hard"

Stockton "taking first"

Saylor "Be the best player, and you have to pay for it"

Nate "you must be willing to sacrifice everything you can to be the best you can to actually win"

Audrey "you get what you pay for! ... pay the cost to win!"

There are so many things to win, from a spelling test to eternal life, and all the in between. I am looking forward to this christmas putting up our family motto in our house as a reminder of our goal as a family. and what our goal means, i look forward even more the the future family discussions that will surround measuring our success!

So a little call out to my peeps ... first whats your family motto/mission statement? what does it mean to you? And anyone have a great wall art company? Got to design this thing up!!!