Goal Commitments for 2014

Over the weekend, we spent a lot of family time at The Wilderness resort in Wisconsin Dells.  It was a blast and we are spent! I'm so thankful for a job where I get time off at Christmas.  This year, I'm home with my family for two whole weeks.  I'm so looking forward to no alarms the next two weeks, except for Sunday anyway.  While we were there, Hubs and I set aside a few minutes to discuss our goals for 2014 and I'd like to share them with you for inspiration and also accountability!

1. Finish up Baby Step 2 by the end of the year
At this point, we have my 2013 medical bills (thank you FAI surgeries!), Hubs' student loan, and my student loan left.  Current Expected Completion: December

2. Organize garage 
We need to clean it out once again and set up stations with more buckets.  We already have heavy duty shelves all around the garage but we're not using them efficiently.  Need to "pinterest" (c'mon, 10 years ago, Google wasn't a verb either...) some ideas.

3. Career movement
Hubs is looking for a full-time job that will allow for more family time and we are praying for the opportunity of full-time ministry for him.  I would love to start working in the paralegal field.  I completed my certification in May and then had surgery, so that had to be put on hold for the moment.  My first, concrete, short-term goal is to get involved with the IPA in my area for networking and learning opportunities.  

4. Read one book per month
I need to create a list of the books I want to read this year but I'm sure I can easily come up with 12.  Some fiction, some career, some christian living/family books.

So, that's it.  We re-joined the gym today and plan to get there as much as possible, but I don't want to box myself into a fitness goal because I will just fail at it and get discouraged, though fitness and better-eating is a large part of our ongoing plan/lifestyle. 

In December, we cut our eating out by about 65% and it really didn't feel all that painful, so I'd like to keep on that trend for 2014.  Planning our meals for the month and being intentional about our schedule will help quite a bit, but eating at home is part of our healthy lifestyle, too, and will certainly help with our financial goals. 

Do you guys have any plans/goals for 2014? 

Christmas Decor

Since Thanksgiving was so late this year, I decided to put up my tree the weekend before Thanksgiving, the week I normally put it up.  So, I dragged everything from the top storage rack in the garage which was a feat in istelf considering how stuffed our garage is on the "main floor".  I couldn't get the ladder close enough to the bag o' tree, so I had to step up past the warning label of DO NOT STEP HERE OR YOU WILL SURELY DIE. And I had to use some stick-like apparatus to grab the bag's handle to get it close enough to me.  After letting everything drop from the top level to the floor, I got down and pulled everything into the house. 

Before I could even start putting up the tree, I had to remove one of the end tables and all the piles of books and extra bags (we seem to acquire a new tote bag every time we leave our house!) and straggling toys that were caught underneath.  When I was finally done with all that, I plugged in our meager pre-lit tree and zero lights were working.  They were all burned out.  I wasn't too surprised because we've had the tree for several years. 

I put a string of the outdoor garland with large, colored lights on the tree hoping to fill in the gaps between branches (I did say meager, didn't I?).  After I wrapped it all the way around, painstakingly ensuring that it was even and trying to be patient with my five-year-old who was "helping", I plugged it in.  About 50% of the lights were working.  Yahoo, that's improvement! 

So, I ended up taking it off altogether and tossing them in the trash.  Let's face it.  They're outdoor lights, for OUTSIDE the house, and we all know that's not going to happen with how our schedules work out normally.  So, they were tossed.  I vowed to hit Menards the next day and get lights.

Well, I did get the lights and I even bought a few extra strings to put up in the front windows.  But it still took me a few days before we got the lights on.  In the meantime, the kids were oh-so-impatiently waiting for the ornaments to be hung and I kept catching them opening the ornament box and trying to hang them up.  One night, I was watching my friends' kids that are close to my kids' ages and they just love playing together.  They were in the playroom playing with music stuff and cars and superheroes, just having a grand ol' time.  I walked to my bedroom for about a minute and when I come back, they're all at the tree trying to hang up the ornaments! LOL!!  The youngest one was bouncing the ornament bulbs on the floor, probably expecting it to bounce back to him like a ball. 

It's a great thing that I'm too cheap to buy nice, glass ornaments because that would've been a fun trip to the E.R.  It was pretty funny, though, and I would've loved help putting them up but I had to wait for the lights to be up first, so I just thought it would be such a waste to do double work.

Finally, we had the lights on and Benji helped me with the ornaments while the little kids were in bed.  But it still took me a couple more days to get all the other clutter out of there so the tree could have elbow room and not have to share the limelight with my dusty junk.

The meager tree in all its glory



We've been reading The Advent Book before bed most nights

The boys love opening the doors on each page of the Advent book every night.  I'll show some photos of the pages in another post. 

Our "mantel" (the shelf above the TV) was still decorated with pumpkins and gourds:

So, I threw them out and packed up the rest of the decorations.  Here's how it looks now with the Disney ornaments that my grandma had for a few decades (at least) on a "photo" tree I won at a white elephant exchange last year:

Aren't they cute??

After I took these photos, I received some awesome-smelling cinnamon
potpurri in the form of pine cones and decorative balls, so I stuck those in here too.

After having read the first half of this post, I'm sure you're thinking to yourself, Wow, the quality of these photos could not POSSIBLY get worse!! Well, you were wrong!  Don't worry, it happens to most all of you us.

This is our front entryway area.  I put some decorative stones in the bottom of the hurricane and filled it 3/4 of the way with water.  Then, I gently put the candle on top.  I looks cute in person.  Just pretend like you can tell from these horrid photos.

I tried. I really did. I even put new batteries in our Canon, but it just will not power up for some reason, so I'm afraid we're stuck with these blue-tinted android photos. Boo!

But, I won't let that ruin our Christmas cheer!  This weekend, we had snow, so the kids and I went outside and played in it and shoveled the driveway.  They insisted in cleaning off my car (I promise!! Don't call the Child Labor Department!):



What a fun effect - Is my camera doing this or is Blogger adding it for me??



We didn't get any pictures of us playing but I did shoot a short video of when we first went outside.

The Aftermath - I love this mess

By the time this post is published, we will be on our way home from what looks to be an awesome weekend at the Dells with our family and some good friends.  I'm so excited to be together for a whole weekend without having to rush around to do anything.   Hubs has been working nights the past two weeks, so we're both exhausted! Speaking of, let me just give a quick shout out to all you single parents out there.  Raising kids is hard enough with two parents but to have to be on call 24/7 with no relief (except to go to your job during the day) is a major challenge physically, emotionally, and mentally.   So, props to you, single mom, single dad.  You are a great blessing to your kids every single day!

Merry Christmas everyone!

4th Quarter Goals Update

I forgot to do a 3rd quarter update since I was in the middle of recovering from my second surgery at the time.  So, here's a recap for the entire year with a couple updated notes to cover the gap between July and December.

ORIGINAL GOALS FOR 2013

1. Get Hubs fundraised to 70% of budget - This has changed as he has stepped down from the ministry for which he needed to fundraise. Now he is looking for a full-time or part-time at night position to accompany his children's ministry position. Praying for this one! The update here is that he has found a full-time position that allows us to maximize our time with the kids, even if we have to be apart.  Still praying for the children's director position to become full-time but that is more of a long-term look right now.

2. Pay off credit card and NE - Ggy - Credit card was paid off a few months ago and then it got used again and is now paid off again. I am having a hard time cutting this one up for some reason. NE - Ggy will be on hold until Hubs gets into his new position. Then we can resume the baby steps. The credit card has been up and down again over the past few months with me being off work due to surgeries and Hubs not working, but he started working in November and we'll be on our way once again with Baby Step 2, so right now the credit card will be paid off inJanuary and Hubs' student loan in June.  Then, all we will have left is my student loan, which will be done (hopefully) in December.

3. Lose the last 15 pounds and maintain. Workout twice per week - I forgot how quickly time passes when you aren't paying attention. I thought I had plenty of time before summer to lose the last 15 since I lost the 45 so easily, thanks to breastfeeding. Well, since that slowed down and is now over as of Calah's birthday, I have gained about 10 back, and in the past two weeks, I lost 2, so now I have a total of 23 pounds to go. Still not too bad and I have been tracking my food for the past two weeks and it really seems to help with the motivation. We played volleyball this spring and we went to practice most weeks. Plus I walk 1-2 times/day at work for 15 minutes and everything I do at home is a workout (Read: 3 kids 5 & under are a lot of work). With the recent development of my hip problems, I hesitate to workout because I don't want to do any further damage. Once we figure out a game plan, I will feel a lot better about my level of activity. The last update was pre-surgery, so obviously things have changed with this one.  But, I stayed up on my foot (and then later, FEET) as much as I could stand (pun intended) and tried to stay active through both surgeries.  But, I have gained probably another 10 lbs, so I'm looking at approx 30 lbs to lose to get to my ideal weight.  Now that Hubs is working again, we can re-join a gym, and we plan to do so in the next week so that I can start working out during Christmas shutdown the last two weeks of December.

4. Meal-plan for the month ahead of time - I was doing SO WELL with this one until one day, I left my planner at home and it sat there for over a month. I am working on a plan to improve our grocery shopping/meal plan organization system so I will update this one once the system is in place and working. I found it easier to do one week at a time so that I can write out the shopping list and get supplies for just that week, so I started doing that this past week and already have every meal, including snacks, written out for next week along with my shopping list.

5. Get the house short sold and move to a bigger place to rent - Wow, was it really not that long ago that we were in this place mentally and emotionally, not to mention financially? I have talked a lot lately about how much our situation is the same as it has been for the past year but I just have so much more peace and feel content to stay in our home, as small as it is, and as old/breaking down as it is. Thank you Lord for perspective and always providing what we need not necessarily what we want lest we become totally self-absorbed.  Our contentment has continued in this area, but we do have some repairs that need to be done very soon as well as some small aesthetic things to do.  Eventually, we will need to do a bathroom overhaul as well.  I'm hoping that we can move in two years.

6. Live simpler. Purge items, organize. Work on one room at a time - We have done a lot in this area with Projectpalooza and I know you guys are still waiting for updates and photos on that. I will get there, I promise!!! We have donated a TON of old books, clothes, baby stuff, and even furniture in the past few months and are setting our focus on the garage next.  Every week, I am tackling a small pile, stack, or black hole in our home and have been purging and re-organizing things constantly.  Still a long way to go, but I feel like we're in an overall good place with this right now.  I just keep chipping away at the clutter and actually feel like I'm winning!

7. Build family emergency kits by 2/1/13 - Keep forgetting about this one but I think this will go along with our next project. Details to come later! We updated the fire extinguishers this year and replaced the carbon monoxide detector last week.  We have not put together any kits, though.  I feel like this one will need some other pre-work if we want to get them put together.

So, these are my 2013 updates.  Overall, I think we did fairly well with all the changes that came our way.  Time to brainstorm some new goals for 2014 and maybe carry a few from this year to next as well.

I'd love to hear some of your goals for this year! I need some inspiration!

Projectpalooza UPDATE

Benji often takes my phone and snaps photos all around the house.  As I was looking through my photos one day, I saw these two that he took.  This is our playroom and this is the closest I have come to posting an update on Projectpalooza since May, so I thought I'd at least show you what I had at this point.  There are so many things that I like about this room and it's really hard to see them in these two photos taken by a five year old.

1. IKEA's Expedit shelf - You can see the dark shelving unit on the left, especially in the second picture. We bought six cloth drawers from IKEA to fit in this unit and the other, smaller Expedit unit seen on the right side of the top photo.


We ended up moving the smaller shelf to the position you see it in and putting all of the toy cars (small and medium sized) in orange milk crates we had at the house. CAUTION: I noticed the other day that there are some small scratches on that shelf from the milk crates being pulled in and out. Probably because there are 200+ metal cars in them and they pack some weight!

2. Foam floor mats - We have hard floors throughout our home, so it's nice for the kids to have one softer surface to play on. Also, these don't seem to get as dirty so quickly, but I do try to sweep once per week and then either mop or get on hands and knees with disinfectant wipes every once in a while. Mopping on this textured floor is difficult! Also, if the kids spill or decide to draw on the floor or rip them, they are easily and inexpensively replaced. No, my kids have never done anything like this; they are 100% angelic. Why do you ask?

3. All of their toys have a home and in one place.  We never had that before we converted this room.  The toys were split between their bedroom and the living room.  But, things got lost under beds, dressers, and behind couches all the time.  It was nearly impossible to find all the pieces to a game or a puzzle quickly.  With everything on shelves in one room, the kids know exactly where everything goes easily and their things (usually) get put back where they belong before naptime and then again before bedtime.

4.  Books -  You can't see it in these photos, but on top of the Expedit shelf, we have all the kids' books standing upright, in a row, so they can easily see which book they are grabbing.  I recently did some re-arranging of furniture (impromptu, as always!) and had to take down their book shelf so Calah's crib could fit on that wall.  I put this rolling 3-drawer unit in their room and filled it with their games and puzzles (on the right in the pic below):

My next step is to get the shelf cut in half and put up in this corner and place the extra books that won't fit in the playroom on this shelf.  With our Christmas decorations up, I had to move one of the end tables and a lamp into the kids' room.  I also brought Benji's Cracker Barrell rocker (that we got at a garage sale for $10!) into the room and put it where that laundry basket is in the picture above.  I also brought in their little papasan chair, so now they will have a space to read in their room when they need a "chill out" time.

Needs:

I'm not done with the playroom yet, but we have made a lot of progress in the past few months between other projects, events, and other activities. 

1. A place for art supplies. I do have some organization supplies that were purchased with art supplies in mind.  But, I have three problems.  I don't know where to put them at this point.  I don't know where to put them that Calah and Jo won't just make a complete mess of them every five seconds.  And we have a very small, fold-down table in the living room where the kids eat (part of the sacrifice we made when we moved the toys into the dining room), so they'd have to carry the art supplies to the living room and there's not a whole lot of space for creativity.  The floor is NOT an option with an 18-month old in the house.  I'm strill trying to figure that one out.

2.  Wall art. I have two pieces of art that need to be hung and would like to get some stenciling words up on the wall, too.

3. New labels for some buckets and labels in general for others.  I made my own labels with pictures for the buckets on the Backyardigans bucket shelf (you can see a tiny corner of a pink bucket on this shelf in the first picture on the near right) but some of those labels have been torn off.  And I need to make some labels for the cloth drawers that will stay on but not ruin them if I want to remove them.

I tried to get some pictures with our Canon the other day and even with new batteries, it kept saying battery low and shut off, so I don't know if it's dying on me or if it can be fixed. Once I figure that out, I can take some good photos.  My android is not the best - as you can tell by looking at 99% of the pictures on my blog.  They have a blue hue and are blurry.  I have reset the settings to the default and it helped a little but it's still not great.  

Hopefully, I'll be able to send another update to our progress before another several months pass by.  Thanks for being so patient with me!

Annual Trip(s) to the Pumpkin Farm

Every fall, we, like most people, go to the pumpkin farm once or twice.  Our family only participates in the "free" portions of the farm, but this year, our church was putting together an outing and I figured I would bring some cash in case the boys wanted to ride the train with some friends or do the corn maze.  But, once again, they had so much fun playing on/in the bales of hay and all the play structures this farm has, we ended up leaving without having purchased any tickets to anything.  We did let them pick out a small toy in the gift shop, though.  They picked out these soft plastic animals that you squeeze to make the eyes pop out. 

It was a great day overall, though I could've done without the bee infestation that day.  They were just everywhere and tomboy might I be, I HATE bugs and especially bees.  So, I was running and making a fuss like a big baby.  And I may or may not have swung my 17 month old in circles trying to get her away from the ever-persistent bee trying to attack her. 

Our family also went on the first weekend of the season (the last weekend of September).  It was still very nice outside then, as you can tell by the summer wear my kids are sporting.

Photos from the first visit:



Hubs trying to coax Josiah down the "hot" slide - what a problem
to have in late September!

 These pictures were Jo's idea.  Benji was in time out at the time, so he is missing.  They just do NOT get how picture-taking works.  You're supposed to sit, posed perfectly, with that million-dollar smile until mom has taken that Facebook-worthy shot, dontchaknow!
 

  
 

Man, she's cute!

Biggest brother going down the slide with Calah

Hubs looks like a security guard here - He's keeping this fire truck secure!!

A smile - way less intimidating :)

These are the photos we took during the second visit, about two weeks later:

We spent almost an hour at the hay bales - they were climbing up and jumping off, over and over.  Who knew straw could be so entertaining?

This was funny because he was just tall enough to see
over this section, so all you could see was his head.

Jo, in action

Petting Zoo Section

This farm has a small area with farm animals to visit and pet/feed.  Calah was obsessed with the chickens this time, for some reason.  She kept trying to pet them, but thankfully they wouldn't come near her!

Annual shot by the animal board - I should put
all of them together to see the progression

Photos by the pumpkins, Take 2:

This time, we were able to get all three kids in the shot and actually got a couple of cute ones, so I was tres happy.



This look is classic Jo! WhachutalkinboutWillis??



This is a fun thing that my phone does when I take several pictures close together

I'm always sad when summer is over but the anticipation of going to the pumpkin farm always quells some of the fall blues.  We always have a good time and it's free/cheap!