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We have been blessed….

Let me just tell you – amazing babysitters are hard to come by! And there isn’t a thing in the world that makes me want to quit my job more than daycare dilemmas…..one bad day trying to figure out who’s going to watch my kids, and I’m ready to call it quits and stay home (even though I love my job 99% of the time). 

We have been SO, SO blessed for the last almost 4 years to have Cori babysit our kiddos…and Thursday was our last day at Cori’s house.  I think it was harder on me than the kids, although Makenzie has mentioned several times how sad she is that she’s not going to Cori’s anymore.  I’m not really sure Micah understands it all, but I fully expect him to start asking to go to Cori’s in the days to come!  I’ve shed lots of tears over it, and while I know its not really “goodbye”….she and her  family still live in town and I’m sure we’ll still see them.  In fact, Makenzie is already begging to know when she can invite Kenna over.  But, she’s the only “regular” babysitter my kiddos have ever had, and it just isn’t the same knowing that my kiddos won’t be there 3 days per week.  Cori is getting ready to have baby #3 – and I totally understand her decision to not do daycare anymore….but I don’t like it!  

My kids have LOVED Cori’s house – they love Cori, they love playing with her kids, they love her pets, seriously they love everything about Cori’s!  And I have LOVED taking them to Cori’s….never once have I worried about whether or not my kids were being cared for, or whether they were safe, or whether their needs were met while I was at work.  Cori was just that good!

To say we’re going to miss Cori is a definite understatement!  I’m SO SO thankful for the influence she’s had on my kiddos lives and for the blessing she and her family have been to our  family over the last 4 years!  And, I’m thankful we have some vacation time before we have to start our new daycare….I’m not sure I could handle a last day and first day all at once!   

5 x 5 organizing challenge

Thank you Stef, for getting me hooked on this!   I read Stef’s blog in the midst of flipping our house and making New Year’s resolutions, and I thought it was the perfect time to get started!  The idea is to do 5 organizing tasks (i.e. 15 minute tasks that will make your life easier/more organized) per week for 5 weeks.  In case you wanted to know….here are the tasks from last week:

1.)  Finish setting up the guest bedroom.  Part of the “flip” was switching our room upstairs with the guest bedroom downstairs.  We hired movers for this part….they were coming to move a piano anyway, and for $45 they agreed to move all the furniture.  Hallelujah!  Sunday I adjusted all the furniture to the places I wanted it to go, set up all the decorations/photo albums and other miscellaneous stuff that gets stored in the guest bedroom, and put everything in the closet that goes in the closet.  This was way more than a 15 minute project, and I could have broken it down into several days, but both kiddos took a long nap and I actually enjoyed just getting it all done!  Someday you’ll get an “after” picture, but right now the bed is covered in stuff that goes to Texas, so a picture has to wait!

2.)  Organize my recipe book cupboard.  This cupboard had gotten totally out of control –I have a tendency to print off a recipe and throw it in the cupboard until all of a sudden every time I opened the cupboard I literally needed to duck and run because something was going to fall out.  During nap time Tuesday, I gathered up all the lose papers and tucked them into a 3 ring binder, separated by type of recipe, so now I actually have a chance at finding what I’m looking for and there’s no risk of a concussion when you open the door. 

3.)  Take stuff to Goodwill.  This was also a Tuesday project….the new nursery was completely overrun with all the junk I cleaned out of all the closets, so Monday night I quick finished cleaning out my closet and Tuesday morning I loaded the back end and entire passenger front seat with crap and hauled it all to Goodwill.  We have 3 big things that still need to go, but it requires more muscles than I have and Tom’s pickup, so it has to wait for another day…hopefully this week!

4.)  Get the stocking hat and mitten problem under control.  Our coat closet was another disastrous area.  It started out organized with a small tub for hats, gloves, etc….then we outgrew the tub, so I added a second one and separated them into kids and adults….then we outgrew that and things just got thrown on top of the two tubs until it was driving me crazy.  To make it easy, I just separated the kids’ stuff into boys and girls and got them each their own basket…..easy fix, we already had the baskets on hand, it looks SO much better, and they can find their mittens without help from mom! 

5.) Clean out the car.  Not deep cleaning – that’s way more than a 15 minute project, just clean out all the cubbies and trash so we were ready to trade it in.  The kids actually had fun “helping” me on Saturday morning – I put them to work cleaning out the seat pockets by their carseats and I cleaned out all the compartments in the front.  We put everything in a big tote so we could move it easily to the new van when we got it. 

6.)  Make a list of everything that needs to go to Texas with us.  Yes, I’m addicted to lists, and no this didn’t really get my house organized, but it lowered my stress level so I think it counts!

And here are the tasks from this week:  (Note to self, 5  tasks in 5 days is TOO much….thankful that most weeks I’ll have 7 days to get these done!!) 

1.) Pack travel bags for the kids….with a 12+ hour trip in the car, I’ve picked up lots of little surprises for the kiddos for the road, so Sunday I packed each kiddo their own little bag of toys, books, crayons etc for the trip (oh yeah, and dvds since we have a dvd player in the new van!).

2.) Put stuff away in the new van. New van purchased Monday night, everything reloaded on Tuesday morning.

2.) Picked out canisters and ordered them (thank you amazon free shipping!)…..next on the list, cleaning out the flour/sugar cupboard! As nerdy as it may sound, I seriously can’t wait for this! We got canisters as a wedding gift and I’ve literally hated them since we got them –they are too small to hold an entire bag of flour/sugar etc which means I constantly have a bag of flour and a canister of flour in the cupboard, and they’re so skinny its impossible to get a measuring cup in the canister to fill it.

3.) Haul all the junk to the trash that has been sitting in the nursery for two weeks.  I was hoping to get the rest of the stuff to goodwill, but didn’t happen….not something this 6 month pregnant lady can do on her own, it requires hubby’s pickup + hubby’s muscles to load/unload.  I did manage to at least get everything to the garage so the house looks showable (see #5)!  

4.) Finish moving books out of the living room to the new toy room/office.

5.)  Frantically pick up the house because the realtor called Thursday and wants to show the house next week…..seriously, our house is not even listed and just this week, we took down our for sale by owner sign and decided we weren’t even going to try to sell right now.  We’re still probably 18 months from having a finished house to move to, and 3 months from having a baby, and we just flipped the whole house….BUT I can’t resist the prospect of selling, so I spent naptime Friday trying to get this place ready to show! 

And now you know, I’m a dork because I’m blogging about all the crazy things I’m doing to organize my house.   No organizing this week – just hanging out with the family and enjoying 10 days without work! 

These are the days…

Nights like tonight need to happen more often.  It’s been a crazy, hectic week, so Tom and I had decided to stay home from small group.  This weather is MISERABLE – and all I’ve wanted to do since I got out of bed today was put my jammies back on and crawl right back in bed.  

Tonight while we were eating dinner, Makenzie asked what we were going to do tonight.  Usually her question is followed by a suggestion….and most nights she wants to play a game (generally without her brother).  Tonight she said, "I know….we could watch a movie.”  So by 7 pm tonight the kids and I were in our jammies snuggled on the couch ready to watch a movie.  Makenzie’s choice was a mildly obnoxious Leap Frog phonics show on Netflix….but the fact that both kiddos snuggled on the couch with me for a solid 30 minutes made it totally worth it! 

Minivan Mom

Well we did it….we bought a minivan.  And I’m driving it.  I would love to tell you I’m thrilled with it, but that wouldn’t quite be the truth….and no, Tom didn’t make me buy a minivan, this was really probably more my decision than his and I know it was a good decision but that doesn’t mean I’m thrilled about it.  

I LOVED my Hyundai Veracruz, seriously loved.it.  And for 2 kids, it was perfect.  We had the third row seat, so we could fold it down and haul more people or fold it up and have lots of room for strollers, pack n play, luggage, groceries and whatever else we might need to drag with us.  BUT, for 3 kiddos (especially 3 in carseats), it just wasn’t going to work.  We would need to use the 3rd row seat, which posed two problems, (1) it is nearly impossible to crawl into the 3rd row with two carseats in the middle row because you can’t fold the middle seat forward with a carseat in it and (2) with the 3rd row seat in use, we have almost no “trunk” space…we could fit the pack n play and maybe one small suitcase, but certainly not all the stuff we need to travel as a family of 5 (i.e. stroller, pack n play, and seventeen bags). 

In my car hunt, I have literally looked at EVERY type of SUV under the sun trying to avoid a mini-van purchase, but I quickly figured out that our options were basically suburban or minivan (I insisted on having 3rd row seat + the ability to hold lots of luggage).  And that’s where the dilemma started…..

You see, a couple years ago Tom and I were part of a small group that went through Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University.  (Side note and shameless plug for Dave:  We LOVED it!!  If you get the chance to go through this, take it!!)  One of the things Dave Ramsey really pushes is getting rid debt and then staying out of debt….for Tom and I this meant paying of LOTS of student loans, but we also decided that it meant no car loans.  At the time we were both driving paid for cars (thank you to both of our parents for that, we were both still driving our college cars), and we decided that it was important to us to avoid car debt in the future.  Before you start thinking I’m going to get on my soap box and tell you car loans are the devil and you’re a terrible person if you have one, that’s not my intent at all!!  Please please don’t think that’s my point…..truthfully, I don’t see this as being a right/wrong issue….it’s a matter of what works for you and this is what works for us.   Since we went through FPU, we’ve upgraded both our cars…we bought our Hyundai Veracruz in the summer of 2009, found a great deal on Craigslist and paid cash.  Then last summer, we sold my old Saturn and bought Tom a pickup.  Honestly, I love not having to think about car loans –I do all the bill paying around here, and I love that I don’t ever have to think about that particular bill.  But, when the suburban vs. minivan debate started, it became clear very quickly that a suburban was out of the question if we were going to pay cash….that is unless I was going to drive a 1986 suburban, which wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.   Long story short, we’re driving a minivan.  Correction, I’m driving a minivan.   But on a high note –we “upgraded” to heated leather seats AND a dvd player, and I’m not going to lie, I heated my buns all the way home from the  dealership tonight and I’m really looking forward to letting the kids watch movies on our 12+ hour drive to Austin.   Our babysitter told me a couple months ago, you’ll fall in love with the inside and you just have to get over the outside look of a minivan ….I’m thinking this is going to be very true!  The heated seat….love at first try!  

One other high note –we’ve known all along that we got a steal on our Veracruz when we bought it, but that was reinforced tonight when I got MORE for a trade in than what we paid for it  2 1/2 years (and 45,000 miles) ago.  That makes the pain of getting rid of it a little more bearable!  So, here’s to driving a paid for minivan!  

New Year, New Goals

I’m really not one for New Years resolutions….mostly because I’m not sure I’ve ever kept one, usually by March (sometimes January 2nd) the resolutions I made have lost their appeal, life gets busy and the next thing I know its December 31st.  For whatever reason, this year I got a wild idea to set a couple goals for the next year and in an effort to stick with them beyond March, I’m sharing them all with you.

1.  Read more.  I love to read, always have, but since law school started leisure reading has nearly stopped.  Partly (or maybe mostly) a time issue….with 100+ pages of law school reading a day, the last thing I wanted to do when I was done with homework was open another book and by the time I finished law school, I had Makenzie….and let’s face it, life gets busy with babies.  I started reading “The Help” over Christmas—and I’m making myself finish the book before I watch the movie, so that became my motivation for this goal.  With Babe #3 due in April, I also want to be realistic….so my goal is 6 books this year.  I actually already have all 6 picked out…first up, finishing The Help.  (And actually – I started this post almost a week ago, but never posted it….in the mean time I finished The Help and started Made to Crave by Lysa Ter Keurst.)  

2.  Be more strategic with my kiddos.  I feel like too many days go by that don’t really matter….we just do whatever with no real plan.  My goal isn’t to become a crazy control freak, agenda nazi….I fall into that trap easy enough without any goals….the goal is just to do more things “on purpose”—everything from art projects to family devotions to trips to the Children’s Museum. 

3.  Make at least one positive change…..I haven’t pinpointed what this will be, but I feel like life is too crazy right now and something needs to change.  I have a number of thoughts about what this might look like, but this one needs a whole lot more prayer before I make any major decisions. I’ll keep you posted!

4.  Get organized at home.  We’ve already made substantial progress on this goal with just completing the house flip (moving all the bedrooms to the basement to make room for baby #3), which also involved moving (and therefore cleaning out) all the closets!!.  And, a friend of mine, recently started the 5 x 5 organizing challenge and was looking for friends to join her….so I took the challenge and I’ll post more on that later.   Thanks for the motivation Stef!  Check out her blog for more on the challenge –and join us if you want!   

That’s all….I figure 4 goals is enough for now and if I get them all accomplished before the year is up, maybe I’ll just make more resolutions when that happens!   How about you – any goals for the new year?? 

Quick 5

I’m on Day 3 of being home with sick kiddos –and as much as I hate seeing my babies cough their lungs out day after day, I really have loved the extra time home and snuggles that come with having sick kids!  We went to the doctor Monday and she put both kids on zithromax….today we called back in and got some cough medicine, so hopefully they are both on the mend!!  I thought they were getting better yesterday – Makenie’s voice was back and both kids were up and running around again….but I woke up today to both kids coughing like crazy at 5 am. 

You get a really random post today because I’m not sure I have the brain capacity for anything else….so here’s what’s going on at our house:

1.  2+ hour naps are glorious…I’m not even the one taking the nap, but do you know how much I can get done when both kids sleep for over 2 hours???  Yesterday it was 3 batches of Christmas candy and LOTS of laundry, today I’ve been doing work…not fun but has to be done since I haven’t been at work since last Thursday.

2.  Technology is my new best friend today…..I love that I have a job that I really can do from home when necessary.  It’s not as easy as going into my office, but I love being able to get work done via email and appear for court via phone when I need to home with sick kids.

3.  My package from Amazon that was ordered literally WEEKS ago…and delivered to the Holdrege Post office December 9th finally made it to my house today.  Congrats USPS it only took you 12 days to get from downtown to my house….less than a mile!  It only took UPS three days to get it halfway across the country.  Anyone know why UPS is dropping their packages at the post office and having them deliver it??  The UPS guy has been at my door probably 5 times in the last 12 days….wouldn’t it have been easier to deliver this package with all the others instead of leaving it at the post office to get lost for 12 days?  The good news is it’s here and it’s not even Christmas yet!  

4.  I still hate divorces….I have 7 phone messages and 3 emails from ONE client….all dealing with fights she and her soon to be ex are having.  Seriously folks, its Christmas…can’t we just get along for a few days?? Maybe my New Years resolution for 2012 will be NO more divorces! 

5.  I LOVE Christmas shopping with Makenzie – she has been SO much fun this year!!  She was so, so worried about picking out the perfect present for her dad, but we finally found something she’s pleased with….she was a little disappointed when I vetoed the “skinny” jeans she picked out at JCPenney.  She told me, “Dad doesn’t have any nice jeans, I think he needs these.”   I’m not sure she quite grasps styles and sizes yet!  She also picked out the PERFECT present for her little brother and insisted on buying presents for all her little friends.  The kids and I ran to Kearney Friday to finish our Christmas shopping and I was looking for fabric to sew curtains for their new room….I picked out one fabric and Makenzie picked out another one, telling me she really didn’t like the one I had picked out because “it just doesn’t look very good”.  After much debating – she won!  I’m not thrilled with the fabric, but she loves it and its going in her room, so I decided it wasn’t worth the battle!