Avoiding a Toy Takeover

I feel like I really don't have a lot to say, which means life must be going well, right?  When I don't have time to post, life is chaotic and busy and stressful.  I'll take this as a good sign!

A funny story:

Laura was sitting on the bed one morning this week waiting while we all finished getting ready before we headed downstairs.  She had one of the kids' toy phones.  She pretended it was ringing and answered it, "Hello, Dot the i Creative.  How can I help you?"  "Yes, .....well, that sounds like a construction thing.  I can get you a picture though!"  Hilarious.  She probably has heard Matt answer the phone a million times, but it was her own imagination that someone was asking for something construction.  So cute. 

In an effort to manage the overflow of toys that is constantly trying to take us over, we moved a large number of the toys up to the nursery (since it is vacant for the moment) and made it into a quasi playroom.  The girls LOVE it.  And I have to give credit where credit is due.  It was my lovely mom's idea.  I wasn't sure at first because I went through a phase when I didn't want toys in the upstairs.  We have toys in our basement, and we have toys in our living room on the first floor.  So I just wanted a floor with no toys. And if you've been reading this blog, at one time I managed to get all of the living room toys in our toy closet.  But once again, they had taken over the living room, and it was such a fight to keep it clean and hence, to keep our sanity.  So we moved the Barbie dream house, the Doc McStuffins stuff, the kitchen, and all the baby doll stuff all up stairs.  Pretty much everything that was out on the floor got moved upstairs.  We still have toys in the toy closet, which I'm fine keeping there, but it does feel much better in the living room.  The experiment will be to observe whether they drag toys downstairs constantly or leave them up in the play room.  We shall see!

Wanna know some things we had for dinner this week?  It was kind of a soup week.  We had chili and vegetable soup (and chili for leftovers one night).  We also had a vegetable macaroni and cheese that the kids did not like and attempted to make me promise we wouldn't have again.  I say "attempted" because they have to eat what I make or what my mom makes.  That's the rule.  We also had tacos last night, which they loved.  On the menu for next week: meatloaf, honey glazed chicken, salmon, and probably some more soup to fill in the gaps.  It's winter after all, and soup is warm and yummy.

Highlight of the weekend: Aunt Ellen came over to play!

A riveting game of Operation!

Day Off and Big Victories

Did you all have a nice MLK Day?  We certainly did.  We played games and puzzles and played outside and generally enjoyed our extra day off from work and school.  I did laundry and cooked and cleaned, and Matt worked too.  All relaxed and ready for another crazy week.  Hopefully Mother Nature will cooperate, but I'm not counting on it.


I had successes and failures with regard to my resolutions last week.  We are doing fine with budget, and we did well in the cooking department too.  We had pot roast in the crock pot, chicken noodle soup, and some yummy pork chops to name a few of our meals.  I did not exercise nearly as much as I should have.  I blame the Buckeyes game throwing off my whole week's schedule.  But if there was ever an excuse... How about that game??!!!  It was so so so AWESOME.  Ok.  I digress.  I did some resistance exercises a couple of times, and that was it last week.  But we start again this week, right?  And today I did play basketball with Laura and take the girls on a walk around the neighborhood.  So I think that counts.

And our big victory of the last week and half.....wait for it.....EMMA IS POTTY TRAINED!!!  WOO HOO!!!!  Yes, we are very excited about it.  This is the second weekend in a row that I have not bought diapers at the store - in seven years.  So that is a huge accomplishment, for Emma that is.  She is quite proud.  I will say that she has also eaten a record number of fruit snacks in the last several weeks , but hey, compromises. 

Not much else going on here.  Have a nice week All!


P.S. Did I mention that Matt was in Dallas for the game last week?  Yea, Lucky Dog.

Buddies brushing teeth - H&E

Resolutions

How are you all doing on your resolutions 11 days into the new year?  I have read about a million blog posts and articles about resolutions.  Some give strategies about making resolutions or keeping them.  Others say we should avoid them altogether and have mantras instead.  That seems a little crunchy or goofy to me.  But to each his own.  I made resolutions this year and decided to share.  1.  Get healthier.  2.  Cook more.  3.  Pay down debt.  Not necessarily in that order.  Actually I would say number three is the most important.  And all three of my goals this year work together.  The more I cook, the less we will eat out, and the more money we'll have to pay down debt.  Also presumably, I'll cook healthier food than restaurants, and it will help me to get healthier too.  So it might be cheating that my goals are all connected, but it will also give them more teeth.  I'm either going to succeed big or fail big! 

One week in I'm doing pretty good and still feeling upbeat about them, so I think that's success.  Usually I've quit by now :)  Here's what I've (we've) done so far to ensure that we are successful this year:

1.  I worked the budget this year much tighter than I normally do.  I am spreadsheet gal, and so I get some kind of weird enjoyment out of crunching numbers and running scenarios.  I tell Matt that it's my "artwork."  I ran a year long scenario based on last year's expenses showing results if we execute on our plan this year.  I think the results motivated both us to commit to the plan.  I was initially motivated by Jenny at Mama Needs Coffee.   Like Jenny, we also took Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace several years ago but have never been gazelle intense about it.  And we won't be debt-free in 15 months like Jenny, but more discipline in our lives cannot be anything but good.

2.  Meal planning has become a normal part of the schedule.  I actually started this to some degree last year.  And I did cook more last year than the previous, but I am going to be much more vigilant about it in 2015.  I know that there will be nights that I just don't feel like cooking, and those nights we are probably going to eat cereal or sandwiches.  I also have a huge advantage - my mom is here two days a week, and she cooks.  I know how awesome that is, and I do not take it for granted.  So that means if I can cook three other days during the week, then we can eat leftovers one day and cereal/sandwiches/soup/whatever another day.  It's really quite doable.  No excuses.

A big part of meal planning is recipe hunting.  I have finally acquired a group of recipes that I like (they aren't organized!), and I'm constantly hunting new ones.  My kids hate it when I try a new recipe!  But they like it when I cook something good.  I get recipes from a myriad of places.  I mentioned on here before that Southern Living's Easy Weeknight Favorites is one of my favorite cookbooks.  I also get emails from My Fitness Pal, and I find recipes in magazines like Real Simple.  Really anywhere and everywhere.  And then there are some nights when I just make something up.  Put some olive oil in the skillet and throw in whatever is in the fridge! Practice makes perfect, and I have found that I am better cook than I was in 2013 or the years before.

3.  What have I done to jump start getting healthier?  Well, I actually started this one last year too.  I started exercising in the morning before work most days back in August or July.  I am NOT a morning exercise person, but it's just the time when I have the most chance of doing it throughout the day.  Obviously, I am work during the day, and the evenings are busy and chaotic with homework, dinner and baths.  By the time the kids are in bed, I just want to sit down with a glass of wine and unwind.  So I started to force myself to get up in the morning.   I do the best when Matt gets up too.  I hate to be the only one waking up in the morning!  Of course, I have a read a few articles recently that have found that morning exercise is not as good for you as night exercise.  Go figure.  Oh well, any exercise is better than none in my stage of life. 

I also have used My Fitness Pal on and off to count calories and drink Slim Fast Shakes for some meals to control and track calories.  They work well when I don't have time to pack lunch or fix breakfast, which is most days. To lose weight, I can only eat between 1100-1200 calories per day.  Ugg..that is not much, especially when I'm saving calories for wine!   Hopefully, once I meet my goal, I can go back to 1500-1600 calories per day.  Oh to be old!  Aches and pains and no food!

Well there you have it.  Those are my resolutions for 2015.  Hopefully I'm not wallowing in failure in December!

Here are some pics of the kids to hold you over!

Epic battles

Hannah's crazy morning hair

Happy New Year!

How did you all spend your New Year's Day?  We had a fantastic couple of days.  New Year's Eve we enjoyed a delicious steak dinner.  We asked the kids at dinner what their favorite memory of 2014 was.  First Laura and Hannah said it was Santa and Christmas.  But when I said vacation at the beach was my favorite memory, both of them jumped on the bandwagon.  They both said they wished it was summer now!  Oh, me too girls!  After Christmas, I could do without the cold weather and just skip to spring.  I'm glad we haven't had much snow at least.  We'll hope that trend continues anyway.  (And it is likely to continue since Matt bought a snow blower last month!)  I digress.  I asked Emma what her favorite thing was in 2014, and of course she said.....FROZEN!  Shocker.  Then we played games and watched Despicable Me 2.  We've seen it before, but we never get tired of Minions!  Of course, I was writing my last blog post of the year during the movie.  Hee hee!!  Then we flipped between the various New Year's Eve countdown shows.  The kids liked the dancing ones of course.  Occasionally we had to flip the channel, since the dancers had no clothes on or were twerking!  I really don't like to have those conversations with my 7 and 4 year olds.  Or worse, I really don't want to see Emma, the 2 year old imitating them!  Anyway, the two older girls struggled to make it to midnight, and Emma conked out at about 11:30.  Fun night!

New Year's Day was one of anticipation all day since our Buckeyes weren't on until 8:30 at night.  Ugg.  I always hate those late games on nights when I have to work the next day.  We watched a couple of movies throughout the day to pass the time, and Matt put together the "family" gift from Santa.  I put family in quotes because I was clearly not considered for this gift.  But that's OK.  It was something for Matt to do with his girls.  I read a book while they had fun with the racetrack.  I really should have taken the tree down, but I decided to procrastinate.  I have all weekend!  When Emma needed a nap, I also decided to take advantage of that opportunity and napped with her.  Awesome day so far.

Then of course came the big game!  Game time turned out to be around 9:00, which I'm still not sure if that was always like that and I didn't know it or if they pushed it back because of the Oregon/FSU game.  Either way, it was a late start - but SO worth it!  The Bucks were awesome!!  It was so fun to watch them beat the premier SEC team, with our 3rd string quarter back.  I'm so glad the Manley's were right!  I cannot believe we are playing for the National Championship.  Sitting in the stands during the Virginia Tech game, I would have never guessed this outcome to the season.  Now with the Ducks in front of us, I am cautiously optimistic and very excited.  It's a great day to be a Buckeye!

GO BUCKS!

Just some fun photos...