GOALS 7/6-12/2011

Check out dance studio
Finish individual 72 hour kits  PROGRESS
amass 3 days water storage   CHECK
relocate empty bins garage     CHECK
update ward emergency preparedness doc.  PROGRESS

7/8/11 Goal: amass 3 days worth of water turned into a year supply of drinking water.

Pumpkin

Oh Heaven......look who's 7!!!!

It's Pumpkins 7th birthday! She's SOOOOO excited!

This year we've decided to scale back on the celebration. She and I had breakfast together. I sent cupcakes to school for her class celebration. When she got home from school she went to gymnastics. Upon her return we went to Chuck E. Cheese for some pizza and games. After that we came home had cake and opened presents.

She was so happy to share her day with Papa, nana, Auntie Tracy, Uncle Jake, mom, dad, Train, Paris and Uncle Cary.

She loved the loot and is so thankful. So if you sent something her way...be on the look out for her thank you card.

 Pumpkins cute friends came to eat cake with us. Aren't they soooo cute?

 So excited for a wii game of her own.

 She couldn't hold back her excitement on this one. She's been asking for this for 2 years.

 A dolphin pillow pet!

Uncle Cary with his nice haircut.

I missed a few of the gifts but Auntie Lori sent her some cute pink dishes, nail polish, hair bands and lip gloss. Oh...the lip gloss!!! Personally, I think after Lori's gift we could have called it quits and she would have been happy.

We love our Pumpkin and are happy she's part of the family! It wouldn't be the same without her!

Sunday musings

I know I'm the worst at blogging. I can't seem to EVER formulate my words/ideas into sentences. I don't say anything using flowery words and I never go into depth about stuff. That's the problem with seeing the world in Black & White as I do. I live and think inside the box. I view the word in Black & White. I rarely see the "colors of life" or even find the gray area.
This drives the husband nuts at times.....Okay. most of the time.

I thought I'd post the randomness of this week and what's on the docket for next week.

Train was excited to take the sacrament today. He was unusually good during church. As we sang the opening hymn he whispered in my ear, "I need to take the sacrament". I had never heard him say that before. Proud mom moment.

Train has used the potty several times this week. When I tried working on potty training with him, he just gets mad and refuses to go. When it's HIS idea, he's more than happy to go.

He's been enjoying gymnastics. It seems we've just taken a turn in the road. He now pays attention, does the things that he's supposed too and he doesn't run away anymore.

Pumpkin has been off track for a week. She's been doing a 1st grade workbook and doing well.

Pumpkin crashed on her scooter, falling on her forhead. Her head turned purple. It's gone away but her nose is bruised.
Pumpkins bio-dad called. I haven't spoken with him in 5 years. He's excited for the husband to adopt Pumpkin.

Pumpkin has moved up to the high balance beam. Her bridge is getting stronger and she's working on the splits.

Train has learned this week that he's not invincible. He was standing on a skate board yesterday and the neighbor girl gave him a push, he fell off and skinned his knee. Today, jumping from the couch and ottoman he banged his knees again. Crying insued.

We plugged in the Wii this week. We got it for Christmas but it's just sat on a lonely shelf. The girls are excited. We just played the Wii Resort Bowling. Pumpkin kept throwing her ball backwards into the crowd. (She did better years ago when we actually went bowling). So far Mom is the bowling champ with Train right behind.

THIS WEEK
Christopher's Steakhouse
Meeting with an attorney
Easter dinner at our house
lunch date for the little people and myself. We're treating ourselves to McDonald's

Save, Spend and Give

So today I chose to hang out in my pj's. Yep, it's 1 pm and I'm STILL in jammies.
I stayed up last night to watch Made of Honor. It ended about 1:30am. Such an irresponsible thing to do, I know. BUT Patrick Demsey.........he's the crush from my childhood days.

As I was laying in bed this morning, I heard the girls voices. Paris had gotten herself out of bed (for once) and was ready to participate in the neighborhood yard sale. All week she had been prepping stuff to sell. So bright and early she grabbed Pumpkin and they headed out.

The husband showed up about 9:30 am from a grueling call shift. Phew....that's over with but not really. Today he's post-call and pre-call with another stinkin shift tomorrow. I guess we'll see the now sleeping beauty next weekend.

Anywho.....he flips the t.v on and to my suprise Made of Honor is on again.....so I'll sit on the couch and watch my crush the movie again.

Meanwhile the girls are outside trying their hardest to sell stuff. About noon (when my movie was over) I figured I should tell them to pack it up. When I got out there, I was suprised at how they had set up their area and how much they had made. They had clothes hung up for easy viewing, items displayed on a table and other things set out in front  of the table. I was impressed with their organization skills.

They came running inside to dump the things that didn't sell and planned on running back out to see what treasures they could find.

It popped into my head that THIS would be the perfect time to teach them about money even if I was still in my pj's.

The girls and I sat down at the table, counted the loot and I began to divide it. Paris jumps in with the comment,"I bought her a purse for $7 and she said she wanted a bunch of my stuff.  I get all the money".

 At that moment I discovered that my oldest child is a shark.

After some explainging by me and complaining by Paris we moved on. They each got out 3 envelopes and wrote Spend on one, save on another and Give on the last one. We then reviewed what tithing is, why we give it and what it pays for. (Thanks Taryn for the RS refresher lesson on tithing).

Paris reluctantly put her 10% aside, Pumpkin put in change so she didn't have to give up any washingtons.

 Then we talked about saving. Why do we save? How much do you want to save? What do you want to buy so we know what to save for?

Paris sat with a nuce around Grant, Hamilton,Lincoln and Washingtons.

While Pumpkin was listening enthuestically and not laying a hand on her neatly stacked pile of presidents and Hamilton.

We had a Dispicable me "light bulb" moment. Pumpkin quickly stuffs 87% of her earnings in the savings envelope and the loose change in the spend envelope. She runs to put them away and says, "I"ll get to buy my own stuff now. Woohoo, Lalaloopsy doll....here I come."

Paris used this moment to bolt from the room.

I have to say, I had zero intention of talking to the kids about money today. I actually had zero interest in doing anything today. Usually I have to plan everything out in advance and don't function well off the cuff. I'm glad Dave Ramsey inspired me to do this.


 Pumpkin wanted to paruse the yard sale and spend her money. Now she's got it put away and is happily playing the wii while she talks about how cool it is to save her up for something she wants to buy.

So glad for teaching moments.

SO glad I can actually say, I did something right as a parent.

Hair dryer holder

Everytime I see an advertisement for one of these, I think to myself, "I really should get one of those". How would it be? I'd be able to brush my hair while drying it? I think the best part is that my hair would not get caught in the fan and break off anymore.

My shadow had an ever better idea.

This way I get my hair dry AND I know where he is. 

Living Foxy

Over the years I've met some pretty amazing people.

I thought I'd start posting links to the cyber places that these amazing friends share their lives and talents.

This is my friend Audrey. She's beautiful, smart and such a fashionista! She's also about to have her second child BUT doesn't look like it. (LUCKY YOU, Audrey!)

She has such great style. I love everything about her.

You can follow along as she shows you how to dress, decorate and party properly! This girl R.O.C.K.S!
livingfoxy.com

My new obsession

We've been home searching for years now. We haven't found a home that we've liked. I've looked at about 100 in person and hundreds online.

The husband has loved Ivory homes but I wasn't sold on them because the price is higher than most. Pumpkins teacher took a look at an Ivory model a few weeks ago. I stopped by the classroom one day and she told me about what she saw and asked me what I thought of Ivory homes.

I had to tell her that they are the number 1 home builder in Utah. That they use high quality material, they have 90% customer satisfaction and on and on. The people are easy to work with. They listen to what you are looking for and blah blah blah.

So from there, I started thinking about Ivory homes again.  I took a peek at the website, then we took a look at a model, then another model and hmmm.

I think we've found what we're looking for. I'll just need to combine  these models.

Turn the garages on this one.

and take the living room and dining from here and add it to the main of the other house. Then it will be perfect!

The things that make it perfect for me:

formal living room

formal dining room

Butler's pantry

walk in pantry in the kitchen

mud room with lockers and a bench

master on the main

NO kids on the main

Study/office on the main

desk in the kitchen for the kids computer

stackable washer and dryer in the master closet, hence clothes only coming out of the closet ON someone

vegetable sink in the island

3 car garage so the kids have room for their bikes, trikes and outside toys.

Dream house, you're only a few years away.

plink plink plink

As I sit here and type I'm enjoying the plinking of the piano keys.

Paris and Pumpkin have both starting taking piano lessons. They have different teachers. Paris' teacher  has played in the Grand Ol' Oprey and the other is getting her Masters in Music from BYU. 

Since the girls are working with the same music I've just put it all in a backpack and included a notebook for instructions.

Paris sat down to play last week and noticed that Pumpkin (her little sister who is 6.5 years younger than her) is only 2 pages behind her.

She F.R.E.A.K.E.D!!! Panicked and screamed. She grabbed Pumpkin by the arm and demanded that she play those songs, name the notes and count the measures as she plays.

My response was a bit more composed........slightly. I laughed out loud.

I've had to poke, prod, demand, scream and yell to get the older one to practice. So I felt my response was justified.

Fast forward a few days later. Paris practiced a song that her teacher didn't assign. She passed it off. She was ecstatic. (but still only two songs ahead of her sister)

So since her last lesson she has been putting in no less that an hour a day in practice WITHOUT being asked.

So again, here I am enjoying the blissful sounds of plinking keys of the piano.

What I can't wait for, is us getting a house and having a baby grand piano for them to play on.

I've always loved loved loved to organize, reorganize, sub categorize stuff my whole life. I L.O.V.E. order and I love knowing where everything I own is.

I also love to hoard things. As a kid and being the 5th kid at that I felt like I often went without. To those of my older siblings who might read this, I did. YOU cannot deny that. To the younger one's, you were too spoiled rotten to see past your own wants.

So, hording and organizing. Since being married to my true love I've packed so much stuff into our 1500 sq ft. condo in Phx. Every square inch was stuffed (nice, neatly and organized).

Couponing didn't help that addiction any. I got SOOOOOO many good deals, SOOOOO many free things that I had to find a way to store them all.

Then we came to Ut. rented a 3600 sq. ft. place. 900 of it was for storage which I lovingly sorted, organized and reorganized into matching bins with beautiful labels.

Then to another temp house with only 2200 sq. ft. to fill and this I have done in a short 5 months. So here I've been trying to reorganize everything to fit snugly but organized into this place. Rubbermaid bins, baskets, buckets....you name it, I've got it and have it stuffed (but neatly).

I've been racking my brain on organization idea's to make it all work. Then passing by a blog orgjunkie.com   She had posted asking everyone to share their ideas of how they keep things organized and tidy. I of course wanted to share my wealth of knowledge. I clicked on comments and got ready to type when the comment above caught my eye.

"I'm done with organizing. I'm on a mission to de-clutter. It doesn't make sense to organize stuff that I don't need."

Holy cow. I couldn't believe my eyes. Did someone really write that? REALLY? After all this time I never thought about DE-CLUTTERING. I didn't feel like I'd ever had clutter. Everything has a cute box, bin, bucket or basket as a home so there is no clutter.  What I never realized until this point that stuff that I'm keep even if well organized, if it can't be used......it's clutter.

After reading this, I knew.  Here's the conversation that transpired with myself

I have clutter I told my self. I have stuff that I can't eat that I'm storing. I have pretty bins that will only be opened next year when I think I need to rewash all the items in there. I have baby items and ...........no baby.

Holy cow.

 I don't have a baby anymore.

All this longing for a baby and hanging onto all this baby stuff ISN'T going to bring me a baby.

 BUT Kevin Cosner was told, "If you build it, they will come." Wasn't it true about a baby? If I hold on to ALL the baby stuff, one will come........ right?

WRONG. So here I am. I'm on a mission to de-clutter. Not just the garage, kids rooms and craft stuff. I'm on a mission to de-clutter my life.

The clothes purging of 2010 was liberating. I don't know why I stopped there.

So here's the gist of it.

Merrell De-cluttering 2011

 IRA's 2010

Update emergency backpacks with pre-packed food supplies (so they are lighter and don't need to be rotated for 5 years)

Emergency Binder (just need to update)

Emergency water barrels

Year Supply in Daily Bread  (I love how easy and convenient you are. I won't have to think about you again for 25 years)

kick debt to the curb

 IRA's 2011

Get that house


See no room for crap in my life!

Days of the week

I just peeked in on Pumpkin to see how her morning routine is progressing. Same as usual but one thing I noticed is she's wearing her days of the week socks.

I remember buying them last week. She was ecstatic when we bought them since she would now have days of the weeks socks with fun colors, she would become a better speller for it and she would always know what day it is.

The funny thing about socks is, she's matching her outfits TO the socks NOT the socks to the outfits.

One would THINK it's easier to match a pair of socks to an ensemble but no. She painstakingly lined up the socks on her bed, pulled out shirts and matched the colors. She then put the rest of her outfit together.

She's certainly a fun kid. Now I'll never have to ask her to change her socks because they don't match. I'll have to ask her to change her shirt.

One must NEVER wear the wrong day of week sock, it's mess up the karma of the universe.

Entry Order

Except from NOW UTAH

"Ever feel like your hectic and harried schedule is physically manifested in your house? Your days may seem to blend into one another but the piles of clothing, paper, and assorted trappings don't blend, they pile up.
Even our best efforts to maintain an orderly home may be thwarted by family members who put stuff wherever they darn well please. Yet, some women seem to have an uncanny ability to keep a home tidy and appear undaunted by it.

Why is that?

The women who keep a well organized home know the secret: they contemplate the problem, create systems and provide the tools for order, and motivate their family to maintain them."

The husband doesn't think our house is organized. He can't seem to find anything and has to constantly ask. Does that mean the house isn't organized?

Nah, it means that I'm a bit on the controlling side, everything is micro-organized and I put things where I want them and threaten to cut off fingers, toes and throw everything away if it doesn't find it's rightful home. I do have to say that the husband has his own spaces ie. half of the master closet, a basket for misc. stuff and office space. The rest of the spaces sans bedrooms are common areas where there is a place for everything and everything better be in it's place....if you know what's good for you.

So here are a few of the spaces that I think are organzied.

Example: ENTRY CLOSET

 Train and pumpkins helemts are hung out of the way. 2 command hooks for pumpkins jacket/coats and 3 below for Trains jackets/coats. They each can reach and hang their own stuff. They have to ask for their helmets.

 Ample space to hang coats/jackets for adults and teens. There is extra space to the left with empty hangers for guest coats.

Hanging bins 1. gloves for everyone and my scarf

2. hats and hoods

3. umbrellas

4. Paris' winter gear

5. Pumpkins winter gear

6. Trains winter gear

The top shelf hold 2 baskets with extra/misc. winter items for extra cold days or guest without gloves, hats, scarves or sweaters.
Bike pump with needed supplies and first aid kit.

The bottom of the closet holds a basket full of fabic grocery bags. There is no other place to store the vacuum so by default it stays here. On a side note, the duct tape adds a nice touch to the front of it. We just broke it last Friday and refuse to buy a new one until we move to THE HOUSE.

Room for orderly bags, Trains and Pumpkins backpacks and my Sunday bag.

THE OPEN AREA

I love the Ikea storage cubbies! On the top shelf each family member has a basket. The husband keeps misc. papers, med journals, articles and office papers. Paris keeps art supplies, homework and misc. learning workbooks and flashcards. Pumpkin keeps books, homework, coloring books, crayons, markers, glue and such for her afterschool activities. Train keeps puzzles, coloring supplies and books in his.

On the bottom shelf I have 4 baskets. Each one is assigned to a day of the week.
 1. Tuesday: sewing ideas, patterns, misc. mending projects.

2. Wednesday: grocery ads, family budget plan, family meeting agendas/notes, blogging ideas with notes, journal, stationary, a few books to read, christmas advent book to be updated, and scrapbooking/phtography books and ideas.

3. Thursday: notes of home decor projects I plan to do, supplies for home projects that fit, master grocery list to fill out for shopping, Thursday chore list, Emergency preparedness manuals, notes and plans.

 4.Friday: Chore list, items to be mailed, items to be returned, list of errands, library books to be returned and anything else that I come across during the week that belongs somewhere other than our house. 

KIDS BATHROOM

A basket on top of the toilet for bodywash, regularly used washcloths and extra one's

3 command hooks for towels. I use command hooks and adhesive for almost everything.

A fun potty seat for the 3 year old....whenever he decides to use the potty consistantly. A stool so they can reach the sink to wash hands and brush teeth.

  The cabinet has 2 drawers and a cupboard. In the cupboard is their laundry basket.

 They each have a drawer. This is Trains. He's got a place for his tooth brush/paste, extra huggies washcloths, bum cream, brush and scrubber. In the back are band aids, a nose sucker and a first aid kit.

This is Pumpkins drawer. Curling iron and comb in the first bin, black hair bands and decorative hair bands in separate bins, barrets, bobby pins and cute hair accessories in a bin, toothbrushes and toothpaste in another. The back bin holds large hair bands and ties with headbands behind them.

This is what I don't know what to do with. All the bath toys that seems to NEVER stay where I put them. I've considered throwing them away but then when I put Train in the tub, he won't stay where I put him.

The husband still doesn't agree that we are organized.