July's Challange

My goal for the last week in July...get back to the basics, forget about perfection and extra fluff, just do the most important stuff!

-Daily Scripture study
-Morning and Evening prayer
-FHE
-Family scripture study and prayer
-Exercise 3x a week
-Clean house and keep clean
-Spend time with Kids and Jason
-Have fun baking

I have felt like I sometimes overwhelm myself with extra projects or ideas of things I want to do, and end up neglecting the most important parts of my life. So there you have it, the things I hold most dear. My family, the gospel and food. :)

thoughtful thursday

Nothing big today. I was going to do a "thorough thursday" and do a job really thoroughly, but didn't end up doing that, after I saw Steph posted a thursday deal and I got too busy! At the end of the day, I decided to be thoughtful of Kate. She LOVES to snuggle in her bed with me or Jason at bedtime, but we usually just put her to bed because she wont let us leave once we lay down. So last night I snuggled in bed with her for about 20 minutes and just sang to her. Then she wanted milk, so I got her some and put her to bed. I need to do more things like that. I always feel like I need to get this chore done, run this errand, or do this craft, but those things will ALWAYS be there, my babies are getting bigger every day and before I know it they'll be gone. I need to take as much time as I can now to enjoy them, and be thoughtful of them, instead of letting the trivial things occupy my mind.

What To Wear Wednesday

Well, here I am 3:30 and I finally JUST showered! Blake hasn't given me much of a break today, so I finally had to just jump in and let him cry! Poor dude! He must have worn himself out crying, cause he's sound asleep now. Hopefully I can get myself all dolled up before he wakes up again! I got some new clothes yesterday, ones that actually fit, so I should feel pretty good today, as long as I don't look at the size tag in my shorts! :) I am also going to put on a little self tanner on my legs, they are pasty, pluck my eyebrows and maybe curl my hair!

To Do Tuesday

I got a few errands checked off my list today. Those have been the hardest for me to do, because getting ready and getting out of the house before Kate's nap time is a struggle for me! Luckily Jason was home today so it made it that much easier!

We went to the bank to cash a check
Called DHS to make sure we didn't have a review for health insurance or food stamps coming up while we were going to be gone
Went to Hobby Lobby to make a return
Went to Old Navy to take advantage of the 1/2 off all mens stuff and got Jay some new duds, I got a few too since I STILL don't fit into my regular clothes....sigh...
And stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few fixins for a bbq we had yesterday.

Before we leave I still have to...
Go to Kinkos to make a few copies
Go to the Children's hospital to donate my milk and get a blood test
Stop off at Goodwill to donate stuff from last week!
Go to Target to make an exchange
Clean my house like a mad woman!!!

Make Somethihng Monday

Yesterday I made a dessert. I love to bake, mostly because the end result is 99.9% of the time DELICIOUS! I made a yogurt cake, recipe here, low in calories and quite tasty!




Today I made a bicycle diaper cake that I ripped off of this etsy shop. I've made a few diaper cakes before, by rolling each diaper individually, this one was MUCH easier!

Her's is cuter than mine, but oh well, mine didn't cost me $62.00. If I had picked out all the blankets, etc. myself it could have been cuter, but I just used unused gifts I had laying around from Blake.

Fun Friday

Ok, so I slacked for Wednesday and yesterday was too crazy! We had to take Kate to the ER. She's fine, no broken bones, but still wont walk! Anyway, I'm good at having fun so today's challenge is done already! Jason had the morning off, so the whole family went shopping, we got Kate lots of clothes on SUPER clearance at Target, nothing more fun than getting a good deal!



Three hooded jackets $2.50 each!!
Four shirt and pant combos $4.50 each
Three pairs of pants $3.50 each (not a screamin deal, but still ok)
One dress $3.50

Some will fit her now/fall, some are for next year, that's why you see doubles. I love shopping!

Trash It Tuesday

Yesterday was an easy one for me! My house was messy, so finding 20 things to throw away was a cinch! I also emptied the garbage from all the rooms in the house! Good-bye wet diapers! Finding 20 things to donate was also pretty easy, I just received a box of little boy clothes from a family in our ward. They have 10 kids, so some of the clothes were REALLY heavily worn. 20 items to donate? DONE! I also went through some of Kate's books and got rid of a few. I have everything in my trunk ready to take to Goodwill tomorrow!

My New Invention!

Ok, so ever since I can remember, well maybe not that long, but for a long time now I have dreamed of having a utility sink for laundry. They are so useful to scrub out stains in or soak stained clothes in. Since we don't have one, I invented this...



a rubbermaid container full of cold water and oxy clean! Now anytime Kate stains her clothes or Blake craps out, I simply spray the stain or rinse out the poo and place the item of clothing in the bin. Then when it is time to wash their clothes, I poor the clothes and used water into the washer, and refill the tub with fresh water and oxy clean! This will save me tons of time on treating stains! WOO WEE! I love when I have good ideas!

4 am

ok, it's now 4, Blake will be awake in an hour to eat, should I just stay up??? I'll post a few pics, but not all, it will take too long. But here's what I did
-cleaned all the rooms in the house(including bathrooms), dusted, vacuumed, swept and mopped.
-moved my recliner back into the living room and my glider back into the family room
-spray painted a mirror
-steam cleaned the big vent cover to our ac
-went through a huge pile of stuff and put it away
-steam cleaned two window frames
-got a room ready for our guests (including moving pack and play back into our room)
-finished some freakin dolls (two more sets and I'm done for a long time!)
-folded some laundry
-dishes
-cleaned out the fridge
-cleaned out Kate's toy basket
-cleaned out corner full of random crap behind couch
-boxed up clothes that were too small for Kate
ok, I think that makes up for the vacation I took!

Kate's room before:






crib full of clothes that are too small for Kate


After:







Not sure what to do with all the stuffed animals yet


My room before:






the big beige blob are new curtains that I need to hem and hang


My room after:







and my favorite before and after, the window frames. They were disgusting when we moved in and I cleaned all of them except the ones in Jason's office, cause I never open them, but with this challenge in place, I felt like it was a good time to do it! I could have done a better job on them, but my steam cleaner is super loud and it was 10 o'clock at night, maybe I'll go back and get them better later, I had to throw away 3 dish towels after cleaning them because they were so dirty!
Before:


After:


there you have it. I may not post for a few days, our friends are sleeping in the room with the computer and I don't want to intrude, but my plans for the next few days are to clean out the hall cupboard/drawers and then clean out the front closet. Ok, going to bed now!

Still Here!

Ok, so I have been doing stuff, I just need to post it. It is 1:30 in the morning and I am currently cleaning my house, how sad is that?!?!?! I've been going all day. Ever hear of the phrase "my fake house" well that is what I am working on. It's the house that visitors see when they come over, you know, the one that is way cleaner than any normal person's house is on a normal day! We have friends coming tomorrow to stay with us until they find a place to live (a few days), so I've been cleaning all day. Hopefully I'll get a chance to post pictures tonight, if not, then I will be posting them after our friends leave. I just wanted to share this sweet website to help keep us organized and clean. Remember how I said I was the queen of lists, well now I can still be that, but not have pads of papers laying around! The website is evernote.com. You can write down anything you want to remember and it saves it for you on the website, I guess you could do the same thing with word documents, but I thought it was a cool site. Anyway, gotta go finish cleaning, I'll be happy if I'm in bed by 3 tonight!

I'm taking a vacation too!

Ok, so since Steph and Tiff are both gone, I'm giving myself a break from big projects. I had a crap weekend, Jason was super sick and then Blake got shots yesterday. I'm lucky to get my house picked up everyday these past few days! I did however get a couple garbage bags full of clothes and stuff taken off to goodwill today so I guess that counts for something! I'll probably do stuff here and there this week and do an end of the week posting. I've also been super busy with church and stupid etsy dolls and will hopefully be done with orders by tonight and ship them out tomorrow. I'm so sick of the dolls, I think I'm taking them off the internet for a while!

Day 9 - a two day project!

sad but true, my laundry is going to take me two days to do! I'm doing all of it, including bedding, so I'll post my pictures tomorrow. I ran 5 loads today and folded 3, I don't even want to think about what is waiting for me in the morning. Blah!

Day 8 - Cleanin Out The Car!

My car is like an extension of my home, so I figured it worked for this challenge! You'll see what I mean by the before pictures. I am always handing Kate raisins or something to play with to keep her entertained in the car, and that's why my car looks like this:

Before:









After:







So the pink piano stayed because it's the only thing that will get Kate into her seat, and I know it doesn't look like I vacuumed, but I did. It was just super hot and I was in a cramped garage so I didn't have much room to maneuver!

Day 7 - Wasteful!

Today I cleaned out our fridge and freezer. It felt good to get everything cleaned out and organized, but I threw away SO much food! I always buy so much produce with good intentions, but I always seem to forget about them! It was hard to throw away what would have been delicious strawberries, blackberries, grapes and green beans! I guess I just need to make sure I have them more visible next time!

Before:



After:

Day 6 - Monday

Oops, I liked taking the day off so much on Sunday, I did it again! I'll pull double duty today!

Day 5 - Sunday

I took the day off!

Day 4 - Saturday

What a beautiful day! Jason took Kate out for 4 hours in the afternoon so I could clean without her scurrying behind me messing it all up! I got the whole house done, except for Kate's room. I'm saving that for another day. I got to do dishes, move everything off my counters and wipe them down, sweep, mop, vacuum and pick up all the little messes! It felt amazing, and even more amazing to have a clean house on Mother's Day! Too bad it didn't last through Monday, my house is once again a huge pig-sty!

Day 3 - Queen of Clorox

I did a number on our bathrooms today! So I know cleaning your bathroom might not qualify as something that doesn't get done very often (unless your me!) but I am using it anyway because I went hog wild on those babies! I scrubbed them down from top to bottom, cleaned out the cabinets with clorox wipes and then organized everything and got rid of A TON of stuff! I washed all the towels and rugs, and cleaned the mirrors. I also used about a gallon of bleach to wipe down the toilets and the floors. Our bathrooms were in desperate need of a good cleaning. I feel much better now! And the best news, my babies slept the entire time I cleaned them, well, hopefully they're just sleeping and not knocked out from all the fumes! Sorry, no pictures, my before pictures would have been much too embarrassing!

Day 2 - Deal With It!

I could dub myself the queen of many things, most of them not very good, but one thing I am definitely the queen of is making lists and piles! I have a million piles around my house of things "I'll deal with later". So I went around my house and gathered all the "deal with it laters" and made one big pile! It included everything from old mail to stained clothing! Then I attacked it!

Before:





And after:

Day 1

Today I tackled our bedroom. This weekend Jason and I cleaned out a bunch of junk under our bed and never really finished the job. Underneath our bed was now organized, but now all the clutter that once resided there was spewed all over our room. I got that all taken care of and then started thinking about doing some re-arranging. Our room has been situated the same exact way since we moved in two years ago and I have contemplated moving things around before, but I've never had the ambition to try and move the bed with all that crap underneath it! So now I had no excuses and went for it. As I moved the bed away from the wall, I squealed with excitement as I discovered all the little dust bunnies that would soon be off my bedroom floor and tucked safely away in my vacuum cleaner! I got so excited that I ended up moving all the furniture so I could vacuum underneath everything and along all the floorboards! So farewell sweet bunnies, I hope you are enjoying your new home!

May's Challenge

My dear sister-in-laws started a monthly challenge last month. April's was to do something creative everyday. May is home improvement month. Every day this month, do something to improve your home. I'm up for the challenge!