FlyLady - Day 30

Day 30 - Check Your Calendar For Next Months Events!

About a week ago while the kids were napping I spent the afternoon uploading all our events for the rest of the year into my Cozi Calendar. I seriously love it. I love that each family member is assigned their own color. I love that when it involves Michael a reminder will be sent to his computer. I love that I can have my shopping and 'to do' lists all in the same place. However, this morning at 5:30am I remembered that we are having a play date at Chuck E Cheese's today that was not input on the calendar. So moral of the story...you have to remember to put EVERYTHING in there...especially the new things that get added along the way.

Wipeout Has Nothing On THIS Big Ball!

On Saturday after Andrew's party the kids and I headed down to my parents house to spend the rest of the day with Pa since it was his birthday. Of course as things go when you get older even on your birthday the focus ends up being on the little ones. Pa did open a couple cards and had some birthday cookies, but it was definitely understated in comparison to last years birthday bash!

A couple months ago Ga-Ga & Pa bought this inflatable ball for the boys to play with. It has all these different sections that have to be blow up individually. It didn't really take that long, but it was a team effect since your arms get really tired. At one point there were 4 of us working on it.

I knew I had to be the first one in there so I dove right now. Now this really is for little kids, but it was big enough for me. There are two holes on either side to get in and out with and let me tell you if those weren't there my claustrophobic self would have been in trouble!!!

I had SO much fun with my kids playing around. This in and of itself is a miracle. I will probably right a whole post about the progress I've made since going to the doctor for my depression.

Then it was time for the boys. They both couldn't wait so they went in together. It wasn't the most comfortable thing since they kept mushing each other, but they were having a great time.

"Look Mama a hole!"

"I fell out of the hole!"

We all took turns pushing the kids. It wasn't bad when only one of them were in it, but it was pretty heavy when they both were. Ga-Ga & Pa have the best backyard for this...it's level, big and there aren't any trees or anything to run in to.

Chillin' out!

Owen giving Jack a push!

Happy guys!

Mama's turn to push and take pictures at the same time!

Then Uncle Ry thought it would be fun to be Megamind! We all had a fun time playing with a new toy and acting like kids!

FlyLady - Day 29

Day 29 - Set Time To Enjoy The Weekly Pamper Mission!

Okay this was something I knew nothing about. At the bottom of the main page of FlyLady is a Weekly Pamper Mission. So not only does FlyLady want us to take good care of our house she wants us to pamper ourselves too. Isn't that was FLYing (Finally Loving Yourself) is really all about anyway!!

This weeks mission is to tenderly love your nails. Take off old yucky looking polish - push up your cuticles - repaint them - moisturize. I have some awesome cuticle cream that I use from Bath & Body Works and a manicure set so once I'm done on the computer tonight (I don't want to get the keyboard all greasy) I'll go ahead and pamper myself!

Can you believe it...only 2 more days of daily FlyLady posts!

Andrew's Botday!

On Saturday morning we went to Andrew's 3rd Birthday. Kim did a bunch of work being creative and crafty and it had a Robot theme. I love themes!

Since she's a Stampin' Up Demonstrator she has The Big Shot and that's how she cut out all the scalloped squares. It's the same thing I used for Ryan's Barbecue Booklet.  

Her mom and brother worked so hard on making this robot cake. It was so cool and so detailed. In fact I didn't even notice the #3 in the middle until I looked a the pictures later.

Even the food had a cute robot theme! Nuts & Bolts for the party mix...

and machine oil for the juice.

Owen was so happy that their cat Leo let him pet him. We've been talking about how to properly behave around animals and this is a big improvement for Owen. He just loves cats!

On a total fluke they ended up having a bounce house at the party....our church owns this and Kim's parents had it in the back of their van from their son borrowing it. What a hit with the kids!!!

This cute girl was not feeling well...she came down with the same bug that Owen had. Instead of throwing up those it's the other thing. 'Nuff said!

The birthday boy blowing out his candles! Happy 3rd Birthday Andrew!

Present time!

Picture of all the kids!

Another fun activity the kids got to do was make their own robot costume. Jack did a great job coloring his.

Owen wasn't interested in making one so I colored one for him using the shirt Andrew had on as a guide.

After the party we dropped Michael off at home so he could host Felt Table Fellowship at our house and then we headed down to Ga-Ga & Pa's house to celebrate his birthday. Thankfully Ella felt asleep in the car since she was not feeling good!

FlyLady - Day 28

Day 28 - Eat Good Food, Drink Your Water, And Get Your Rest!

So this is something I struggle with too...not the eat good food. I feel like I eat good...not the best, but good. I love fruits and veggies and meat. I do love snacks...popcorn is my biggest weakness. I could literally eat it everyday! The thing I struggle with most about eating is trying not to snack after the kids go to bed. It's horrible to eat that late at night and I know it, but still around 9:30 - 10:30 I just get the munchies! I am trying though!

Water...I don't drink water! I mean I do, but it's been changed into Iced Tea. I LOVE iced tea. We go through a 3qt pitcher of Iced Tea in a day. I'm not a coffee person I'm a tea person. I do like Diet Coke and Root Beer, but we don't buy pop. I will only drink pop if we are eating out at fast food and it comes with the meal or we are at someone elses house and they have it. If we eat at a restaurant and have to order a drink I just get water with lemon...it's too expensive!

Rest is something I cherish, but I also cherish my time at the end of the day with no kids. So it's a fine line between getting enough rest and getting enough 'Me/ Me & Michael' time. We do not stay up later than 11pm, but sometimes I am still SO tired in the morning. That is partially because of the meds I'm on, but I know it's also because my body is exhausted and I need more rest. I think we are going to try to go to bed around 10pm a few days a week to help because 6am always comes too soon!

Ella Going Up The Ladder And Down The Slide!

Ella has been working and working on getting her cute little legs to get her up the ladder on our slide. Now that she's doing it on her own we can't be outside for than 5 minutes before she's over there doing it by herself. She's still a bit unstable at time so I find myself praying, "Lord...please put a hedge of protection around her!" She is so determined and she has to learn the limits to her body and so far she hasn't tested them too far!

FlyLady - Day 27

Day 27 - What's For Dinner?

This is something that I've struggled with. I LOVE having a menu planned...it makes things so much easier, but I hate being the one to plan every meal. With that being said...for the month of July (and I hope every month after that) Michael and I are planning the meals together. We've been sitting down in bed looking at Allrecipes, Rachael Ray cookbooks or Rachael Ray magazines to get ideas. I've been using my Cozi Calendar to input all my grocery lists and I'm also writing out all the dinners we are going to have and where to find the recipe. Everything I need is going to be in ONE place! Yahoo! You might be wondering why I plan for a month worth of meals and that is basically because we get our EBT money at the beginning of the month and I'd really like to make as few trips to the grocery store as possible!  

The Lord's Army

We've been listening to our Bible CD's a bunch lately and Owen has really gotten into doing motions with songs. I loved this song growing up too!

FlyLady - Day 26

Day 26 - Look At The Bottom Of Any FlyLady Email!

When FlyLady sends out Testimonials or Missions there is the same statement at the end of each email. I've mentioned it before at the beginning of my FlyLady journey...

"You are not behind! I don't want you to try to catch up; I just want you to jump in where we are. O.K.?"

This statement has really helped me through this whole process. FlyLady isn't meant to change your life and your routines overnight. This is a slow change...habit by habit. This whole process is supposed to take months! Months before you have gotten completely in the swing of working in Zones and doing your Missions everyday. Months of decluttering your house. One of the things I've noticed is once you get your house declutter and an area working in its peak performance it's easier to clean...partially because you aren't really cleaning it your maintaining it!

So onto my messy shower! Because of the above statement I hadn't worried about my frig and then it came up as a Mission so I cleaned it. I was waiting to do that with my shower as well. That and the shower is the one thing I delegate to Michael to clean. First I'm as blind as a bat...seriously you'd have to stand 5 inches away from my face to not be blurry with my glasses off. So when I take a shower...sans glasses...I don't see all the yuckies until it's really yucky! Right before I started FlyLady I has asked Michael to clean the shower, but then I told him to hold off since we would get around to it and I was focused on so many new things during those first weeks. Long story short....please don't judge me by my yucky dirty shower! :)

Told you....Icky!!!

So in come the Purple Rags and Rubba Scrubba! On Friday morning Michael and I got up a little bit earlier than normal so we could shower and clean the shower at the same time. I gave Michael the Purple Rag and I used the Rubba Scrubba. We had no expectation that we were going to be able to clean it in one shower. We figured we would clean half of the shower one day and the other half the next. Let me tell you those products have totally lived up to their reputation. Even Michael was very skeptical about the Purple Rags and after he had used them for a few minutes he said, "Wow this rag really is good!" So have you guessed...we cleaned the whole shower in about 20 minutes! Seriously! No products...no fumes...just a little elbow grease and I do mean a little. The tools did most of the work.

All Done!!! Oh my word....I have a clean shower! And now I'm not going to loath cleaning it the next time....granted it won't be that icky the next time! I promise!

Double Date!

The same Saturday the kiddos got see their playhouse Michael and I got to go on another date. If you're keeping track that's 2 dates in one week. That's a record for us! Our wonderful friends John & Tricia invited us to share in their Groupon purchase of wine tasting in Tacoma.

It was this awesome little cellar named 21 Cellars. We literally drove by it it's so small, but it was so cool! We got to stand in the cellar with all the barrels and taste 4 different wines....2 white and 2 reds.

I love the whites and only liked 1 of the reds. With that being said I am not a person that holds my liquor well and by the time I was done I really was feeling a bit dizzy. The wine tasting was before dinner so that probably didn't help much. After the tasting we used Tricia smart phone and found a neat little Italian restaurant in the area. They were quite busy so we ended up having to sit in the bar next to the open window (it was a bit chilly), but it was better than waiting until 7:30 for a table.

This picture is hilarious...right before I took it I said, "Okay guys show me the man love!" That's when John looked at Michael like what is your wife saying! Then he said out loud, "Okay you are cut off!" For the record I was drinking water!!! :) :)

It was so fun to spend time with good friends and be away from the kids enjoying a conversation without interuptions!

MOPS Play Date - Steel Lake Park

On Tuesday when Owen got sick we were planning on meeting up with our MOPS group at Steel Lake Park for a play date. I was super bummed that we weren't going to make it, but I knew it was better for Owen to stay home. I wasn't the only one that was excited...Jack really wanted to go. After Owen had a short nap on the couch he felt a little better and Jack asked him if he wanted to go to the park and Owen got all excited and said, "Yeah!" So off to the park we went.

The first day of summer sure was wonderful! It really was a day at the beach!

Aaron & Tricia and Dillon & Heather were there soaking up the sun!

Patti and her rocker son Caleb were also enjoying themselves!

Of course whenever you go someplace like this the kids never want to actually sit down and eat. I don't even know why I bring the food out. I should just wait until I get the food out on the way home when they are strapped in the car. That is inevitably when I hear, "Mom...I'm hungry!" Ella did enjoy a little bit of an apple, but then she dropped it in the sand...so sad!

Logan says, "Yo!"

Owen kept wanting to go to the play structure, but I wanted to hang out with the Moms a bit more so I encouraged him to go down to the water with his bucket, dig a hole in the sand and make his own lake.

The boys had so much fun going back and forth to the water and filling their buckets.

Nice lake buddy!

After the other Moms left I packed up our stuff and took the kids over to the play structure. There was balance beam walking...

belly sliding...

stair stepping...

and debris exploring. But....

when we got home it was back to this! Poor guy was not feeling well at all. In fact Owen was sick the rest of the week. Finally today he started feeling a bit better, but now Ella and Jack have a little bit of a tummy bug!

FlyLady - Day 25

Day 25 - Learn How The Routines Developed!

So this is about reminding you to check your Control Journal. I have only been doing my routines for 25 days...in reality a little longer since I did take that break. It takes a while to make a routine a habit so it's important to have reminders like the sticky notes and my Control Journal to keep me on task. Plus a huge thing for me to keep my routines in place is to not vary from them. I LOVE order and when I find the order that fits for me I stick to it and very rarly do things differently. Call me OCD, but when it works it works.

I don't have enough time right now to upload pictures, but I did use the Purple Rags and the Rubba Scruba to clean my shower and lets just say that definitely lived up to the reviews I had been reading. Now I just have to gear myself up for posting pictures of shower....Ewww!

Surprises For The Kiddos!

Last Saturday we went down to Ga-Ga & Pa's house to spend the day and the night. They had a few surprises to show the grandkids.

Pa said, "Let's go see what's in the backyard!"

Pa decided to use the garden box next to the truck sandbox as the foundation for the kids new playhouse.

Ella was loving it!

The kids have their own little clock inside there house.

A kitchen with a stove and a sink.

Also window boxes...although Jack think once of them is a mailbox.

Pa got this kit at Sam's Club just recently and it's just the cutest thing. There was supposed to be a bench that came out on the right side of the house, but since there wasn't room for that Pa used the wood instead to make a nice little step for Ella in the front.

After Pa got the door and the doorbell in place the kids had so much going in and out. The hinges on the door are the kind that you would imagine on an old farmhouse where the door slams back shut. It's so cool! Thankfully no fingers have been hurt...yet!

On Sunday morning after the boys got dressed they decided they should go out and cook fruit snacks and cookies on their stove.

Jack also gave Ella a crash course in how to wash your hands in the sink. See the shutters there...we played a game of 'Drive Thru' where I pretended I was driving buy order stuff. I would first ring the doorbell, give them my order and then pull forward to the shutter window where I would get my goods. It was fun!

Pa still isn't finished though...Ella is dancing on what will soon be the front porch with rails and all.