Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Oganizing my Life!

I'm really enjoying this summer more than summers in the past.  Of coarse I love the extra time I have with Katie.  I love our new playgroup and meeting other kids Katie's age and their mommies.  I love not setting my alarm clock for 6:30am.  And I love not being too sleepy to stay up late and hang out with Andy.

But I've also been getting organized and it feels so good!  My 2 favorite things are my biweekly menu and my new cleaning schedule.

I started making a biweekly menu about a year ago and got this dry erase board to keep up with schedules and meals a few months ago.  I love it.  I don't spend as much money at the grocery store anymore.  I don't buy too much food that goes bad before we get to eat it.  I don't buy tons of snacks that I really don't need to eat anyway.  I portion out my meats as I get them and freeze them and thaw out what I need in the fridge a couple of days early so we don't eat fast food very much anymore because we're too tired or hungry to take the time to thaw and cook dinner!  It's saved me money and TIME!
My most favorite though is the cleaning schedule.  I tried this several times while school was going on but just couldn't keep up.  Our house had gotten SO messy that I was just overwhelmed and felt like I wasn't making any headway.  Now that I have the summer off, I've been really deep cleaning our house head to toe using the cleaning schedule to organize what I clean and when.  It really hasn't been too bad and I can say our house is cleaner now than it's been in a very long time.
Now that I'm organized and the house is clean I actually have time to sit and blog, digital scrapbook, sew, and just relax!  Usually I can't get to the sewing machine around all the mess and I can't relax and enjoy blogging or scrapbooking when I have a list a mile long of chores to do and am surrounded by mess and clutter.  Now I can start on my hobbies and enjoy them.  I hope now that the house is in pretty good shape, it will be easier to keep up with the cleaning schedule after school starts back.
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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Productive, Fun Day

I am so enjoying my time off for the summer.  I've had lots to time to clean and our house looks better than it's looked in a very long time. 

Today Andy put child locks on our kitchen cabinets. We left the tuperware cabinet unlocked so Katie can play in there.  She's played in there before but it's been a while because without locks on the other cabinets I just don't let her in the kitchen a whole lot anymore.  She LOVES unstacking and stacking the tupperware.  
And she even "picked them up" when she was done playing.  LOL
I finally got a gate for the bottom of our stairs.  I never imagined it would be so hard to find a tension gate that we could use on the bottom of the stairs.  And it was about 1/2 the price of anything I had seen online!  I know she's on the wrong side of the gate.  We were on our way upstairs to bed when I took the picture.
I finally took some pictures on our play date today.  I always bring my camera and forget to take pictures.  Today we had so much fun.   The girls played in Maddy's awesome kiddie pool...
"On your mark, get set, GO!"
played on a splash pad...
ate cupcakes...
and made an ocean in a bottle (which Katie loves!) 
Katie liked the cat...
 but I'm not sure how much the cat liked Katie.  Ha!
Productive morning and a fun-filled afternoon.
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Saturday, June 26, 2010

Splash Pad and Sunburn

We tried to take Katie back to the splash pad again today.  She still wasn't real sure about all that water spraying her in the face, but she enjoyed running around the perimeter of the splash pad.  I loaded her up with sunscreen and we sent at 10:30 so I thought she would be ok, but she looked like she was getting sunburned so we left earlier than we planned.  Anyway, here are a few pictures.
"Come on Daddy"

Hangin out at home...
Ok, Ok.  I know she really needs a haircut but I don't want to give her a haircut until it's long enough for a REAL haircut.  It's fine as long as I keep it pulled up. 
I know her head is cut off in this one, but I love that toothy smile!

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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Family Night and More...

We've had lots of fun this week.  Playdates, storytime at the library, and family night at church. 

Today Katie's spring pictures came in at school.  I think they turned out pretty cute.  Here are my "pictures of the pictures" that I got since I don't have a digital copy.
Storytime at the library was awesome!  They had puppets, a story on the projector screen, a fannel story, and singing and dancing.  Katie did really well and we plan to go every week we're in town this summer.  The theme last week was "All Aboard!" so the stories and puppet show were about trains.
I don't have pictures from any playdates but we're loving our playgroup.  We have stuff to do every week with them and everyone is so nice.  I'm hoping to get together with some teacher friends with kids Katie's age this summer too.

Tonight we had our 1st ever "Family Experience" night at our church.  Katie apparently likes to be the center of attention because she kept wanting to go up on stage and play.  But other little kids her age did too so it's all good.  We had a picnic style dinner, sang songs, played games, watched a skit, and heard a Bible story.  And yes, I tried to hula hoop which usually I can do really well, but it's very different hula hooping with a "baby hula hoop".  Ha!


I noticed tonight that our magnolias are blooming pretty good and I couldn't resist getting my camera out for them.  I LOVE magnolia trees.  The kind that get real big and grow wide (not the tall skinny ones).
Katie's favorite cartoon is Dora and when Swiper the Fox comes around on Dora everyone says "Swiper, no swiping."  And then Swiper says, "Aw Man!"  I think it's so cute the way Katie says that so here's a short little video I taped in the car on the way home tonight.  (Don't worry... Andy was driving!)

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Saturday, June 19, 2010

Silly Nut 6/18/10 at OneTrueMedia.com

After popsicles last night Katie was pretty hyper. She kept asking for more "ice cream" then repeated Andy when he called her a "silly nut." He told her she was "wired... like a monkey" and she said, "Ah-Ah!" That's her monkey sound.

Then she found her sunglasses and thought if she put them on that meant she would go to the "water" (her word for pool.) Silly girl.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Splash Pool

Last night we finally blew up Katie's splash pool and she loved it.



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Friday, June 11, 2010

Tunks

I can't come home during crawfish season and not have any.  So tonight we had dinner at Tunks (on the lake).  Yummy crawfish!  And crawfish at my brother's house tomorrow night! 
Aunt Mary
Beautiful Cousin Tess
What a ham... a year ago we were begging her to sing for us but she was too shy.  She has definitely come out of her shell!
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