Five things

It's Friday and we are looking forward to a fun weekend.  KU Football kick off tonight, first soccer practice/game of the fall for both Charlie AND Maddie (she's pumped!), a friend's birthday party and my birthday on Sunday!!  

These are all super random - so beware.

{ONE}

What have I been watching on TV/Netflix seems to be the common question I get in regards to my maternity leave. Haha.  I have found some shows on Netflix, but also some On Demand shows on our cable.  Night now I'm loving The Night Shift!!  Have you seen it?

{TWO}

Per an instagram recommendation by my friend (also a new contributor for KCMB!), Stephanie, I downloaded the book Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty and soared through this book.  So suspenseful and when you have anything that involves a kid, put things in perspective.  Check it out for sure - I love this author! 

{THREE}

In exciting news - I am going to be writing for as one of the new contributors of the Kansas City Mom's Blog!  I've read all the articles for the awesome mom's in the KC area since it came about.  The group of women is already so awesome, I'm excited to get to know them all more!!

My first post was published last week (check it out here).  It was all about our next door neighbors, the Wilson's, and their sweet son Noah, who passed away in June 2015 of cancer.  While Noah was being treated at Children's Mercy Hospital, he started an amazing organization called Noah's Bandage Project, that is continuing to encourage kids and raise money for pediatric cancer even after he's gone.  I was so nervous to start writing for this, but this was just the most wonderful thing to write about and I'm excited to continue writing for them!

{FOUR}

So what ELSE am I doing on maternity leave?  Is there some kind of nesting AFTER the baby is here?  Haha.  For some reason I'm on this organization spree in my house and this week I made it into my closet.  Holy cow - I have 3 full trash bags of stuff that I will be donating to Big Brother's and Big Sister's.  Luckily Mikey has been a champ in hanging out with me in the closet (and taking some decent naps in his crib so I can have my hands free!).  It's looking better and better by the day and guess what?  I'm feeling better because I don't have a closet full of clothes that I don't wear and organized drawers and jewelry!

{FIVE}

In somewhat of an attempt to get Charlie and Maddie to not consume a crazy amount of sugar daily (I mean let's be real - mom's a candy lover so sometimes that can be an issue)...I found these energy bites and have been giving them to them after they get home after school.  They LOVE them.  And they are so so easy (only 4 ingredients - yes please) to make.  The kiddos really like helping me roll them into balls too.  And bonus when mom and dad like them too!!

Check out the recipe here!  I actually whipped some more up today because Charlie kept asking me for them and they were all out - I like them because I know the ingredients exactly that are in it...however, I'm for sure one that passes over a breakfast bar as well.

And sorry - I can't end a Five on Friday post without something about my kids (duh!).

These kids make me crazy but make me love life more every day.  Seriously the emotions of parenting literally blow my mind daily!

Ok I'm almost done I promise- these cracked me up this week:

This one ^ omg- I died because it's sooo true!  Mikey seems to the easy one to put down!

Happy Friday friends!

Linking up with:

Sept Farm | Oh hey Friday!

A. Liz Adventures | Five on Friday

Momfessionals | Friday Favorites 

Quick and cheap: organizing kids paper

You guys- quick and easy tip for you.  I know that you have SO much paper for your kids because who doesn't?? Not only preschool/school stuff but doctor's paperwork, baptism certificates, and the list goes on.  While I've gotten better at feeling ok to toss random drawings, some I truly do want to keep.  But our file cabinets are full and I wanted something quick and easy designated for each kid.  Here's my solution:

A whopping $4 plastic crate. Yep- and I always get them at back to school time!

They are just perfect for putting the hanging files and filling with folders.  We have a different fomkr for each kid and I just love them and how easily accessible they are.  I used to have them stacked in the coat closet, but when we re did our pantry- I found the perfect home for them!!

Not like a miracle solution, but it's a cheap and simple way that I've found to organize all the papers and momentos we want and need to keep for each kid!!! 

Happy organizing!

An InLinkz Link-up

Nesting time

Well the countdown has begun and this mama-to-be is trying to get everything organized and ready for this little man's arrival.  Only 6 more days MAX before we meet him!!

I was talking to my friend Vanessa a few weeks ago about organizing baby clothes in a dresser.  I hadn't really thought about that before...but then when I was looking for some clothes/onesies for him to wear at the hospital and when he gets home that I was going to wash - what a mess it was!  Just with all the wonderful presents we got from people in all different sizes...I knew I needed a plan of action to make it easier for me or Jimmy to grab this baby boy some clothes.  And also for when Jimmy is putting laundry away for him to know where things go (yes Jimmy, you will be doing things like that).  So I needed to divide the drawers.  I looked up some stuff on pinterest, but then just ended up looking out in our garage and finding the box from our car seat.  So one Thursday night when Jimmy was at softball night...I went to work.

I cut the cardboard to fit in the drawers (put it in the top 2 drawers of the dresser and left the bottom two open).

Decided to make good use of some left over fabric...and apparently Milly and Willy wanted to help out as well or they were just curious as to what was going on.

Then I cut up the fabric to be about the size of the cardboard...cut some slits in the cardboard in the middle so they would go on top of each other and there you have it.

Simple, cheap and easy way to get some nursery drawer dividers.  I still need to finish my labeling and putting them in the right places - but if this baby boy waits to come and gives his mama this weekend to finish organizing things - I will make sure and do that.  If not, I can always do it later!!

But now I have the perfect spot in his dresser for adorable things like his TINY socks (OMG I died when I got these out of the washer - SO small and cute!!!)

And some adorable onesies that he's gotten from his friends all over the country!!  His soon-to-be-girlfriend, baby Calcara, sent up this K-State onesie from Houston so he and she would have matching ones to wear during football season.  So cute!!

His friends in Denver, the Griffins, also sent a pretty freaking cute onesie with suspenders and a tie! LOVE these!!

But this nesting/organization urge didn't stop in the nursery.  Last weekend it extended to our guest bathroom closet which was a complete mess!!  There were so many random things just stacked in it and it was gross and underutilized.  For some reason I got this urge on Sunday morning to wake up, take everything out, organize it into groupings (and throw lots of stuff away too), and then drag Jimmy to Dollar Tree with me  - by the way, they have the best and cheapest baskets...only $1! - and there you have it.  With some green painters tape and some labels printed off - bathroom closet organization at it's finest.  It was nice because it even got some of the baby's bath stuff out of the nursery and by the bathroom where it belongs!!!

From all the fun we had over the weekend and all the standing I did when I probably shouldn't have been due to my feet - Milly, Willy and I took a break on Monday night.  I skipped my last session of summer school (don't worry, I had a free pass to miss and I already had turned everything in) and plopped down on the couch to watch the bachelor pad with Jimmy and work on getting all my work stuff organized for maternity leave.  I think these little pups sure know how to make their mom feel better.  Milly kept licking my fat little sausage legs and toes....as weird as that is, it did make me feel a little better.  The swelling has not gone down for the record.  Waiting for that still...

So what has Jimmy been doing while I go into crazy person/organization mode??  He has been a great help in picking up last minute things with me and also working with my dad to move all our internet and cable cords that were in the nursery to another location.  So you know, just working in the attic...haha.  But he has been a big help and I think he's getting just as excited as me (however, he doesn't get the latter part of this statement as much as I do..."I'm excited to meet our baby AND not be huge anymore")!!  We went over to Bobby and Hillary's house last Saturday night and they were SO sweet and made us a delicious dinner of fried chicken, mash potatoes, green beans, a cucumber and onion salad that I had pinned (how sweet is that!!!??  She found it on my pin board and made it!).  And to top it off had some homemade berry cobbler too.  It was delicious!!  But then to top off the night - Bobby gave Jimmy a present for the baby!!

The baby's own Phi Slamma Jamma onesie.  OMG - it is so cute!!  I love it so much! I love that it's 12 month size, but I also wish we could bring him home from the hospital in it because it's that cute.  And Hillary said Bobby designed it all himself.  What a great younger brother!!!

Implementation of the chore chart

Remember this post asking everyone about adult chore charts? Well, I just kind of sat on it for awhile fully thinking that since I made myself aware of the fact I need to stay on top of keeping the house clean....and thought that miraculously all the time in the world would be mine and I would just be dying to clean and keep it up.

EH - well that didn't happen. As you can tell from my lack of posting, life always seems to get in the way, right?

So here is it. Again, posted towards the world. I've tried to make it easy for myself to remember with the attempted use of acronyms (slightly modified due to scheduling purposes).

Sunday - Sweep and Vacuum (found the "S" correlation, plus I realized I love waking up to squeaky clean floors on Monday morning)

Monday - I have class this summer on Monday and Wednesday nights at 6 until 8:30, so nothing will be taking place these evenings....

Tuesday - Mop the floors (this was my Monday acronym...but had to modify days...)

Wednesday - Class = no chores!

Thursday - Windex aka clean the mirrors (Wednesday acronym, but let's just add 1 day for these)

Friday - Dust! Get rid off all that grossness from the week before and get ready for the weekend!!

Saturday - Bathrooms and kitchen. Hm, no clever acronym here. Usually I have the most time on Saturdays for this stuff, which is why I picked Saturday. Also, in case people happen to come over during the weekend - this is a necessary chore. Especially the toilets. Mainly because I am a girl and don't lift the seat when I pee and my husband does...and we seem to have a different interpretation of "clean" toilets. His being he cannot even see the yucky yellow stains around the rim from his pee...and when I lift it up to clean and see what other men have been seeing, I want to vomit. Hence, this will become a regular thing so some other male doesn't come over and have to use the restroom and I yell "WAIT - use the one upstairs" and then have to explain why.

There you have it. Will I stick to it? I can only hope. One thing I do know about myself is that I love lists and writing things down. That's how I remember stuff. That's why I have like 17 different calendars....so I will print this off and hang up somewhere. Maybe in the bathroom. Because then it will remind me and hound me every time I skip out on doing one of them.

If only I had something to hound me about working out..........

Adult chore chart

Does anyone have one of these? Here's my issue. I like to keep my house clean. Er - really tidy more so, but also clean. But it's more the I-only-clean-when-I-notice-things-are-so-gross-I-cannot-handle-my-life or people-are-coming-over-I-don't-want-them-to-think-I-am-super-gross cleaning. But here's the deal and the reality of the situation. I am well aware that if I actually did "CLEAN" on a regular basis (CLEAN = pick up whatever cleaning product and the paper towel or brush or cloth and scrub until it's truly clean), it would make my life a lot easier. Just like your mom always taught you, right? Oh those moms- they are so smart. Why is that it takes me this long to actually realize any of those lessons she tried to teach me. Guess it's just a good thing I eventually "get it". Well mom, I get it now...so be proud.

Which is why I'm seriously contemplating making myself (and Jimmy - oh no, don't worry, I'm not leaving him out of this fun!) an adult chore chart...minus the gold stickers. Well, actually, I take that back. I kind of think I deserve stickers. But the colored variety pack - blue, gold, red and green...you know the ones. I feel like I see on facebook people doing their "regular cleaning" or "getting the house chores done" and I think...man, I should have a schedule like that. And I think we all know that I like a schedule. Really I just thrive off lists/tasks being written down and then get a thrill out of the SWOOSH. (the swoosh was supposed to give you an idea of the sound of a pen/marker/pencil swiftly moving of the paper and crossing one thing after another off the list) I love SWOOSHes.

My question is - how do I start? Like - vacuum Sunday, dust Monday, toilets Tuesday...and the list goes on - I mean I'm just not sure. So blogger friends, I need you. How do you clean your house and keep it up? I mean I have been to some of your houses and they are all clean (like the real clean). I need help! Scheduling lovers unite! Tell me your secrets, your strategies, your gameplan. I appreciate it in advance.

PS While I'm contemplating making a chore chart, probably not going to be something I hang up....however, it would be pretty funny :)

Am I crazy? Probably...

On the actions described in this post - I'm going to claim it's due to the fact that I'm a crazy finance person. Or accountant-like person. Either or. I like things in their place. I like a plan. I like knowing what is when and where. You know, like an auditor? :) Except it has NOTHING to do with work. It's life. It's what happens when you have way too much freezer space in your house, combined with not wanting to "waste things", in addition to...going nuts when I open my freezer door and I see THIS:

AHHHH!!! What is in here? How old is it? NO CLUE. And what makes me the most mad is half the time I buy something at the grocery store (perfect example on this one - frozen corn!!) because I think I don't have it and it's lurking in the dark abyss of our deep freeze because I was too lazy to walk in the basement and sift through the mounds of freezing food to locate my bag of frozen corn I didn't need to "waste" $1 at the store. Ok, point taken. It's just $1. But really - I have 5 bags of frozen corn! I mean what person needs that much!?!?! Insanity I say.

Oh and better yet, remember, I cook 30 meals in one day. That means 30 separate freezer bags and/or foil baking dishes with our food for the next month or so. I even have the software that prints off a handy dandy list to hang on your fridge. Have I ever used it? NOPE. So I find myself sifting through the dark abyss of the garage-turned-basement freezer portion of that refridgerator each Sunday looking around for meals to defrost for the week that I thought were there.....AHHHH!! Wasted time. Inefficient processes. I can't stand them!! Maybe it was my calling to be an industrial engineer and I just missed it....or maybe it was my LEAN/Six Sigma training and the process improvement projects I was on in my previous life as a consultant. Either way, I hate inefficiencies with a capital H.

Finally, a glimpse of the minimal space in our kitchen freezer that can't open all the way (annoying)....but yet I have somehow managed to stuff lots of stuff in that I can't find ever. Sweet life.

Insert 35 minutes of my day on Sunday. Armed and dangerous (sweats and a long sleeve shirt were necessary even though it was a gorgeous 70+ degrees out) with my computer, excel and an eye for expiration dates.

I went through everything...in all 3 freezers...put them in different tabs in the same workbook...and BOOM. Knocked it out. Pulled each and everything out. That's how I found out I have 5, yes 5, bags of frozen corn. Guess Jimmy should know what the side dish of choice will be in our house the next few weeks....haha.

Even more disgusting than how weird you are thinking I am because I'm talking about this - I seriously found this bag of frozen breaded chicken that I bought in 2008....when I lived in my condo downtown. So apparently I was cheap enough to take it out of my condo freezer, put it in my parents freezer when my dogs and I were in limbo...and then take it to our house and put it in that freezer. Seriously? Gross and weird. The bag was probably like $6 max. I need to get a life. Anyways, that is gone now (thank goodness frozen stuff doesn't rot or smell) and all the freezers now have a little something that looks like this on the outside of them with a list of everything in it and the "amount". So that would be in pounds for meat or number of bags/items for anything else. 1/2 bag was a common metric...I'm sure that doesn't surprise you though!!

So why did I do this besides the fact I'm a complete crazy person and I just really wanted my husband to look at me like "are you serious?" when I told him he needs to mark stuff off the list when he takes it out of the freezer (ok, let's get real - he doesn't really take stuff out unless I ask him to)? I did it because I just felt like I was wasting money. Buying the same thing at the grocery store that was hidden in my freezer. I felt like I can utilize what I have more and cook from that instead of going to the store and spending more $$. Chances are...if it's in the freezer, that means I got a really good deal on it and it was on sale - so I had the typical impulse that said "I need to buy 15 because if I don't, I will die". Just another waste of money on my part.

There you have it. Call me crazy or call me organized. Either way, I have to say I have already snuck down to the freezer twice after I organized it and breathed a wonderful sigh of relief to see it somewhat organized and feel like I am in "control" of my freezer and it has not overtaken me and my wallet. Is there anyone else out there that has something that just drives them nuts that's kind of kooky? I bet there is..... :)

Hello February; hello organization

So now that we are in month #2 of 2011-- yep, it's true, I cannot believe it's already February!! -- I'm determined to start getting those nasty organization to-dos knocked off my list. We can call it an early spring cleaning. Or- er-- late wedding clean up? Ok, it's embarrassing for me to admit this since we have almost been married now for a little under 10 months now that I still have a closet full of stuff from our wedding. Yep, all the DIY decor, left over programs, candles, shoes, flower girl/ring bearer pillows, etc. Stuffed in the guest room closet and looking oh so awful. Let's just say I have had to warn any and all guests to "do not enter".

Pretty awful huh? But there is a reason I have been putting this off. I promise. If you think it's valid, that's up to you to be the judge. My reason is...what do I do with all the "stuff" left over from the best day of my life? I mean, I cannot throw away all the programs, napkins I stamped, unity candle, rehearsal dinner invitations....and yep, you can see them below....the cut out pictures of Jimmy and I's head that were stuck on the life size cut outs of Bella and Edward. Yep, I kept those :) Haha.

So there you have it. All the "stuff" laid out. Now what to do with it? And don't forget the dogs clothing attire they wore during the wedding. Nope, have to keep that!!!

Bella and Edward....well...unfortunately they had to go in the recycling bin :( Don't get upset, they were broken in half and they wouldn't fit in a plastic storage bin!!!!!! AHH I cannot be a hoarder - so don't get upset they had to go.

After I laid it all out in the guest room, I headed off to buy some storage bins and started organizing. And while I was at it- I tackled the closet in the office as well...which was...well...to put it nicely, full of crap. So I grabbed all the "wedding stuff (including all our wedding and engagement cards)" and all the "random Hallmark stuff I have bought/collected/been gifted from working there" and finally "other" and put them nicely in storage bins and moved them to the basement.

And finally after a few hours, found myself with this:

AHHH - I just get the same feeling looking at these pictures as I did looking around the room once I had everything packed up and stored in its respective place. You know that feeling? Maybe it's just me....but when I start and accomplish something that makes a room cleaner, more organized and FINALLY off my to do list...I am nothing but smiles and feel so happy and like a weight is lifted off my shoulders. Wahoo!

Better yet, I tackled more than I planned to that afternoon/evening because I went ahead and got all the "junk" out of the office closet, set up our new file cabinet (the other one was full!) and put labels on my containers and done. Love it how I feel every time I open that closet to see....ORGANIZATION at it's finest :)

When do you start your spring cleaning? Put it off until spring or tackle one step at a time throughout the year?? I'm more of a take it one step at a time type of girl, but cannot forget that feeling of accomplishing something and leaving it just a little bit better....

Yes or no: married life

Sunday morning Jimmy wasn't feeling like himself. We were supposed to teach Sunday school at 10:45, so I called our stand in (my dad) to see if he was willing to teach. He was, so I headed off to meet my parents and aunt that were in town to go to the 9AM service while old Jim stayed in bed.

The 4 week sermon series that started 2 weeks ago has me hooked- and I'm sure many, if not all, of my blog readers can relate to it. It's called Antidotes for the Out-of-Control life. So far he has preached on Slowing down in a Hurry Up World and last week's was titled If I Don't Do It....Remember Rule #6. Needless to say, if you can guess as to what this is about and you know me at all (yep, I'm the "yes girl"), I was more than looking forward to some/any advice on how to get more balance/margin/control over my life that I seem to have over committed my time. If you ever feel like this, I HIGHLY recommend you watching the sermons from the links I provided above. Adam is an amazing preacher and like all of his sermons, he delivers a message that is applicable to everyday life and something that you can relate to, with biblical references to give you guidance from the bible.

Anyways---onto the real story :) The four of us are sitting in church (dad, me, aunt, mom) and at the start of the sermon, Adam usually talks about input that people have given him throughout the week on the topic at hand via email or facebook. This last week he posted this question:

"I have a problem saying "no". I can justify saying "yes" to so many things and this results in an out-of-control life. That's part of the focus of this weekend's sermon. Do any of you struggle with this? How and why?"

He read off a few comments and then said this: "I had one guy send me a message saying that his wife struggles with this a lot and is involved in lots of things. He tries to balance her out and help her to feel ok about saying "no". He said the funniest thing is that while she says yes to everyone else, it seems as if the only person she doesn't have a problem saying "no" to is him!!"
I chuckled along with the rest of the congregation....thinking to myself, "I really wish Jimmy was here because I'd love to see his reaction....I know he thinks the exact same thing about me".

Fast forward to later in the day when we went to go visit my grandmother and grandadday (the one who had open heart surgery- he's doing well!!) because it was their birthday- yep, they have the same birthday! They had watched the service online and we were discussing the sermon with them. I mentioned to my grandparents how funny that comment was and that I could just imagine Jimmy saying that about me! As we got into the car to leave...Jimmy looked at me and asked if Adam had really read that comment out loud to the whole congregation and I said, yes and that I thought it was funny! He pulls up his facebook message that he sent Adam on his phone and reads it to me....pretty much word for word what Adam had relayed to the congregation in SEVEN different services and online :) Are you following along? Haha- it was Jimmy that sent that message to our pastor and it was about ME!

So there you have it, our dirty laundry revealed to thousands of people at church. Haha. But I will admit it, I do have a serious "yes" problem and that is one of my goals in 2011 to really evaluate what I'm saying yes to, decide whether the work I will be doing energizes me and seriously assess if I have the time in my life to do it---and ensure that I don't have every hour of every day booked....because everyone knows the best stuff seems to happen on a whim. This sermon series has been great in giving me some perspective on how and why I need to truly do this :)

And for you, Jimmy...I will make a conscious effort to say "yes" to you more often* than "no" and spend lots of quality/unplanned time together in 2011.

*disclaimer- this does not include saying "yes" to going out to dinner every night, allowing you to buy a guitar because you "want to pick up a new hobby", allowing you to sit at home all the time to play PS3. When you ask the question if you REALLY have to clean the bathrooms/vacuum/make the bed--- that answer will always be "yes" my dear, so at least you have that to look forward to!!

Organize the kitchen, completed!

All right, so it was quite the weekend (this last weekend, trying to stay caught up), but in between Lyssa's wedding shower in the morning and her bachelorette party in the evening, I was able to sneak home and get a project and some cleaning done!

I really wanted to take a nap, however, I came home to my husband doing this:


....cleaning the gutters on the roof and putting gutter guards on, so I felt a little guilty for just sleeping. So I decided to tackle the pantry organization project. Remember the before picture?? Awful, right? And how full does the pantry look?



Well, I googled "how to organize a pantry" and it gave me an estimated completion time of 30-90 minutes, so I figured I could take that on. Simple steps: Take all the food out, assess what's good/bad, then put back in the pantry in a fashion that makes sense and is organized by group. Simple enough right?

Here is all the food out...then I cleaned all the shelves.



Then Jimmy joined in the fun. He was really happy haha!



And TA-DA! The organized pantry. Really there is almost the same amount of food in it, it's just SO much more organized, it's amazing! And with some labels of course. My mom asked who needed labels if it was just me and Jimmy living there..my answer was so when he helps unload the groceries, he knows where things go :)



In one of our wedding fonts, Century Gothic, of course.




And I couldn't stop there. Oh no. I went one step farther....

In the spice cabinet that I had organized last week.....



And then I FINALLY labeled and am putting to good use the present Lauren bought me for my birthday last year! It's great to file the mail so it doesn't sit on the island all week---drives me crazy!





Oh hey :)

Ok, so now that I have proven to you I'm a freak and I really like having things organized...that's it! Next to organize: the office!