Family Photos

Sunday we headed out to Palisades State Park for our annual family photo session. It was preceded by the same whining and complaining as every other year. Then we said we could take the dogs with us...and they suddenly thought it was the best idea ever. We took some pretty great pictures, in spite of not being allowed to go near this particular tree with a giant knob on it - the 5yo wouldn't get near it. The girls posed on the railing in the park and we all sat in some leaves. I even walked in dog shit on my way out. Who does that..leaves their dog's poop in a state park for someone else to walk in, jeez. Anyway, we then headed over to Navajo park in town, to take some pictures of the girls on the playground equipment. Then we headed home and they jumped in the pile of leaves until the husband sucked 'em all up.

Thong vs Wedgie

Kids are so funny. My youngest is five and she's turned out to be really hilarious. She's super observant and smart which I think comes from trying to keep up with her almost-10-yo sister. So, Friday night I'm putting them to bed and she puts her clothes in the laundry and then comes over to me and says, 'gotta keep my wedgie' and pulls her panties into her butt, 'like yours she says'. I had to explain that my panties are made that way, and hers are different. It's not a wedgie - it's a thong. The husband was having to really contain himself in the hallway. She's hilarious - but if you laugh, she does not find that funny.

5 Issues in this Election That Matter to Me

The Listable Life topic today at MomOf6 is....

5 Issues in this Election That Matter to Me

I'm just going to list them, I'm not going to elaborate because I'm not really interested in a big discussion, I just want to make the list, link up and move forward from the last post.  You know what, I'm not going to do that. I want to write more than I want to write, if that makes sense so I won't likely be able to stop myself. And I'm not very articulate when it comes to politics. I understand what I believe and what I want to see happen, but I'm terrible at backing myself up with facts and details. It's also so hard to know what the truths are, when politicians are known for lying, regularly, to everyone. Important topics to me are abortion, healthcare v. health insurance, the economy and jobs, immigration, and many other things.  So..how about another list...of..the things I plan to do this weekend! The oldest had pink eye last weekend, and was working on her now full blown cold...maybe this weekend will turn out just a bit better.

1. Go to the self-pottery place, start on some grandparent Christmas gifts. Use my groupon.
2. Get the husband to edit the family photos we took last Sunday, print a few for ourselves
3. Win the contest for $50 in shutterfly money so I can print the photobook I made last week
4. Look through and build/decide on Christmas cards with the new photos we've taken
5. Hit the dollar store and elsewhere to work on goody bags for the oldest's birthday party favors
6. Make some lists of gift ideas for Christmas for those we want to buy for
7. Organize the master closet - rearrange my clothes so when I'm hunting it makes more sense

I think that's it for this weekend...of course, laundry and dishes and general house cleaning is in the list as well..but those things are always in the list.

Stuck. Pitch Perfect.

Ugh. I am stuck. In a rut. Or something. I can't seem to get anything done around here. I am determined this weekend to get some things done. Saturday is the oldest's last soccer game (assuming  it doesn't get rained out..even then we might just call it done) and Sunday I'm hoping to get us out to a park for some family pictures. We also want to get pumpkins for carving and watch some football and have a barbeque with my family at my Dad's on Sunday. So it's...kind of a lot to cram in a weekend. But I'm still hopeful.

1. get and send/deliver invitations for the 9yo's birthday
2. brainstorm some party favor ideas for the girls that will come
3. organize the game shelf that is moving to the basement
4. organize the cabinet I gain by moving the games
5. crop and organize the kid art I finally took photos of last weekend
6. build a photo book for the oldest's 1st-3rd grade art
7. do laundry
8. reorganize the basement junk/storage room, it's become a mess since we closed the pool and the rubbermaid bin I have to hold the summer cover doesn't actually hold the summer cover...
9. sell or donate or something my wedding dress
10. figure out what we're doing with the photo printer that we never use
11. figure out what I want to sell my hope chest for (craigslist...) and do something with the stuff inside it
12. pay bills and figure out what's left for the non-necessities on our list

However, the very FIRST thing I'm doing this weekend is going to see Pitch Perfect with my sister-in-law and my dad's fiance. I CANNOT WAIT! Woo!

Happy Birthday!

She turned FIVE on Saturday. I now own a five year old.

5 Reasons Kids Should Play Organized Sports

So the Listable Life...list..for today from momof6 is ...

5 Reasons You Think Kids Should Play Organized Sports

1. Socialization - My kids are at home with me a lot. I work from home, so they've grown up just hanging out with me while I work, waiting for neighborhood friends to come home. Playing on a team of strangers helps to get them used to meeting new people and learning how to interact.
2. Exercise - Duh. Running around chasing that soccer ball is great exercise. At the end of the game, the girls are soooo exhausted its hilarious. They no longer care about the game and just can't wait for the whistle that ends it. 
3. Responsibility -Joining a team teaches my kids about obligations. Not in a drudgery sort of way, but in a 'hey, these people are my teammates and I owe them my best effort'. It's been really good to teach my oldest that she needs to try her best and work hard, for the other girls on her team.
4. Parental Responsibility - Honestly, I'd rather not go anywhere or do anything that didn't suit me. Going out, visiting with strangers, watching our children play together - not my thing. I like to stay at home, organize a drawer, take care of things around here. I tolerate the kids playing with other neighbor kids, because it's my job, as a parent, to encourage them to branch out, to be friendly, to have fun. 
5. Fun - sometimes it's just plain fun. The oldest has now decided she might also like to try basketball. So now I'll have to find a local basketball clinic type thing for her to try out. She likes shooting hoops on the playground - playing Knockout. I don't know what that means. She also likes shooting hoops after Awana on Wed. night at church, so I think that has piqued her interest.
 

Whew. Five things was a lot to come up with.

The wedding

My brother got married this weekend. We've been planning this...ok, they've been planning it for a year, but we've been planning how to get us there, what time to leave, are we staying over, etc etc, for a few months now. I've been obsessed with the logistics. The kid gets off the bus at 415...how fast can I get her in the car...can we pick up the husband instead of him coming home, shaving off more time so we can try hard to make it to the rehearsal before we've missed it entirely. We did and I think we got there just in time, the pastor was quite chatty so we missed most of that and were able to do an easy walkthrough of the ceremony. Then we headed off to dinner and the hotel.

The 4yo caught something at preschool. So she was..off...on Friday. Not hungry, but still wanted to play with the kids...so my goal was just to make sure she drank as much liquid as possible all weekend. Friday night she was up at midnight and 3am, dry heaving, sort of throwing up. I think it was our warning shot that she's caught something, but luckily she's sort of outgrown the actual throwing up part of catching a cold now. Which is awesome, that side effect is no fun at all. So Friday night, she and I slept together in the hotel bed, sitting up, propped by pillows and towels so she could breathe well enough and sleep well enough. I slept some. I got up at 645 to get ready to head to the salon..figuring I could lay the kid down and she'd keep sleeping. It was a rough night, so she needed a bit more sleep, I think she slept until close to 9 and I got back at 930 hair all perty. And then we began to get ready. The 9yo in her dress for passing out programs and bubbles, the rest of us in our regular clothes to head to the church for hair and dressing.

This story is too long. The wedding was beautiful,the bride was beautiful, everything went off without a hitch. They will have some beautiful pictures. And I had the most beautiful flower girl ever.

The hair, another bridesmaid did this, sooo pretty

So very ready for her duties

Goodbye Guilty Clutter

After about a week or so, the living room is finally cleared. As a reminder, here's the before.

Before

Too many THINGS everywhere. Floating shelves full of photos, bookshelves full of books and knick knacks. Mantle that just wants attractive.

So. I took down the floating shelves (and that shelf in between) and all the photos on them. I donated the frames to Goodwill and put the photos in a bin under my bed. Now I can see them anytime I want, and I know where they are when occasions come around that I might want to display them. In fact, I already have a plan for graduation (she's in 4th grade...I'm an early planner) and how to display the school photos. It's a great spot to just dump photos, of my girls, of family members, etc. I still HAVE them, but they aren't strewn all over the house in frames and on shelves turning them into clutter. In my hall between the front door and back door I have two magnetic decorative frames where I intend to put important pictures that I want to display. Pictures of my new niece, nephew and family photos that I can swap out. They are black frames with a dull silver metal magnetboard. Sort of like these. It works really well. I slimmed down the built in book cases and donated a lot of books to Goodwill. I still need to go through and donate the girls books, but that can wait a few weeks since they aren't in this room.

The big desk is still a problem, but compared to the photo above, the computer has slimmed and we have a flat monitor now. I also work at that desk all day with my laptop so I'm not sure what the long term solution will be. For now, it's ok, the desk is clean and I'll keep it that way. I also intend to swap out the small table (with that Partylight Infinite Reflections on it) with a medium sized curio cabinet. It should give a little height to that wall and it'll be a place for me to put my dad's china (he's keeping it until I'm ready) and the items I have from grandparents that have passed.

We had to patch and texture the wall spots where the floating shelves were. It turned out really well, but when I painted with my saved yellow paint..it didn't match. So now I need to paint the rest of the wall so at least the full wall matches. So this Sunday I'll probably paint the rest so that at least the color isn't so obvious. I think the sun faded the color, the paint is still good. And so. Here it is.

After

I tried to take the photo from the same general spot as the one above. I think it looks pretty great. I love my furniture in here, but it might be about time for an upgrade and perhaps a slightly smaller scale.  I also think I might take down and sell my Partylight pillar holders (I think they're called Sonesta, does anyone know?) because I think they just look like extra unbalanced clutter on the mantle. If I were to put anything on the mantle again it'd be a single medium height pillar candle holder probably. But right now my plan is to put nothing. I even threw away the unity candle from our wedding and I'm donating the holders to Goodwill (shockingly no one wants to buy 1995 precious moments unity candle holders).

My next cleanup is in the bottom left of the picture. You can see the dog cage there, our dogs are still stupid and eat walls and toys and whatnot, so we have to be able to cage them as necessary. I'd love to put that somewhere else. Behind that cage, under the end table, I've got a file box full of the kids last couple years of art projects and paperwork. I need to setup a lightbox and take photos of those things and create a photo book so I can throw out all the actual art. I think I'm going to try to paint the yellow wall AND take those photos this Sunday.  We'll see...

UPDATE:  I did paint the yellow wall, but I didn't take the kid art photos. I'm saving that for next weekend, we have a wedding this weekend and I just won't be up to it. Plus we're storing the in-laws appliances so my normal lightbox spot is taken. It will happen though!

5 Projects I Need to Tackle Around the House

5 Projects I Need to Tackle Around the House ( Momof6 )

1. Sort through the girls books. They have soooo many and I know some of them are baby books and the preschooler has outgrown them. It's time to sort and purge and donate (or save for my brand new niece) and clean up those shelves and drawers. We're big readers so I want to make them accessible and organized.
2. The desk. This desk is too big and really sort of cramps the style of this living room. I think ideally I'd like to move this desk and computer down to the basement, setup a sort of office there, but I'm not sure how well that will work out. It would be nice to at least slim it down to a smaller desk maybe if moving it isn't an option. 
3. In line with #1 - sort through the kids toys again. Some things we could save for my new niece, but the rest we've outgrown and should be donated. It'll clean up the toy room some and leave room for any new birthday and Christmas gifts that are bound to come along soon.
4. I need to throw out or give away my wedding dress. It's taking up some good space in my closet, I never look at it, I don't care to keep it..it was 2nd hand to begin with. There might be some usable material there, so I think I may offer it for free on craigslist if anyone has a use for it. I feel like I should be sentimental about it, but I'm just not. I paid $250 at a local 'repeat' store, so it's not like I got a brand new 'THE DRESS' experience anyway. 
5. I need to sell my hope chest. It was a Christmas present when I was 16 and I'm pretty sure it was my mother's idea but really, what sort of gift is that. Here's a wood box that won't fit anywhere for you to store things you don't even think are that important. Right now it is storing my wedding veil and bouquet and some stuffed bears I used to collect. It's also serving as the photo printer stand in our storage room. I could really use that space soooo much better.  

After all this wedding hullabaloo (my brother gets marred 9/15) I'm going to work on #4 and #5 first I think.

The alternative topic was 5 Things I Never Thought I’d Hear Myself Say As a Parent

I have to mention the one thing I never thought I'd have to say and the one thing that completely shocked me when I found myself saying it. 

Stop licking the cart.

The family room

I stumbled upon a new clutter/organizational blog last week. Clutterbug.me I found myself watching this video about guilty clutter. And as I was sitting and listening and watching her describe the guilt over her red sweaters...I felt a pang. Something clicked with me. I was sitting in a room full of guilty clutter.



I looked around and found that the room I spend all day in, the room we call the family room or the fireplace room, was full of things. Things. Books and photos and frames and candles and holders and even shelving that made the room seem full and small and super cluttered. Awhile back, when I was trying to decide what to put above the fireplace, I showed a picture to a friend and she suggested NOT doing anything busy because there was a lot going on in the room already. That was her nice way of saying 'HOLY CRAP you have a lot of junk in there'. She was being nice. I totally didn't see all the stuff. Until I watched that video. I went with a large clock above the mantle, not too busy but nice. However, the rest of the room was still full of junk. The picture below gives a good idea of what a mess it was. The stripes are no longer there, I painted the room yellow a few years ago, but wow, those stripes do NOT help the room at all. So imagine this, with yellow walls.

The baby is about 3 months old there (she's now almost 5y) the other is 5yo (almost 10 now) and obviously this was at Christmas time so there's a little bit extra Christmas decor involved. We've swapped out that blue couch for a red one, and the christmas tree spot holds a yellow chair now. Look at all that stuff. Floating shelves filled with frames, bookshelves full of books and avon steins and candles and clocks and wedding photos. So, when I moved the red and yellow furniture in here (we gave away the blue stuff) and painted the room yellow I took down the blue decor pieces. I still can't get over how much STUFF is in there.

So last weekend after I'd watched the video above, and read the post that went with it, and looked around my rooms, I realized that this room needed a fix-up and that large parts of it were here because of my guilt. I kept the photos because OMG you can't NOT show all your cute babies all the time, and HOW DARE you take down family photos even though you aren't speaking to some of the people in them and there have been new additions to the family since. Keep this stuff passed on from deceased family (I am keeping it, just with a better plan for display) and display it even though it doesn't GO with anything and you know the deceased would rather you were happy and comfortable in your home.

I have taken steps so far to clean it up and declutter and it's so awesome. I've donated a bunch of books to the library and I have a pile of frames and candle holders to donate to Goodwill. I took down the floating shelves and all the photos on them. I didn't throw them out, stop panicking, I am storing them in a plastic bin under my bed. So I can still see them and look at them and love them, but without SEEING them everywhere. I pared down the built-in bookshelves to hold books I acutally like or need to read and one photo of each child, one wedding photo and one family photo. I will swap the photos in those frames probably yearly (except our wedding photo of course, that one stays). Once I read the books I want to, I'll probably donate them also, and just keep books that look nice and that I want to keep (Harry Potter, etc) on the shelves. I'm a big fan of the Kindle now and of reading library books.

The room has transformed. I'm not ready to show you yet, I need to patch the holes from the floating shelves and touch up the paint and get the donations where they belong.  I have loved every minute of all of it. From deciding there isn't really any guilt with taking these things down and with donating things other people can use. I gave away the floating shelves to someone on Craigslist yesterday. I love it. I think my second career calling might have been a professional organizer. I think I might love that.

Next time, I'll have pictures of the room all de-cluttered and fixed up. We still have this big desk in the room that we'd like to scale down, but that might take awhile to work out, so for now we're working around it. The rest of the room however is really coming together.

5 Things I Didn’t Expect About Parenthood

Today's post over at Mom of 6 is about the unexpected parts of parenthood. So..here's my list.

5 Things I Didn’t Expect About Parenthood

1. I didn't expect my entire body to be so in tune to my children. If they wake in the night (even now at ages 4 and 9) I am fully aware of it immediately. My body comes alive with the awareness, which is both amazing and kinda frustrating if they don't actually need me. Then I'm awake for nothing.
2. I never expected to say "Please do not LICK the Target cart". Watching my daughter (5 then) run her tongue along the top edge of the Target cart from side to side was unbelievable. I couldn't believe she was doing it, I couldn't believe I had to tell her NOT to do it. I was stunned for a bit on that trip.
3. I never expected to be annoyed with them. I knew I was annoyed with other people's children, but I assumed that was because they weren't my own beautiful offspring. Turns out, kids are just kind of annoying sometimes. You power through. 
4. I am really really unprepared (and unwilling?) to teach them about things like monthly cycles (we have two girls) and sex and boys and body changes. I am about to prepare myself and inform my daughter about some things (she'll be 10 in November) but I am not looking forward to it.  I'm surprised by how much I do NOT want them to drive, or to date, or to go anywhere ever. I'm also surprised by my distrust of their friends, no matter how nice and friendly they actually are. I'm in overprotective mother bear mode all the time apparently.
5. I am also surprised that while #4 is true...I am really really looking forward to next year, when the 4yo goes to Kindergarten and I will be home alone all day. I work from home and the concentration it takes to be productive while managing a child or two is exhausting. I look forward to accomplishing much without fetching eleventy billion cups of juice throughout the day.

The other topic could have been 5 Things I would buy for myself right NOW online if I had the money and I really really kind of wanted to do that too, so....

1. curtains for the girls rooms, to block the heat and light - http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Eclipse-63-inch-Twill-Curtain-Panel-Pair/5550268/product.html
2. a curio cabinet to hold my dad's china..which was my grandma's china -stacksandstacks.com
3. some custom motorcycle seats for the husband and myself and maybe a windshield as well
4. a tummy tuck? In theory I'd really love one, but in reality its too expensive and risky 
5. does paying bills count? I'd like to pay off what we owe on the new furniture, the motorcycle and have enough left to get ahead on the house maybe. 

That list of things I'd buy is a little bit lame. I need to work on my want list. I'm a little to practical to make this list I guess.

Summertime

Summertime is over. School started Thursday (the 16th).

This post is going to have a lot of pictures. We tried to make sure our week off, our vacation at home, our staycation if you will was awesome. We didn't want to spend too much so we decided to stay home, but ended up spending plenty of money anyway at the fair and local shopping and mini golfing and bowling. It was a great week though.We started by trampolining at my brother's house. They're moving and not taking the trampoline with them, so we need to get some jump time in on it before its unavailable.

That's the 4yo jumping with her cousin

Next up, bowling! The 4yo had never been bowling and the 9yo had been with her school. So we took some free coupons we had from their reading program at the library and went and bowled just for the cost of shoe rental. That was pretty sweet.

Daddy helping the 4yo to bowl

The 9yo is clearly a pro

I can do it myself!

After bowling we saw the weather was going to get a bit hot. So we got up a little earlier the next morning and went mini golfing. It was perfect, hot enough we didn't want to be there long, but nice enough we could get through 18 mini holes. We even took a break in the middle to cool off in the a/c and take a potty break. I couldn't decide which photos to post..so I'm posting all the good ones. I did mention this was a photo heavy post, right?

Since it was so hot that day we came home, had some lunch and rested for a bit. Then we headed out to the pool. We're pretty lucky to be able to have a pool and the girls love it. They always find ways to make games and play act things out.

 We took a break for the go go go on Wednesday and then we headed out Thursday to do some horseback riding and visit the Iowa State Fair. The 9yo loved horseback riding and I hung with the 4yo while we waited, which was fun too. So much crazy good food and things to see at the fair and we found some pretty cool products to buy as well. I'd actually like to hunt down the nandymemoholder.com people so I can buy more. I also found sudsysoapcakes.com and haredo.com . We spent too much of course, but it was a lot of fun.

making spin art

the finished spin art

ice cream is so good

Friday we took it easy again and then the weekend was sort of full with adult plans. The husband took a long motorcycle ride with some friends (Poopy's Triangle) and then I had a bachelorette party and Sunday the husband golfed and I had a bridal shower. All in all it was an excellent vacation. 

I also thought it'd be easier this summer to exercise, and do things with the kids and do this and do that. I was wrong. Summer break made it harder to get all the things I wanted to do done..I'm too busy playing with my children in all the free time.

Books

I love to read.  The girls love to read.  So every weekend we find our way to the library and get a new stack of books to read for the week. 

This Sunday while at the library we saw this one.  I hope we never need it.

Poopy's

Today we went to Poopy's.  Last night the in laws (they live in town now)  took the girls overnight.  So we got up and went for a motorcycle ride.  It's about 95 miles total and I learned a lot of things along the way.

There are too many small towns.

Iowa has an island town.  Sabula,  look it up.

My butt has a 35 mile limit before needing a break from the bike.

It's strange to be flying along the highway and not hold on to anything.  When I realize that I grab the strap in front of me.

The sissy bar is awesome.

Poopy's is awesome.  Cool place and good food,  outdoor eating and live music.

I bought a tank top and poopys panties.  Get it,  poopy panties,  ha!  Husband got a tshirt.

Poopy's parking lot. Front and back filled with bikes.

Me in my motorcycle gear.

The Hog for lunch

Fourth Grade

I have another post about our vacation in the works with a ton of pictures etc, but I just can't get to it yet. So instead, today is the first day of school for our district. I now have a fourth grader. FOURTH GRADE!

So big and smart and beautiful