This week and the weeks to come are in a word BUSY

For some reason July is a VERY busy month for us. We spent this past week getting ready for Baby A's first birthday and party. It was a great day and she loved her cake as you can see from the picture. Tomorrow is my son's third birthday and we are leaving on a trip to visit some friends. We as in me and the three kids are going. It will be frantic I am sure, but memorable. I am really looking forward to seeing these girlfriends. I have known them since high school and elementary school. We are bringing all of our kids and meeting in a city where none of us live and will spend the next four days hanging out and site seeing. It should be fun for the kids and hopefully the adults too. We will see. We will celebrate Little A's third birthday when we get there tomorrow. I am a little behind on all of the stuff for his party. That is what I get for having two kids with birthdays two days a part. I am still wiped from Baby A's party. Well I am heading to bed soon. When I return I spend one night in my own bed and then head off to go camping with the family. Crazy! Then the following week I will be at MOPS convention in Orlando Florida. I will try to write some posts between all of the trips, but I am not sure I will have time. Enjoy the next few weeks.

Warmly,
Jen D.

So Much Is Going On...

Well today has been a crazy day and this weekend may even be crazier.

Today:
Had a girlfriend over for some fellowship time. It was our Bible study day, but it was a tough week for everyone else so they did not make it. We enjoyed ourselves. Plus, she took some of my diaper stash off of my hands. I am so glad that we made the move to cloth. Wow! You can sell disposable diapers back, it just doesn't work like that. Well cloth you can sell back if you take good care of them. These diapers had so much life left in them. They were darling and I got between 50 and 80 percent of what I paid for them back. :)




After that we went over to a good friends house for lunch, swimming and AC. It was so nice of her to invite us. The kids are fishes. They swam so much in that kiddie pool. It was pretty funny to watch Big A and Little A going at it down the slide. Baby A was not excited about being in the cold water. She just cried and cried. I took out and she was content on my lap for a while. Then we went and played in a shade tent with some toys. It was GREAT, that is until I smelled something. I looked around for doggie poo, but didn't see any. I continued to chat with my other friend and then I noticed that Baby A had spit up her lunch all over me. I don't know if I will ever look at a hamburger the same way again. It was so disgusting. After that I was cranky, tired, HOT and just wanted to be somewhere cool, but couldn't stay in the cool AC house because Baby A needed to go to bed and I honestly couldn't stand how I smelled.

The kids and I left. The boy wouldn't buckles his seat belt in the car and I had to pull over and get out to help him do it. I was so frazzled having been puked on, hot, tired and just miserable in this heat. I was frazzled again tonight when I was putting the kids to bed, it was about an hour later than I would like and Little A and Big A were getting drinks of water after I told them no. I am so afraid of them wetting the bed. We really try to cut liquids off two hours before bed and they have been drinking a ton today.

So we went grocery shopping this evening as a family and a friend called that we went camping with while we were in the car. My hubby was in the car with me when she called and to make a long story short we are going on a spur of the moment camping trip. I gotta go pack...more to come later.

Enjoy your weekend!
Warmly,
Jen

Meal Planning

Here is baby a ready to eat. Well this week has been one of planned and unplanned meals. I try to plan our meals because I find that we: eat healthier, spend less money and enjoy the meals more because I am calm and know what it is coming. Here is our plan this week.

Sunday: BBQ Fourth of July
Monday: Grilled Asian Chicken and Rice Stir Fry with a HUGE Green salad
Tuesday: Huge Green Salad, with left over rice and some sweet/salty pecans
Wednesday: Grilled Chicken, brown rice, steamed veggies
Thursday: Taco Salad
Friday: Chicken, brown rice, corn, black bean stir fry
Saturday: BBQ Chicken, brown Rice and Salsa
Sunday: Church Community Meal (I am bringing a green salad)

So there is my plan for the week. What is your family eating this week?

Warmly,
Jen

A Crafty Day...

I worked out this morning and then got a small workout in with a family walk after lunch. So during nap time I enjoyed some ME time. I rarely spend time on me and today I am spending a few hours just on me.

Here is what I created with my ME Time. This is a cardmaking technique known as a One Sheet Wonder or OSW. You take one sheet of patterned paper and make several cards using it, coordinating scraps and embellishments. My friend and Stampin Up Consultant created the sizes for this one sheet wonder and then I made it my own with my paper choices, how used the paper, the embellishments, etc. I love these OSW's. They are so easy and fun once you get the hang of it. Being creative is a wonderful thing. I always feel so much better when I have a creative outlet. What is your creative outlet?

Enjoy this beautiful summer day!

Warmly,
Jen

How do you keep your home clean?

How do you keep your home clean? Do you have a house cleaner come in? If so how often? Also if you have someone come into clean, do you pick up and clean before they come?

I am in search of a way to not only clean my home, but for it to be clean and stay clean for longer. I know that this is not an easy quest. I have three little ones and a hubby all home for the summer. However, I think it should be easier than it is and I am wondering am I missing something.

If you have any tips for me I would love to hear them. I just found two great posts today on Organizing Your Way. This one talks about three things you can do daily to help you feel happier when it comes to organizing. I was able to do the first two no problem. The second one is a little tricky.

Well I am off to go organize, clear some cluttered surfaces and hopefully find a chance to relax while two of the three kiddos are napping.

Warmly,
Jen

Happy Fourth of July on the Fifth of July!

I was a little too busy to post yesterday, but I will try to post two posts today to make up for it.

What did you do to celebrate Independence Day? We had friends and family come over. It was a small get together, but very fun. I made Ranch Burgers, a huge green salad, deviled eggs and an ice cream cake. A friend brought over homemade potato salad and my in-laws brought a yummy appetizer. We had chips, wine, beer and some mixed drinks. It made for a very full night. I decided I need to workout before the guests arrived, so it took me a few minutes to finish getting ready once they came over. I don't think it was a big deal; although, I wish everything was ready before they came, including me. We had a wonderful Fourth of July and hope that you enjoyed celebrating our countries independence in your own special way.

Potty Training Update: The boy (Little A) stayed dry all night long. We are so proud of him. Never mind that the has had two BM's in his pants today. We are focusing on the positive.

Warmly,
Jen

Mini-Blog Make over

My little blog got a much needed update. I was fortunate enough to win a bloggy make over a few years ago and Deanna at Domestic Chicky did a wonderful job; however a lot has changed in two years and it needed to be updated. I actually was able to design the header using the professional designed one as my guide and My Memories Suite scrapbooking software. I then exported it to a jpeg file and cropped it in Photoshop Elements. I am a lot more comfortable designing the MMS scrapbooking program than I am in Elements.

Old


I was so excited that I was able to do it on my own. Then when I tried to upload it to Blogspot and I ran into some difficulty. The header was really large and only partially showing up. I went back and tried again and again. The third time I got wise and looked at the exact pixels and dimensions of the previous header. Bingo, I saved my new header with those dimensions and it worked. The only thing is the crop was a little off and there is a smidge of white space especially on the bottom right, but I am okay with it for now. If I get brave I may decide to attempt to fix that. I am pretty tech savvy, but I have never been taught or shown how to do anything in the blogging world or digital scrapping world, so I am a bit of a beginner to say the least.

New


I hope you enjoy the new header and simple layout. I am hoping to be able to change my background paper soon. I am going to be heading to bed soon. I have been working on two upcoming posts. One is on square foot gardening and the other is on cloth diapering.

Speaking of diapers, we are potty training Little a this weekend and are hopeful to only have one child in diapers in less than 72 hours. I am prepared to change some sheets tonight though. He went to bed in just undies for the first time tonight. We will see how it goes. I am a little scared, but the book said to give diapers up completely so we are. Wish us luck. Maybe I will write a post on potty training after this. If you remember correctly it took us over a year to train our daughter to use the potty regularly. This would be a HUGE improvement if it works. I also will have a ton of diapers to de-stash. There are only so many diapers one baby needs and having gone from three in diapers to one in diapers in less than a year means I must part with some of my lovely cloth diapers. :)

Warmly,
Jen