MY NEW ORGANIZATIONAL SYSTEM

I'm soooooooo excited about my new index card system! Thanks to my Aunt Suzee for giving me the book and showing me how to do this! I love it! The book is called, Sidetracked Home Executives, by two sisters, Pam Young and Peggy Jones. It teaches you how to set up an index card file to organize your daily chores, weekly chores, monthly, etc. It's designed for people who are slobs and are hopelessly un-organized. I'm one of those people who was born organized, and a lot of what the book suggested I was already doing. However, I have trouble keeping track of everything I have to do sometimes because I have lots to remember as the Nursery Coordinator at church, the editor of Circle of Friends, and of course day-to-day chores in running a home.

Here's how it works: Daily chores are on yellow. My yellow cards have things like Devotions with the kids, Memory Verse review, vacuum living room, dishes, straighten bathroom, etc. Some chores I do every other day and some only twice a week. These are on a different color of card. In the right hand corner of each card I mark how often I need to do this chore so when I've finished it for the day, I know when to file it: one day ahead, one week ahead, or in next month. Some chores need only be done 4 times a year or even once a year. I even keep my grocery list on an index card and add to it as I think of items and stick the coupons with it. I keep a card in the front of the box with important phone numbers on it, a card with computer passwords on it to save me time when I'm paying bills online or ordering stuff online, a card with my weekly menu plan and a card with my tenative weekly schedule. This book recommends you take one day off a week, which I love since I haven't had a day off since Ali was born! Even though my "day off" still involves feeding, dressing, bathing, entertaining, nursing, cooking, and some light cleaning, I try to use the afternoon to do something fun now and make a simple supper and save the heavy cleaning for the next day.

You can go so far as to put addresses and phone numbers of everyone you know in your index file, but I'm content to keep those in my address book. All I have is the index card dividers for Jan-Dec and then 1-31. It's been so cool to file things for months in advance and know that they won't get lost or forgotten under this system. For instance: I thought of a couple cool items to buy people this year for Christmas. I just made a card entitled Gift Ideas, jotted them down and stuck it behind the Nov. divider to remind me when I'm Christmas shopping. For May, my friend and I plan to have a yard sale, so I jotted down some items I don't want to forget to put in the sale and stuck it on a card behind the May divider. The authors of this book recommend that you put a card in each month's file with all the birthdays and anniversaries of people you know so that at the beginning of the month you can glance at it and buy or make the cards and get them out on time. Obviously I don't have a card in my daily file for EVERY single thing I do, like changing diapers, showering, getting dressed, etc. But it is SUPER helpful to have reminder cards for the things I tend to forget or overlook in the daily busy-ness of life. My cards remind me that this bill is due today, or that this person is having a baby shower next week and I should make a gift, or that I should call this friend and see how they are doing, etc. Because of this new system, I am reminded every other week to change the sheets on the bed, wash all the curtains in the house twice a year, clean the windows twice a month, etc. More deep cleaning gets done when I have a plan set for the day. Also, the authors recommend trying to get almost everything done before you leave the house. So, I usually spend two hours in the morning narrowing down my stack of cards for the day and try to get most of the things done before we go to visit Grandpa in the nursing home or go to the library or swimming. Then I have a little time to relax when the kids take their afternoon nap and I'm less stressed trying to do it all at the end of the day.

The authors of this book suggest you sit down and think of every room in your house and your car, garage, church activities, personal activities, etc. and make a card for each job/task associated with each room/activity. Then you can balance out the cards throughout the year so that the tasks/chores get done as needed. On Heavy Cleaning days you can spend 4 or more hours cleaning, but on light days you can do tasks that take less time. They think it's a good idea to also try to squeeze quick chores in between other things too. For instance, if you have 10 minutes before leaving for an appointment, they suggest that you squeeze in a 10 minute or less chore like quickly vacuuming the living room. It's good to label your storage boxes too and keep an inventory in your index system of what you have in storage and where so you can save time when you need to find something.

If you have more ?s about how you can set up an index card file, I'd be happy to share more on this subject!

Cousin Buddies

More Cute Pics of Daniel and Jeremiah together. It's so fun for my kids to have a cousin now!

Preggo Pals

Here is a pic of Cheri, Kandi, and I last June when we were all preggo. We took an updated photo with our little ones last week when I was in MN. It's fun to have friends at the same stage of life!

Baby Friends

Jeremiah and his cousin Daniel already have baby girlfriends??? That's how it looks! Daniel is already drooling all over baby Kayley! It's funny that Bethany and Jer both have round little heads with dark hair and dark eyes and similar ears and Daniel and Kayley are both fair and blonde!

MN TRIP

We just returned from a really fun family vacation in MN! We got to see lots of friends, King Jo's family, our new nephew, and my grandparents. We got to shop at actual stores, see some new babies our friends had, and celebrate Easter at our former church. Mrs. Jo got to hang out with a friend and learn some new crafts, and also spent the night at a hotel with some girl friends doing some serious eating (pizza, chocolate, etc.), hot tubbing, pedicures, and facials and King Jo got to fourwheel with his best buddy from childhood and go bowling with a bunch of guy friends. We had a pancake supper with some good friends in which the guys made the pancakes and put all kinds of interesting things in them (jalapeno chips, strawberries, M&Ms, etc.) and we had a barbecue at Kandi and Danny's with former Bible study friends. A great trip! The kids even did very well in the car both there and back. It was so cute to take pics of the baby boys together. Here is a pic of my friends and I with our babies. Left to right: Lesley and Kayley, Cheri and Bethany, Me and Jeremiah, and Kandi and Daniel. On the way home we stopped in North Dakota at our favorite hotel with a waterpark in it. We had lots of fun there!

My Angel Girl

This morning I was thinking about how precious little Alathia is to me. I often portray the tough side of raising a toddler and don't convey how incredible it is to have a little one who's learning so much and is so cute, fun, and smart. I love her so much when I watch her sleeping and I have trouble remembering why she frustrates me so much when she's awake. When she comes and greets me in the morning she gives me a hug and says, "My Momma." She's always chattering and says the sweetest things. She truly is independent and strong-willed but lately she's been a lot more obedient and she's a lot less work than some of the toddlers I've seen around town. She is mostly a very fun little girl who loves to play and loves people. However, 15 minutes after these lovely thoughts, I was howling in pain as she dropped a full conditioner bottle 3 feet down onto my middle toe in the shower, breaking it and causing it to bleed too. There's no denying that even sweet toddlers cause endless messes, can cause you a lot of physical pain (my toe is swollen and on ice and I've been bitten, pinched, had my feet stepped on repeatedly, toys thrown at my face, etc.) and take boundless energy to keep up with. But my girl isn't only a terror. She kissed my toe a few times and said everything was going to be okay. She told me she loved me and then wanted me to reassure her that I still love her. I sure do love my wild little gal!!!

Tons of SNOW

After having 70s weather for a couple of weeks, it was strange to get tons of heavy, wet snow in the last couple of days. According to my dad, Mr. Native Minnesotan who always knows the forecast, we've received 50 inches in 48 hours and their predicting another 10. However, most of the snow on pavement is gone and it's melting fairly quickly. We desperately need the moisture here! Ali has enjoyed playing in the snow. Since a lot of stores and places are closed or things are being cancelled due to the weather, I let the kids take a "bath" in our little blow-up tub in our shower and we've done lots of play-dough and coloring too. I'm so glad that both of my kids love each other and being together (at least at this stage of their life!)

Golden Birthday!

Today is my Golden Birthday! I had a great day thanks to the lovingkindness of many friends and family. However, the coolest thing about my Golden Day is that we picked today to dedicate our children in our church before the Lord and our congregation. We hadn't had it done yet for Ali since we had moved soon after she was born and then when we found out we were pregnant with Jer, we waited to do it once our baby was born. I can see why people have their kids dedicated before they become mobile. Ali threw her fancy little hat off and sent it sailing off the church stage, declaring she didn't like to wear it (in front of our whole church). She also whined to get down when I held her and then was fidgeting at our feet, munching a graham cracker and eventually she laid right down on the stage! As we were exiting and going to our seats I headed for the nursery with Ali and she yelled, "Come On Daddy!" so the whole church chuckled. What an experience! Josiah talked briefly about how today is a day where we want to publicly commit ourselves to raising our kids in godliness and how we want our church to hold us accountable in this. Jeremiah, in his little suit and tie, sat contentedly in Josiah's arms and stared at Pastor Richard, his usual happy self!

Burnt Down Barn on Birthday

My dad told me a story yesterday that I hadn't heard before. Apparently 25 years ago when I was born, he went to pick my mom up from the hospital the next day and he was in the middle of helping a neighbor (where they lived out of town) do a controlled burn on the neighbor's field. Because he was helping watch the fire, he was 30 minutes late picking me up for my first trip home! Then when they arrived back at home, all the fire trucks and crews were out at the neighbor's because while my dad went into town to the hospital the fire got out of control (like most controlled burns in WY) and burnt down another neighbor's barn! Kinda funny! Here are some pics of me and my boy!

Life Lessons Learned

Some lessons just have to be learned. Whether or not anyone tried to tell me some of these things, I didn't really understand or grasp them until going through them. When my daughter is in high school, I want to try to convey these things as best I can but she'll probably need to figure them out on her own:

*God is faithful, no matter where you go. I could list hundreds of stories...but I'll just leave it at that.
*Life is hard. Life is unfair. There are always trials to overcome and things to learn and ways to grow. I remember a pastor telling me when I graduated that life is HELL, but yet he encouraged me that God was going to be with me through it.
*Money is important. I didn't save enough of it back when I was single and had more to throw around. It would have been so wise to invest or buy land back when I was living at home! Yet, I'm glad I had the attitude of trusting God and not seeking after money in High School like most kids my age. Lots of little children came to know Christ because I committed my summers to missions. God has always taken care of my every need and provided more than I could ask for. People tried to tell me to go for a degree of some kind like nursing that I could use in missions or in America. Nursing is definitely not my thing. I was hungry for God's Word and a Bible degree. I'm so thankful to have gone to a Bible college but I think now I realize now how good it would be to have a degree or specialty on top of that (whether in massage therapy, beautician work, as a chef or author, etc.) in the event that my husband died or became disabled or for working when my kids are grown. I know God will always take care of us so I don't need to trust in a degree, but to those of you young women reading this, it does help in today's world. One perk to me not having a degree is less pressure to work. If I could make $20 or more an hour as a nurse, it'd be very tempting not to stay home with my kids or to try to juggle working nights or working part time, etc. I also have come to realize that a big part of me wishes I had a fancy degree only for my own pride and status when talking with other women who have fancy degrees and that I can be a wonderful, hard-working mother without one. So, whether or not my daughter chooses to get a degree, I'll support her in her decision.
*Family is for life. My parents always gave us the impression that at 18 we were on our own and they were done parenting. We were to leave home or pay rent! I had notions of being an overseas missionary and/or getting out of my prairie existence to see the world. I never realized until I was in college how hard the separation from family can be. I never realized how heartbreaking it would be to say good-bye and how much I would miss them even though I was "technically" an adult. I never realized that family should be treasured and time with them is fleeting. I saw them as people to escape from to get out on my own and experience independence, but never realized that my heart strings will be forever tied to them, no matter what their faults.
*No matter how old you are, it absolutely KILLS you to see your parent's marriage falling apart. That sometimes parents can act like kids and you have to be the "parent." Praise the Lord that God is great and mighty and saved and restored my parent's marriage before it ended in divorce!
*How difficult it is to marry someone far from your family in distance. I don't regret for one milisecond marrying King Jo and he's worth everything! But the reality is that one set or both sets of our parents are always going to be heartbroken that we don't live nearby and our kids won't know their grandparents as well and we ourselves will miss out on a lot of quality family time due to the distance. Another aspect is that we spend all of our vacation time going to MN, or if we live in MN, going to WY to visit family. I didn't have a clue how hard it would be to be so far from loved ones and have to go back and forth all the time. It's going to mean a LIFETIME of travel!!!
*That marrying young isn't bad like people make it out to be! My brother told us that we would be destitute, my parents thought is was risky and that we were throwing our lives down the tubes, and everyone told us constantly we should wait and enjoy life before marriage and that young marriages usually end in divorce. I LOVED getting married young! I have no regrets! I loved having kids soon after marriage too because I feel like being a wife and a mom is what I was created to be! Everyone says to wait and enjoy your freedom and build a strong marriage for a few years before having kids, but I think nothing makes a marriage stronger like going through the stages of pregnancy together and watching the miracle of a child enter the world together and raising her/him together. I'm so thankful that King Jo and I can enjoy each other in our youth and that we got hitched before either one of us dated other people or gave our hearts away!
*That being a parent is wonderful, amazing, confusing, and HARD! I never appreciated my parents for what they did when I was a kid as much as I do now when I'm in the trenches of raising young ones. I never understood how much they loved me. I never realized that the reason dad was gone so much was because he was working to put food on our table. I thought mom was mean or cranky when she got stressed or weary raising us 3 mostly by herself. I now know just how many thousands of poopy diapers she must have changed and how hard she worked to give me a wonderful childhood. Now, I understand. I understand what it is to cry over my baby because I love him so much and the weight a parent carries to try to do everything right and keep their child safe and healthy in an uncertain world.
*Purity is a treasure worth fighting for! At any moment you can give it away to the many men who will gladly take it from you. But once given, you can never get it back. I want to encourage my daughter, and other young women, to go above and beyond in staying pure for their husbands because it will save them the pain that comes from disobeying God in this area (and wrestling with guilt, single parenthood, STDs, etc.) There is so much peace and trust in a marriage where both are virgins when they wed.

These are just a few of the things I want to pass on. I'll add more to this list as they come to mind.

Still the Same

Alathia Joy is definitely a girl with attitude. Notice that her newborn mad face hasn't changed a whole lot in two years!

Ali's New Friend

Ali has a new friend named Lindsay that we do play dates wtih. Here are the goofy 2-year olds trying to look cool in sunglasses!

Smiley

Our little boy smiles all the time! I think I have him trained to smile when I pull out the camera!

More Shoes

These are so fun to make! Not including the pattern I bought online for $6.50 these cost me about 80 cents or less to make!

You Must Have a Toddler If:

*You have ever had to clean tortilla chips out of your electrical outlet with a toothpick!
*You have ever had to scrub crayon off of your sewing machine
*Magic Eraser is your best friend.
*You rake leaves and your toddler runs through them and un-rakes them. You sweep the kitchen and your toddler runs through your pile and scatters the dirt. You fold the clothes and your toddler unfolds them. Everything you do throughout the day seems to get UN-DONE.
*You have walked into your toddlers' bedroom and found poo all over everything! The only thing that was poo-free was the diaper she was wearing! (I've experienced this at least 15 times in the last 6 months.)
*You have ever begged God to take you home to heaven immediately!
*Your spouse frequently sings annoying ditties off of Children's movies. For instance, King Jo repeats over and over, "River, Rock, Crocodile Lake" like Dora on one of Ali's Dora movies.
*You end each day looking like you've been beaten by a mob.
*You've watched your child sit on the potty chair, spread her legs, and STILL manage to pee all over the floor and miss the potty! You've seen this happen at least once or twice a day.
*You've watched your child push a whole row of library books off the shelf at the library.
*Your child gets a new injury every single day (this one's for you Shiloh!)
*You and your spouse spend each evening laughing over the hysterical and corny things your child has said throughout the day!
These are all true. I'll add more as I experience them.

I Was That BIG!

I wasn't blogging when I was pregnant, so some of you missed those numerous pregnancy photos I sent many of my friends. I looked about 7 months pregnant the day I went into labor with Ali. With Jeremiah, people started asking me when I was due when I was 6 months along! Funny thing is, he was 2 ounces smaller than Ali! Here's me looking pretty elephant-like during my second pregnancy (obviously my second because Ali is in both pics!) I'm so glad to have my normal shape back!

Designer Shoes

I'm sure many of you have heard of Robeez shoes, these adorable little leather shoes that sell for close to $30 and are great for kids learning to walk. All the "cool" babies at Babies N' Books wear them. I'm so thankful that my friend Heather gave me a link where I could buy a pattern to make my own. The woman that sells these patterns is a stay-at-home mom with a home business. She encourages you to get your leather at thrift shops. I got a leather jacket and two colored leather purses at the local thrift shop and made this cute pair of car shoes for Jer and puppy shoes for my nephew. Jer's are a litttle big so he'll be wearing them around the time he starts walking. They look just like the designer ones and I estimate that I spent $3 at the very most on materials making them! Go to www.makethemyourself.com to buy a pattern (it's $6.50 to get a pattern with shipping).

When in the West

I'm so glad my family didn't have nintendo/X-box or lots of TV growing up. We made our own fun! In fifth grade, my best friend Kristen and I sewed our first skirts ever with her Grandma's help (out of old neon green sheets) and we would proudly wear them to school as if we were so cool! We also were fascinated with a book our class was reading called Naya Nuki about an Indian girl in captivity who escapes. We wanted to plan our own Naya Nuki trip that summer so we camped out in the pasture for a few days, swimming in the creek, building fires, and just having a grand time pretending we were in the wilds. We even tasted roasted grasshoppers! My friends and I formed a club for riding horses called Rebel's Girls (Rebel was my horse.) We also thought it was a hoot to hitch up old Randy, our billy goat, and be pulled around the pasture (or drug on our stomachs). Good times!

Mother Woes

I adore being a mom and I am delighted to have the priviledge to stay-home full-time with my sweet kids. However, I won't hide the hardships, as some people do on their blogs, and make life sound perfect and wonderful without a bump in the road. Being a mom is TOUGH. Taking care of our little Ali is the biggest challenge of my life. I have moments where I love her beyond words and moments where I absolutely want to throttle her when she's running through the library hollering and pushing shelve-loads of books onto the floor or shoving other kids. Until you have experienced life with a toddler, you just have no idea how it really is to take care of them day in and day-out with no days off. I used to hear people constantly telling me that once Ali got mobile then I'd REALLY be busy and I didn't have a clue what they were talking about! Ali was a pleasant baby (although we discovered Jeremiah is much easier) and I thought the first year of motherhood was a breeze. I was so bored, I was dying to have another baby when Ali was under a year old. Let me tell you, we got pregnant when she was just starting to walk, at a year, and my life has never been boring since! I often wish I could just snap my fingers and skip the 1-3 year stage and all the tantrums, accidents, and public embarrassment it brings! It's definitely not my favorite age stage! There are a few blessed mamas out there who have wonderful toddlers who are quiet, obedient, and easy, but that's most definitely NOT our daughter. We love our daughter and laugh continually at the funny things she says and does, but our particular little 2 year old is a handful in the BIGGEST sense of the word!!!

3 Tods

Today I babysat some adorable 18 month old twins for our really good friends. They are so cute! They had fun playing in the sandbox with Ali. Carsen (boy) and Kennedy (girl).

Little Man

It's hard to believe our Little Man is 4 months old already! He is smiley, a nd very easygoing and enjoys being held or having mommy smile at him! He's recently started squeaking and screeching a lot in a high little voice as he practices "talking."

Beaded Sockies

These are some lovely little socks I made! A friend in MN, Heather, taught me how to do them via e-mail and they make wonderful gifts for little girls! I love doing crafts, especially crafts for my kids!

The Worst Days as a Mom

So far, the worst days I've experienced as a mom have involved sickness. I realize there are much worse things some moms deal with like having a kid kidnapped or have cancer or be killed or die of SIDS. I'm thankful I haven't experienced those things. I still find it incredibly rough to have sick kids when I myself am feeling miserable. We've had yucky colds going around our house the last couple of days and two of the 3 days I was alone with the kids ALL DAY LONG. My toddler was incredibly whiny and demanding, and had an awful diarrhea mess all over the carpet. My baby wants to nurse ALL DAY LONG and more frequently at night and has screaming jags that make my throbbing headache all the worse. I wish I had a nanny on days like these. I'm so glad my husband is home helping me with them today. It's impossible to rest and recover when the demands are endless. I'm not even as bad off as my sis-in-law Kandi who has been sick for a week with a cold PLUS a flu. I can deal with sick kids when I'm not sick, but when I'm sick, YIKES! The most miserable time of our entire lives was the few days after Jeremiah's birth when I had the worst cold, Josiah was throwing up uncontrollably for 24 hours, and Ali was sick and our baby was a couple of days old and I was supposed to be on bed rest, but was having to take care of everyone in the family, even though I was anemic and totally exhausted from childbirth. It seems like ever since Ali started going to play groups/nursery, etc. she's picked up more colds than ever before. It makes me want to run away and hide and become a hermit since getting sick is so awful.................................

Ali's New Skirt

Here's the Peasant Skirt I made Ali last week. It turned out longer than I thought so I'll either hem it or save it until she has a growth spurt.

Please don't Share!

There are times when a parent discourages sharing. Like today, when I caught Ali holding her sippy cup of water up to Jer's mouth when he was in the exersaucer. I also saw him gnawing on something and fished a cheerio out of his mouth. Then Ali got a lecture on how our baby only drinks milk. No sharing cheerios!
Please don't share toys with him that scare the tar out of him and are loud or set toys on top of him that are as big as he is. Please don't share your cold germs with him and stick your grimy fingers in his mouth.

The Blessing of a Brother

I'm so thankful to have a good relationship with my brother Colter. I love Grant too, my other brother, but we are 7 years apart and have less in common. Colter's a really easy-going guy and he has a heart to serve the Lord and reach lost children through evangelism. I hope Ali and Jer can have the kind of friendship that I have with Colt.

Did I mention he babysits on a moment's notice too?

Little Mama

It's interesting how much little girls want to be like their moms. Ali imitates me in EVERYTHING! One of the way she imitates me is in taking care of her dolls and pretending to be a mom. She's recently been into sharing toys with Jeremiah too, so she tries to give him a doll to play with. He's just thrilled with Ali and always smiles at her. He doesn't mind playing girly things like tea party and dolls as long as Ali's paying attention to him.......at least for now!