May Flowers Bring New Living Rooms

I love flowers. Everyone loves flowers. But I love flowers in my house. When we were first married I used to get flowers for the kitchen every couple of weeks. 

Somewhere along the line I stopped buying them. Steve gets me some for Mother's Day, Anniversaries and my birthday. But our "Snowball Bush" (I have no idea what the technical term is) is in full bloom in the backyard and I just had to have some of the beauty in the house. 

It renewed a style sense in me that I had long forgotten about with two toddlers taking over our home. So I rearranged overhauled my living room and pulled out the cutest white ceramic mug to put my snowballs in. 

(Now I really realize how much I need to paint the table they are on, I digress...)

And needless to say for the first time in a long time, I sat in our reading chair by my flowers last night and read. Something else that I have not done in awhile. And every few pages I turned and looked at my flowers, smiled and felt at ease, and kept reading. 

I think I may start my flower tradition back up because how can you not look at these and be happy? Now go out and cut some greens/flowers from your yard or buy some. You will probably never regret it.

Bethany

Vacations...

Whenever you go out of town, the packing at first like the worst part, then the planning of the trip and then the getting there.

For me the worst part is when you come home. The above was when I was single when Steve and I were newly weds. But now that we have children I hate the coming home.

The above pictures are only 1/3 of what I brought in from my car...

But I do still love a good few days away. But the laundry afterward is sicking to say the least!

Checking Off Some Resolutions!

So I posted the truth about New Year's Resolutions in my mind in December (here). But sometimes people forget a week or two in or a month or two in. So I have an Update!

This may be a bad eye opening experience...

1. Finally get up in the morning and exercise. At least 3 days a week 

2. Write in my hand written journal once a week

3. Finally organize the office (3/4 the way there)

4. Go on at least 1 date a month with Steve and dress up for it

5. Not be intimidated by cooking fish

6. Take myself to a spa DAY, the whole freaking DAY

7. Finally paint the console table I meant to do a year and a half ago

8. Actually keep my car clean

9. Have dinner ready on time

10. Pay off that doctor bill we have had since 2008

11. Go on daily walks with the kids (Weather permitting) (Although ongoing)

12. Maybe, buy our own home again 

I think it is a pretty good start for 2 months down. 2012, we may end up being friends after all! How 'bout them apples?!

How are your Resolutions going? I would love to know!

Bethany

I Hate the Corner Cabinet!

When we moved into our rental about 3 months ago I couldn't help but think about all the possibilities I could do with this large corner cabinet in our kitchen... And now I know so much better!

My husband had to buy me a stepping stool to be able to reach the back of it and the top. No joke. So I started just throwing things in it. And it turned into the below disaster.

And at first glance the top is not too bad, but there are only three items on it. Try finding something important on the bottom before the dinner burnt.

After half an hour it now looks like this:

Not amazing, but I can see everything. I can't have more than 3 cans back or I need the step latter and that is just annoying sometimes. And it has a odd shape on the sides so it is actually kind of tight. But I know what is there for the first time in 3 months. 

Have a great weekend!

Bethany

Bring it ON Monday! : Laundry Day...

So you know when you are home for a while and you keep your house pretty clean and organized and you have a little spare time to read and all that relaxing stuff?

Today is not it. I was crazy busy the last 5 days and now have hardly any clothes. So today is Laundry Day in the old time sense. 50 years ago-ish there was a set day every week to just do laundry. Now with the modern washing and drying machines I gratefully have access to I can do my laundry all the time as needed. But today that is all I am doing, maybe I will have it all done by midnight. Cross your fingers. 

Good Monday and Laundry day to you all. I hope it is successful. Otherwise, my children and I may be naked tomorrow.

Bethany

The Awful Truth About My New Year's Resolutions

Hello! Is everyone almost done with their Christmas shopping? I am not either. 

I may have to put a camera in my own stocking, it is no where to be found. Isaiah probably took it downstairs to the battleground of the 10 million toys. (My name for the family room)

But as we all know, the day after Christmas means a couple of things.

1. Dodging the mail-man (All the delight of watching your kids get the coolest things is now gone)

2. Looking at the kids play with all the boxes and wonder where on earth the actual toy is

3. Putting the scale from the bathroom floor to under the bed

and last but not least: 4. Making your New Year's Resolutions REAL quick since the new year is 5 days away.

Who actually makes all their resolutions? For those of you that do, I applaud you and you are my hero. Really. But in the normal world, we last about a month. So, this year I have come up with a full proof plan.

I will have a different resolution for each month! What do you all think? When you have too many, it is too hard to breath, relax and honestly be sane trying to accomplish them all. So one at a time people!

Here are mine:

1. Finally get up in the morning and exercise. At least 3 days a week. I do not go to a gym or anything. Just a couple of ten pound weights and a yoga ball in my living room. That last 40 pounds of baby fat doesn't work itself off.

2. Write in my hand written journal once a week

3. Finally organize the office (Our filing cabinet is scary!)

4. Go on at least 1 date a month with Steve (Hard to plan ahead with his schedule so it will be a quick decision) and dress up for it

5. Not be intimidated by cooking fish

6. Take myself to a spa DAY, the whole freaking DAY

7. Finally paint the console table I meant to do a year and a half ago

8. Actually keep my car clean

9. Have dinner ready on time (Can you tell I stay at home?)

10. Pay off that doctor bill we have had since 2008

11. Go on daily walks with the kids (Weather permitting)

12. Maybe, buy our own home again

Let's see how this all goes, I do not plan to do this in any set order, just what sounds good at the beginning of the month. Does anyone have any different/quirky resolutions of their own?

Happy Friday!

Bethany

Bring it ON MOnday! : Laundry Room/Pantry Organization

Hello and hope the start of your week is great! Today I bring you a giant, scary and crazy long project. Mostly to let all of you know, your not alone in that "one room". You know what I am talking about...

That room that hardly sees the light of day. Where all the things without a home, find one. Where the creepy crawlies live and you know that one shoe is in there somewhere! For most of you it is in your basement, others it is the room down the hall. But fear NOT! You can change this evil with a little hard work, sweat and nagging your husband to help.

We have a room in our basement that we use as storage for food and well, everything. It is also the laundry room. We are renters and I would love to make it cute if it is possible, but it's not ours. I have before and after photos for you. And feel free to judge me, I judged myself for this heap honestly. 

But an organization idea for you which can totally be used in your pantry is to sort your food by typical meals you eat. Like Italian or Mexican and so on. A lot of people just put stuff in where it can fit. Bad idea. This is just one simple, and free idea, to make dinner time a little easier. (I will have photos of that another day!) 

Enjoy a good laugh and oh my goodness and feel free to ask if I am a hoader. I am not. These are the before:

And it probably did not help that the owner of the house had stuff down there to from re-doing the house to try and sell. So we had to organized that first. The room is really large actually and the goal is to get a table down there to fold clothes on.

Middle:

And the end! Sort of... I had two sick kids this weekend so we will get to work on the finishing touches this week.

Happy Monday!

Bet

Bring it ON Monday! : Family Household Binder

For this week's Bring it ON Monday, we are looking at doing a Family Household Binder. I got the origional idea from here: http://www.iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/ , but I did not feel like paying $50 for it when I can do it for free (besides the cost of ink and paper). 

DO YOU HAVE ALL OF YOUR IMPORTANT INFORMATION AVAILABLE AND IN ONE PLACE IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY? DO YOU HAVE YOUR KIDS' INFORMATION ORGANIZED IN CASE YOU SOMEONE HAS TO WATCH YOUR THEM WITHOUT NOTICE?

So, this binder will be a home for all information for your home, finances, auto care, children's schedules, to do charts, budgeting, meal planning and even a babysitter's list. 

I have started it, but because we have had so much going on I realized the color I put it in will not print, so I need to change them. I have them through excel. It took a bit of time to make all the charts but I think it will be very helpful in the case of an emergency. I have Isaiah and Lilly's schedule written down in case someone needs to watch them last minute and I can not tell them the basics of their day. I have a list of who our water, garbage, sewer, gas and power are through. Insurance info for life, health and auto/home. Bank information and so on.

So I will have this all done by the end of the week to show all of you! If anyone is wanting one, just let me know. I can put the whole thing together with your family names for $20.

Happy Monday!

Bethany's Weight Loss Challenge

So this is the second post of the day... need to catch up while both babies are sleeping.

I have my 6 week check up on Friday. As long as Dr. Isbell clears me for exercise, I will begin on Saturday morning! I feel fantastic right now but I want to start working out!

I weigh less right now than I did when I got pregnant with Lilly. I don't know how much exactly though.

I have a goal to lose 35 pounds-ish by Christmas. Roughly it is 6 pounds a month. I can do this! I will be keeping my progress here in the blog for some kind of accountability. I will post monthly and depending on the results, I will say how I think I could have done better or what I think worked the best. This should be interesting... I think I will need to enlist the help of my friend Shayna to kick my trash into gear for a good way to punch my fat good bye!

Life as I know it.....

First and foremost I am not complaining! I would like to vent.... Life is hard right now. Steve works away in Utah drilling for 20 days straight and when he comes home it is rush and go here and there and do all these activities so we have quality time. I work full time and Isaiah goes to a fantastic sitter in my ward but of course I miss him all day long and cry every night before I go to work because its hard to leave him. So then I don't do chores when Steve is home so we can have more time together and when he goes back to work, like today. And this set he is on nights, (gotta love shift work) and we won't be going to see him because it is just too hard working around his sleeping during the day.

So this week at work I had a breakdown to my totally amazing Director of Sales Tenae, and I have a new lease on what I am going to be doing day to day. Why should I be stressed about doing everything in the 10 days that Steve is home!?!?!? So from now on, we are just going to relax and not really go anywhere. And I will be coming home on my lunch hours to do some chores and then I won't be up until the wee hours of the morning getting them done. I don't feel the need to go see all of our families in a whole Saturday trip. Not that I don't love my family and his, but Steve, Isaiah and I are our own little family now and we need to focus on us. Not that we won't go see our families, but they can come to Pocy too.

So, Steve-O, it's just us and our Little Bear when your home. But you still have to take out the garbage and cook that so yummy food that you do!