Tax season is here

Sorry, I've come on to make a new posting at least five times since the last one. I have pictures to share, but then I get distracted by pinterest or the kids wake up five seconds after I sit down and open my laptop. I've been in a mood lately knowing the season ahead of us. The one where James is gone all.the.time at work and it's all on me. But it's not really that different than offseason. I mean, the kids go to sleep at 8. He comes home by 7:30. So on the days I really need it, he can jump in and do bedtime and then eat.

I'm hoping this feeling hasn't brushed off on the kids, but I think it may have yesterday. I'm not kidding. Phoebe screamed for 45 minutes. Like the screaming you do when you want a crowd of people to know you are being attacked. It was all over a pair of pants. She came home and had snow on her pants. She asked if she could change them and I said yes, to another pair of pants. She comes out with a skirt and I told her yes but with a pair of pants. She eventually snuck on just a skirt as I was trying to start dinner. Later on, she's whining....actually whining....to me about her legs being cold. Um, what?! So I gave her the pants she took off after school which were perfectly dry, clean and warm. That's when the fit started.

Walter doesn't throw fits. He just looks around for the most mischievious things to do. You know, like throwing toys in the toilet and trying to flush them down. Or taking the bag of cut up cheese and shoving a doll and some barbie pieces in there. It is unbelievable the things he will do many of which I know beyond a shadow of a doubt he knows is bad. I get that he's two and he's learning, but that shouldn't always equal massive messes.

We have had enough good times where I have felt like super mom and the kids have laughed.  Here are some pictures to prove it.

Fun even in the bathroom

Watching a movie with her babies

Picture with Busia and Papa (and Chip) before they left for Clintonville. They were down to move Uncle Nick from UW-Parkside to UW-Whitewater (about time!) and to tour two houses with us.

Since I can't figure out how to get it here, you can go here to my facebook page and see Phoebe saying Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.

I have pictures of the kids baking muffins, but those must be on my phone. I'll have to share them soon.

Growing Family

I realize that I didn't post since Thursday. I'm supposed to be doing a daily picture and I'm pretty sure I've taken pics on my phone everyday, but I only have these. The first is Walter's adorable baby outfit with cute animals all over it. He's two already and doing things every day to remind me he isn't a baby any longer. He's obsessed with angry birds and knows how to work the kindle fire and our iphones. *sniff*

And this is our clan at Aunt Debbie and Grant's wedding on Saturday. From left to right: sister Carissa, brother-in-law Brian, Phoebe, James, me, sister Salena, soon-to-be brother-in-law Travis, sister-in-law Christina, brother Louis, brother Nick, Nick's amazing girlfriend Becky, Mom, Dad and Walter.

I promise daily posts this week and A LOT of pictures!!!

Look what I found

Oh wait! You can't. I found that there is a folder on my SD card with old videos. Like so old Walter is wobbling in them and we're feeding him mushy food. I tried uploading two of them, but I couldn't get it to work. I tried youtube and it's an unrecognized format. I'm working on vimeo and we shall see. Here's a link that may work to see one video.

I spent much of the day cleaning and trying to get us ready for our trip this weekend. I did remember that I had set out to do two projects per week with the kids, so I pulled a very easy craft out that the kids pretty much did alone. Two empty toilet paper rolls, a quickly drawn face and wings, and washable markers. It didn't hold Walter's attention very long, so you only get to see a finished Phoebe owl.

The kids were very good today to let me get a few things checked off my list. We even made a trip down to Janesville tonight and an exciting dinner at Sams (cheap!). Here are my babies all smiles while watching a movie so I can stock the cupboards again.

Progress

I finished my first book of the year! Now I know why everyone loves and recommends the Hunger Games to their friends. I went straight to book two which was also on my kindle. That thing will be the main reason I reach my goal of 10 books this year. It is so much easier to push it on, have my page waiting there and scroll through a few pages. Walter has a special draw to my traditional books and scrambling bookmarks, so that is no longer a problem.

David finished his part of the kitchen project yesterday as well. He moved the counter and cupboards over three inches. Here's a sort of before and after. I should have taken better pictures! I decided the 'after' would be the day 4 picture.

This is the after picture I took since it was just nice to not have a refrigerator in the middle of the floor. I still have the china from the cupboard to the right of the fridge all over my table, but it will all get cleaned up and organized soon. You can see the paint on the top of the fridge to show how far it all moved over. It's exciting to have a better fridge, one that we might be able to actually use water and I from too!

Little Penguins

As promised, here's a picture of the proud kids with their penguin artwork. This is my picture for day three although we did take more than one.

One of my goals is two craft projects with the kids a week. I'm not sure yet what we'll do before Friday. Maybe something to take up for Aunt Debbie's wedding on Saturday.

We had the excitement of cousin David taking down a cabinet and the above stove microwave to make room for the larger fridge James bought from his uncle. We have china dishes all over our dining room table. I've got a giant box of hot chocolate mix, crackers, cookies, chocolate bars, and just junk food. I told James that 30% might make the cut to go back in the cabinet. Much of it is expired which makes me so sad. Glad we've evolved to have lists of what we have in the fridge and freezer and figured out better ways to organize the cabinets for less waste.

We've been using James' Coca-Cola beverage fridge for our overflow. Our new fridge will easily fit that gallon of milk while we finish off the old one. This shows the kids trying to stock the fridge since we had the company of hard workers this week who deserved more than tap water or milk. David is such an amazing handy man and Ali, his girlfriend, is so amazing with the kids.

I'm currently taking a break from moving the old fridge contents to the new fridge. Luckily, we have room to have them both plugged in at the same time so I can take my sweet time. It's a boring yucky job, but it will be so worth it when it is over.

The second day

Today was our last day of holiday break. The kids and I had returned to Jefferson yesterday while James stayed in Milwaukee to watch the Rose Bowl. I wanted today to be relaxing for the kids since Phoebe didn't have to be to school but also productive for me.

We slept in (8am) and then Phoebe requested pancakes. I do enjoy pancakes every once in awhile since I make a big batch and the we reheat the rest of the week. I washed dishes shortly after to stay on top of keeping the kitchen clean. The kids watched movies which occupied them for the perfect amount of time.

Walter received some cars squinkies for Christmas. He can't really be trusted with them alone, but the three of us played with them today. For lunch I went all out and made turkey burgers and sweet potato fries while making a bowl of tuna noodle salad for us to also have this week. Our 'Monday' will be Tuesday and I know we'll be just fine until I grocery shop on Wednesday on double coupon day. I've always tried to keep things in control and planned out prior to the envelope system, but that fixed amount specifically for food really keeps me in check. I let  the kids go through the coupons and we cut any that I may need before their expiration.

And I'm so proud of myself for this next activity. I've got tons of craft ideas pinned on pinterest under my 'kid ideas' folder. So I hopped on there to see what easy craft we could do with the supplies in our house. Boo at us for not having the traditional white shaving cream or we could have had snow paint! I decided on footprint penguins even though a project with a four and two-year-old and paint can get me twitching. They turned out so adorably. I'm not sharing since I'll have them hold them up for picture #3 at breakfast tomorrow.

We finished the day with clean up and dinner.  I treated the kids to a bath. I say treated because my baths are usually in and out, clean them and dry them. James fills the tub twice as deep, lets them dump water on each other. I'm just so paranoid that I can't usually let loose. I really tried tonight, and Walter might have hung himself with that extra rope. He even went so far as to giggle while peeing on himself as I'm trying to pick him out of the tub. Good thing the water was right there to turn back on. We made good time on our bedtime rituals so I let the kids watch a bit of their movies again. Phoebe curled up with Princess Charm school in the playroom, while Walter and I went in the living room to watch The Littlest Angel.

Phoebe ended up falling asleep on the loveseat, so I carried her to our bed. Yes, James is coming home tonight, but I completely forgot that fact until I had crawled her all the way to his side. I'm sure he'll want to stay up late and watch movies or something with David, and he usually falls alseep on the couch when he does. Walter and I finished his movie and then he went to bed very easily.

Here's the picture I took when Walter discovered Phoebe was sleeping.

I know I need to figure out my camera. I'm thinking I'll reserve that book from the library again that was recommended to me, I ordered from a different library, checked out, didn't crack open, and then had to pay a late fee. I think that's a bit more realistic than taking a photography class.

I'd also like to record here that my reading has already improved. Thanks to our Christmas present kindle fire, I've been reading whenever I have a spare few minutes. I'm 23% through The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and 8% through Larkstorm by Dawn Rae Miller. I meant to just download a sample of Larkstorm, but I must have accidentally bought the whole thing. After I finish my nightly chores, I'm curling up with The Hunger Games until my eyes tell me to stop.

New Year, New Everything

I'm like many people entering 2012 with quite the list of things I'd like to start doing or stop doing or do more often. I belong to an online forum with many other moms like me, and it seems like we're all trying for the same things - cooking healthier meals, reading more books, achieving better fitness, spending more time with our family....And there were many ideas on that site for 365 projects. One that I'm trying is a picture a day. One day down and one (okay many) pictures taken! So far I still leave it on auto, but I'm sure by the end of the year I will figure out manual.

Day 1: We were at Grandma Dura's house clearing off the table from dinner before playing rummikub. I wanted them to smile together, but Walter prefers his current goofy face.

Here's my 12 for 2012 list::

1 use envelope system
2 build our savings
3 send birthday cards to everyone in the family BEFORE their birthday
4 cook majority of meals at home
5 lose 20 lb by my 29th b-day (April 14 - I want to lose 52 by the time I turn 30!)
6 do 2 crafts/week with the kids
7 donate more to the church
8 work my MK business more
9 read 10 books (2011 was 1 - boo)
10 finish kids birthday books (Phoebe 4,5 Walter 2,3)
11 keep house clean by using cleaning schedule
12 develop family schedule