Excuse my ADD

So here I go again... In my defense it is a new year and how could I not make a resolution or two (twenty? rough estimate...) It would in fact be irresponsible of me not to take this opportunity to better my life and that of my husband and kids as well. I always thought that someday I would "grow up" and suddenly know all about being a mom and a housekeeper and being responsible. Like a switch would flip and instead of wanting to spend all morning in bed, suddenly I would be up at 6am cooking pancakes and eggs for the whole family while singing 'oh what a beautiful morning'. Its so sad that that isn't true. Its a huge stinking learning process. 7 years of marriage and 4 kids later, I still have a lot to learn. I'm embarrassed that these are basics, but heres a little look at some of the things we'll be working on in 2011.

One of our main goals this year is to get our house organized. Our current system isn't working and we need to get a better plan so that I'm not always buried. My kids have NO chores and no opportunity to learn responsibility, or work ethic, or independence. So I found this great websitewww.freeprintablebehaviorcharts.com that is going to help me with this. They not only have charts on EVERYTHING I could ever want they also have great articles to read on a wide range of parenting issues and concerns. I'm in love. I could make really cute charts but I would turn it into an unnecessarily gigantic project so this is much better. Pick it, print it, get to work. As Mater likes to say, get 'er done! We're going to have a few charts up on the fridge. There is Josh's potty chart and Hayley's reading chart, and even a mommy and daddy chore chart. A kids chore chart will soon follow. It'll be a fridge only a mother could love. For the kids chore chart I'm kinda doing something different that I think will work for us. It'll be more like a daily routine chart and I'll have a magnet for each kid. As they do their "stuff" they can move the magnet along on the chart. So not just chores (although that will be on there), but get dressed, pick up toys, nap, etc. We might lose the magnets the first day, who knows, but I'm excited to try something new. Its much better than the alternative, changing nothing but expecting the results to change. I'm a very visual person so I know this will help me. We have great scripture reading charts for Jeremy and I too. I gave them to my Mia Maids in December to help them keep track of their daily reading in 2011. That link will bring you to the original but I edited it to remove the pic of the kid and replace it with a picture of the scriptures I found on google. Jeremy and I will turn it into a contest between us. :) I LOVE charts.

So along with getting our house in order, another big resolution of ours is to get our financial house in order so to speak. We've tried the budget thing quite a few times but we're giving it another go. We went to a church meeting on budgeting and the teacher showed us a great budget he'd done on excel and he emailed us a blank budget form that he had set-up. Let me know if you're interested and I can send you that blank budget form that works with Excel. I don't know much about excel but the teacher taught us how to use the form. Jeremy, being an expert in this area, has it figured out and did a great job getting it all set up for us. We're also incorporating an envelope system to move away from using our debit card. (I decorated the envelopes :)) Right now we have no idea where our money goes, and this will help with that. Besides envelopes for food and dates, theres even a Christmas envelope so that we aren't so pinched when December rolls around. We just figured out what envelopes we wanted and how much to put into them and ta-da, we're all set. I'm so excited. I don't do well with stress at all, in fact my stress tolerance level is like a 1. I'm feeling a lot of hope that this will help to get my currently astronomically high stress level down to manageable, functionable levels. (Yes that is a word, don't look it up.)

Thinking of having kids?

Thinking of having kids? Here is a great link to a 15 step program to try and prepare you for it. CLICK HERE :) I love things like this that help you to have a little sense of humor about motherhood. If you can't laugh about it, then you'll cry. :)

Have yourself a merry little christmas!

So here are a few pics from our christmas eve cookie decorating adventure that I wanted on here. Please disregard the poorly(if at all) dressed children and the dirty house. Thank you.

Have yourself a merry little christmas!

Christmas was wonderful. Christmas day I mean. The surrounding weeks were a little craziness and stress unfortunately. But I think it was better then last year. We were more prepared this year. I look forward to the day when there is more enjoyment then stress. We're getting there. We didn't get to fit in everything that I was wanting too (there wasn't nearly enough extended family time for my liking) but we did get to do a few fun things. We made sugar cookies and gingerbread men for Santa (and us), we decorated christmas ornaments and watched lots of fun chritsmas specials on tv. Hayley and I had our own little wrapping party and we spent more time looking at christmas lights then any other family in Kennewick. Jeremy was so good about pulling off and turning around and slowing down for any decent display within the kids eyesight. Of course the lights set to music were so fun and we made a point to visit quite a few of them. We turned the car off and all the kids (minus Livvy) climbed into the front seat of the van with us. It is probably my favorite memory I'll have from this year. Mine and Jeremy's laps piled high with bundled up kids, watching lights in the dark car, listening to music, singing along, and just relaxing and enjoying the moment. I got to spend alot of time, especially with Hayley now that she is older, talking about all that Christmas is really about. That was nice, but I missed acting out the nativity with parents and family like we've done in the past. That would have been good for Josh and Ryan. Next year we'll have to make it a priority, this year it just didn't happen.

For the first time in our married life we spent Christmas night at our own home. Usually we spend the night at my parents' house and we have a very early and crazy christmas morning. It was time to break off on our own (3 kids was pushing it, 4 would be insanity!) It was great not having to lug loads of presents between houses. We got to house hop for the rest of the day, getting to spend time with alot of our family, and it was a very nice, stress-free day! There's just always more you needed or wanted to get to, and didn't. We eventually decorated a gingerbread house, 4 days after Christmas:) So maybe better late then never. Anyone want a christmas card?

Excuse my ADD

I have to do a little update on my last ADD post. I have actually done pretty decently with my projects I took on. (for me) My greatest success being crocheting. I've crocheted countless flowers, made a hat for my son, and even crocheted a hat and scarf set for my sister for her birthday/christmas. AND more importantly they were fantastic! YAY! I really feel like I accomplished that goal. I am excited to have this new skill and I'm looking forward to using it for the rest of my life. Next fall when all the crocheters and knitters pull out their hooks and needles and yarn in honor of humanitarian service I'll be able to contribute. It's a great feeling. I added in a couple pics of my recent projects. As you may have noticed by the quality of the shots, the photography project didn't make it much past the "digital photography for dummies" book from the library ;). Still working on that one. At least I read the books (a little) and I actually have a working camera now (yay black friday office max sale). I really need to put the photography idea on hold though until I can save up for a DSLR as opposed to my little point and shoot. Yes, I'm blaming it on the camera. 'Exercise' is currently in the 'fail' category. Blogging can't be put there yet because, yay, I'm blogging right now. Now that its January I have so many new goals to work on (Woo hoo for new years resolutions); there are many more ADD posts to come!