The girls moved downstairs on Friday night. I have since gotten more exercise (in the 4 nights) than I have my entire pregnancy. Stairs are not fun in the middle of the night. Last night was the worst. Orlund and I have gotten into the habit of reading in bed before going to sleep, it’s nice snuggled up reading in bed together. Last night we watched TV a bit later so therefore reading took us to a short time after 11pm. I don’t know exactly when the girls started getting up, but I believe they (one or the other) woke up around midnight, and just a few times until around 3am. 3am it got worse, much worse. Joy had to go potty, she was having nightmares. Olivia was I dunno whating.. Orlund did most the trips up and down the stairs, however I was still unable to sleep, even once he returned to bed (just to jump up again 5-10minutes later) I couldn’t sleep. 6am was when I did my last trip to their room. I gave Olivia her bottle and said go to sleep. Orlund left for work around 8am. The girls got me up around 8:19am.
Okay… I can do this… I have Solomon here today, but I can do this. I’ll just nap when the kids nap, no biggie. I even had a little umph and got a tiny bit of organizing done in the office. (I mean TINY bit). Nap time rolled around ~ Yipee! 4 phone calls, 3 interruptions from Joy (more snack, potty etc etc), and a baby in my belly who had major hiccups = NO SLEEP. I got up and did some book keeping and other mindless tasks. It’s now 5pm, I’m starting to cook dinner. I can’t keep my eyes open… literally. I’m exhausted. (I might also add that yesterday I cleaned the entire upstairs of our house ~ it’s spotless. That also wears me out).

My last post was a downer, but even now rereading it the post didn’t even capture the essence of what I was feeling. Thank you to those that read and commented. It really did help to know that I’m not alone in my frustrations.

I finally was able to talk to Orlund and we were both able to discuss our frustrations and clear the air some. Since then he’s been awesome. He tells me to ask him when I need help (I’m bad at that), especially when I’m doing something I shouldn’t be doing in my pregnant state. And I feel like we are moving forward and that makes me much happier. We are even wanting to go to bed early just to lay there and talk for hours, something we haven’t done in a long time. This year is starting to look up.

I honestly can’t remember what all I’ve blogged about or not. Sorry if I’m repeating myself (I’m to lazy to look back). Orlund finished building a part wall that has a built in desk on the other side (MY desk). We cleared out the old ‘tv room’ and it’s been transformed into our new office. We spent the last week after Christmas before Orlund started his new job busting our butts to try and get the office ready to move all our crap stuff in. Orlund bought some shelving units and put them together, as well as dismantling his desk, moving it then reassembling it. We only have a few remaining odds and ends in the old office (as well as the closet that is full of my material and sewing stuff). I hope to move all the remainder of my stuff over tomorrow (although I may need more boxes). After Orlund finishes moving the last few things of his over then the old office is ready for it’s make over. It’s going to be the girls new bedroom. They are very excited about it. Especially since they will both be getting ‘new’ beds! I’m very excited to set up their new room and finally move them downstairs (although it’d be nice if they slept through the night on a regular basis!).

My mom gave me a hand and we were able to get the toy room finally organized and cleaned up. It felt so good to get it decluttered and organized. I don’t know if you’ll understand this, but to me, whenever an area that hasn’t been cleaned in a while is finally cleaned and cleared out it’s so quiet. Like the clutter and mess were noise to my eyes.

Well I think that’s all I have to share at the moment
Hope you all have a wonderful week! Oh and if any of you have any recipes that are good for freezing I would greatly appreciate them… trying to stock up, unfortunately I don’t have many ideas…Thanks in advance

If you have followed my blog for some time you know about my ‘little secret’. The one that I’m not a good housekeeper. It’s my personal struggle, personal stress when people are coming over.

Well It’s not a stress in my life anymore. Not so long as I stick to my ‘plan’. I write a list, every morning. I actually get the entire list done, if not that day (due to unforeseen circumstances) then I do my best to at least get it all done that week (I keep the list to a minimal, and have a master list of ‘bigger’ projects). Before when Orlund would ask me to do something I’d reply “it’s on the list”, chances were it was. However if that list ever had any hope of being completed was the bigger question, often he would re-ask me over and over until I did do it. NOT anymore, now when I tell him “it’s on the list”, it means it’ll be done as soon as I can get too it (or on the particular day I’ve scheduled it). I think this relieves Orlund’s stress as well as my own.

Every day of the week I do the exact same things, plus anything else needing to be done. (this is again all thanks to Flylady who helped me establish routines and stick too them, she’ s also my personal cheerleader).
Monday; Home blessing~
Girls laundry (sheets included).  De-cat hair furniture (Vac). Empty Trash from all rooms. Vacuum all rooms. Clean Mirrors + doors. Mop Kitchen + Bath.
Tuesday; Towel laundry. Scoop Kitty Litter. Water + fertilize plants. 15 Min current zone.
Wednesday; Mom + dad laundry. Clean fridge. Menu plan + grocery list for next week. Remainder weekly cleaning. Write thank you cards. Write letters + cards.
Thursday; Errand day (switch to whichever day I can go).
Bedding Laundry. Menu’s planned before shopping. Double check list + take. Grocery Day Buy + put away.
Friday; Date night!
Any Extra laundry. File papers. Mend Clothes + polish shoes. Clean out car + check fluids. Move food to fridge freezer for week. Clean out purse. Clean fish tank. Clean laundry room.

I do that every week no matter what. I keep the list on my fridge in a clear sheet protector and with a dry erase pen I check off the items as I go, if I miss an item I do it the next day. I have to admit I’m still not so good at doing Friday’s jobs.
Flylady also has a ‘Zone’ we do every week. This week had 1 day from last month and the rest from this month (resulting in 2 zones this week). These are the jobs I do~
Monday~ Detail dust living room
Tuesday ~ Porch, entry, Dining room, put out hot spots (clean up piles of junk)
Wednesday ~ Walls/ Windows in Dining room (finger prints etc)
Thursday ~ Entry pick up jackets/shoes etc and put away.
Friday ~ Dining/Entry dust window sills/ light/ fans etc.

Also the Monthly goal to learn to do is Menu Plan. I’m bad at menu planning, especially since Orlund does most the cooking (for dinner). Although I do plan to try to do it for next week as since I’m only working 1-2 days a week I figure I can pitch in and do more cooking.

Doing these as well as the ‘do it now’ principal have really helped me out. Everyday there are the usual chores of cleaning the kitchen, picking up toys and just picking up after ourselves. However if I stick to my list and the picking up after myself (which for someone like me is difficult) the house is always 15minutes away from company ready. This got put to the test on Saturday. I was out at a girlfriends baby shower with Joy. Orlund was staying home with Olivia as it was her nap time. I’d left some dishes to be done, and he had agreed to do them. Well I guess his parents called, they were in the neighborhood and wanted to stop in. I came home to find them here, they left shortly after I arrived to continue their day. I asked Orlund “so, how was it getting ready for your parents to come over”. (now before Flylady he would have 1~ told them not to come or 2~ he wouldn’t know where to begin to clean so wouldn’t have done anything.. which would lead to major embarrassment for me!). “it wasn’t bad” he said. After we talked about it, I guess it only took him 15minutes to get ready, and that’s including getting Olivia up from her nap and finishing the dishes!! Of course I would have quickly run the vacuum through, but really it’d been vacuumed 2 days before. It made me SO happy that he had time to get the house tidied up and had the coffee made for when his parents got here. Sure the house isn’t perfect, but heck, we LIVE here!

Of course our dryer stopped working last week, found out it mysteriously got unplugged. We can’t reach the plug in so are trying a bunch of different things to get it plugged in. This has made me skip a few loads of laundry, but since I do it regularly it wont be hard to catch up on. I’m also feeling under the weather. So other than the kitchen and picking up after myself I’ve put the rest on hold (other than things that have to be done ~ like water the plants). I figure if my house is 15minutes from company ready then it wont take me long to catch up.

Today I tackled the house. As in I cleaned it. I’ve been doing very good at keeping the house clean. However before you leave on a big trip there is always that ‘little’ extra you want to get done. We leave on Saturday. I have had my clothes and the girls clothes packed since Tuesday. Wednesday was running around doing errands (got to hear baby’s heart beat!) so it was pretty much a write off for doing chores. I got everything accomplished, other than Vacuuming (which isn’t exactly a hard job to do). Tonight while sitting on the couch watching TV with Orlund I started to write out a list of all the things I need to do tomorrow…….. WHAT?!?!?!?! How can I have SO much left to do?? Most of it is preparing snacks (like cutting up cheese) and just gathering things together and organizing them into a transportable state, but non the less I think tomorrow will feel like just to short of a day! *Sigh* I was hoping it would be a relaxing day. I think though there is no such thing before a big trip. Today at 5pm I petered out. And after dinner for a few hours I really didn’t feel well, I think I over did it. That’s the last thing I want to do tomorrow, over do things, but like always there is much left to do…..wow deja vu! I’m pretty sure I’ve written that last sentence a few times before….LOL…. And here, like most times I think I’m ahead of the game until the day before/of. Oh well!

So if my blog is quiet for a while, don’t worry I haven’t disappeared completely. I’ll be around

As you know we’ve been looking at vans as of late. With baby #3 arriving in February we needed to keep our eyes open for that perfect deal. We had looked at the Dodge Grand Caravan’s. Two different ones, Canada Value Package and the Stow-n-go. The only thing we didn’t like about the CVPackage was no rear air or tinted windows. The only thing about the SXT (stow-n-go) package was the price.
We met with our financial adviser and discovered we are doing better than we thought and could afford a bit better van (or bit more money). So we looked and discovered the two ‘best’ vans out there are the Honda Odyssey and the Toyota Sienna. The Honda starts above our budget, so we thought we’d go look at the Toyota. Their websites suck! I like the Dodge one, it shows every van they have in stock, and in transit. And all the different prices, features etc for each van. You can basically shop online, the Toyota and Honda websites aren’t anything in comparison.
Come today… Saturday. We decided it would be a good day to test drive the Toyota (and go look at it for the first time). We dropped the girls off at Grandma and Grandpa’s house at 10:30am. Once at the Toyota dealership a sales lady came out and showed us the van ‘she would want’. uh huh… Rear video, power sliding doors, 8 passenger, you name it, it had it! Yeah, we didn’t even ask the price on that one and asked to see a ‘base’ model. She didn’t have one as low of price as it showed online, however had one similar. We took it for a test drive. Very nice. Very. But once back at the office, the price…..well…. Lets just so not so nice. Once everything was totaled it blew our budget out of the water!!
It was only 20minutes to 12. “Want to go test drive a Dodge again?” Orlund asked. I figured might as well while we have the Toyota fresh in our minds….
Arrive at the Dodge dealer. (opposite side of town so like a 20minute drive). A sales guy comes out and we ask for our sales guy (I’ll call him John for the purpose of it’s easier than calling him ‘the sales guy’ LOL). Orlund mentioned before the sales guy went to get John that we had looked at a Toyota. A few minutes later John came out. I have to say he didn’t look all too impressed. But he started to tell us about the different features, prices etc again, and said they’d just got some new ones in so we started to walk over to look at them. He then mentioned while motioning to a red minivan, that it had just been traded in as the owners were upgrading. it had 67000Km’s on it (the price was under $20,000). It still sounded like an okay deal but he kept telling us about it. I couldn’t figure out why he was so excited about this red van. He then re-told us the information… No it didn’t have 67000Km’s it had 6100Km’s!!!!! GAME CHANGER! It was a 2010 Canada Value Package however with rear tinted windows. The papers were still being signed to hand it over, so we couldn’t even unlock the doors to look. We asked him to check the price with his boss. It was an AMAZING price. We said YES!
We went for lunch (to give them time to transfer the van over to the dealer). Came back and signed the papers…. we might have been silly but we didn’t get to look inside it (unlocked as in) until we were waiting for the insurance guy to come!! Our first test drive was driving it off the lot!!! CRAZY! I know! But even including taxes it didn’t come to $20,000 !! How could we pass it up! I guess another sales guy was taking photo’s while we were away at lunch and sending them to one of his clients trying to get them to buy it before us!! But we got it!!! So now I have a beautiful Red minivan in my driveway I couldn’t be happier….Okay I could… read on to find out….

After our purchase, which got us picking up our kids at 3pm. I was ill, I hadn’t planned to be out so long so hadn’t taken my Diclectin (anti-morning sickness pill). So when we got home I laid on the couch while the girls played around me. I awoke to find Joy sitting on the potty yelling she was done, no Orlund to be seen and an Olivia poking at me… Guess I was worn out! So after helping Joy I peaked out the window as Orlund was supposed to show his Civic to a guy at 5pm. I saw him out there showing the guy (I looked out our bathroom window). Then I came back to the living room and in a few minutes watched through the front window and Orlund and this guy took the car for a test drive…… But the guy stopped before even fully backing out. I was wondering why when I noticed that he’d backed into his own car!!! Yup broke our tail light and dented our bumper, he broke his side mirror (driver) and dented the middle of the drivers door!! He’s paying for repairs but not buying the car….him buying would have made me happy… THEN…..
(and John said we were so lucky we should have got a lottery ticket) ~ Orlund was cooking Chicken on the BBQ. I noticed a funny smell. So Orlund took a look outside… sure enough the BBQ was on fire again! He had to push the flaming BBQ away from the house as much as possible (its on our small upstairs deck), there is smoke damage to the side, which with any luck we will be able to scrub off. Orlund turned the propane off and I think just let it die out itself. So I called a Pizza place and got to drive my new fancy van to go pick up a pizza for dinner.
Well Orlund just informed me he IS ushering tomorrow and I need a shower so I’ll have to get up REALLY early. Good night all!

Good morning all you beautiful people! This morning has been a beautiful morning for me. First I got to sleep in until 8:30am, and awoke to coffee brewing (Thanks Honey). Then Orlund took Joy out for a father-daughter breakfast, so Olivia and I had a special one here too. Chocolate milk makes the 1year old happy After I was done eating, waiting for Olivia to finish I looked over my to-do list. I’ve been doing good this week and getting a bunch accomplished, however I have fallen behind some. So Olivia and I headed downstairs (she loves to play down there) I dusted the ceilings and walls while she explored the toys. After that I decided we should come back upstairs so I can get some other cleaning done. She found the swiffer to be great fun! I emptied the dishwasher and re-loaded it with our breakfast dishes. Then just as I was about to leave the kitchen a giant white casserole dish caught my eye. It was on the very top of the ‘drying’ dishes (they dried overnight). So I decided to empty the sink as well. Looks nice when all the dishes are away!

Well Orlund and Joy just returned from breakfast, time to get the rest of this day on track
(Just a side note. Orlund just told me that while he and Joy were standing in line to order Joy looked up at him and said “Daddy I happy” ~ awwww!)

Just a random shot of my messy girl

I was visiting with a girl friend of mine last night at Mom’s night out and she mentioned to me some struggles she deals with (in regards to house and kids, time really). And I told her about how I wish I could just get my house clean, and keep it clean. Why can’t I have what so many other people have? Umph as I call it. You’d think that if I’m not spending the time cleaning than perhaps I’m spending it playing with the kids. You’d think. I do play with them. I do clean. But I don’t feel like either is enough time put towards them. I think I’m spending it online. What a horrible thing. I blog (usually while kids are napping ~ or like now pretending to nap), I go on Facebook (feels like a connection to the world outside my house), I read other blogs (check them daily even 2x’s daily), and I have other websites I visit to read whatnot on. I try to do it all only while kids sleep. But the truth of the matter is, I’m addicted and I come online more often than not. NOT GOOD.
I have one friend who blogs regularly, almost daily. Today I just read that she is now stopping her blog. It’s gone as of tomorrow morning. Danica I will miss you!! You truly inspire me and help me be a better mom. I just wish I could write as beautifully as you do. Although I will miss her stories (even philosophy Fridays), I completely understand the desire to not put so much time into blogging. I have decided I do want to keep blogging. However I’m going to cut down on all my other online endeavors. I’m going to make myself have Umph, get the house the way I want it and spend that time with my kids. They are only little for a short time. I don’t want to look back and feel like I missed out on their childhood because I was online. That’s not why we decided I would stay home with them. We decided for me to stay home to raise them, and I want to raise them right.
So while Danica moves on to other things, I too have decided to move on. I have wanted to be a certain way since I got married. I keep getting there, or almost there, then falling back behind. But I’m going to just keep on trying! Flylady was working to help me reach my goals, and now I need to press on and get back into it. What is something you’ve been putting off doing? Or something you want to do?

So I should be heading off to bed right now, and Orlund is just about to shut off his computer. So I’m typing quickly, sorry for any spelling/grammar mistakes (although even when not in a rush those pop up!).

So Saturday is my Baby girls 3rd Birthday! Yup. Joy is turning 3!! Where did the time go? I just told her about the party today as she kind of lets things go to her head and I didn’t want it going to her head to soon I’ve been cleaning the house ever since Olivia’s birthday party.. I mean, I’m always cleaning, but I’ve been cleaning keeping in mind I don’t want to be running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off last minute. And I”M NOT GOING TO BE! I worked two days last week, and spent one day doing errands (purchased everything I could early for the party). So every night while Orlund and I watched our TV shows I would write out a list of To-Do’s on my white board I keep on the fridge. And everyday I was sure to check everything off the list (as well as my usual chores). This week I’ve been doing the same thing, however I worked the first 3 days of the week, so kept the to do list at a minimal. Today however I flew at the chores. My plan was to get the house clean so tomorrow I can spend outside getting the yard ready for the outdoor party (although it’s predicting rain…). I found I only needed 5minutes in each room (plus vacuuming) and the rooms were done!** Now I didn’t get the Kitchen or Living rooms done as they are our most lived in areas, so they are for tomorrow (the last minute rooms). I have my list written out for tomorrow and I’m praying I feel motivated so I can get it all accomplished with time to spare. In the evening I will be decorating the cupcakes I baked today ~ SO excited!

Joy’s party starts at 11am. One of our guests and her daughter are coming at 10:30, so if we are needing to do last minute stuff she can keep the kids entertained ~ yipee! I’m hoping that we can have everything done tomorrow so that Saturday morning is spent calmly and with no need to work up a sweat… We will have setting up to do if the weather is nice enough for a back yard party, but all in all that should be about it!

Well my eyes are feeling like they might just close and not reopen here, so I guess I should head to bed!
I will post pics! Just gotta find that silly cord….. Or borrow Orlund’s….

** You might be wondering why if it only took me 5minutes per room why the entire house isn’t done, well I have two kids… two young kids… If you have kids you’ll understand. if you don’t have kids, well then…just you wait! LOL

While Orlund works on something mysterious downstairs I figured I might as well get to updating the blog. I have a bunch of pictures to post, however I can’t find the cable thingy to download from my camera to the computer. But here are a few snips of our life as of late;

~ Olivia got a cold the day after her 1st birthday. She still has it. The Friday after her birthday she had her 1year shots, two weeks later she had measles bumps as a reaction. We had a bunch of sleepless nights.

~ The week leading up to Olivia’s birthday she started nursing more, adding back in her 10am feeding.And still didn’t sleep through the night with 2-5 feedings.

~ The Thursday night BEFORE her shots she was up all night screaming. She couldn’t breathe due to a stuffy nose. At 4am we realized she was hungry as she hadn’t eaten all night. She couldn’t lay down to nurse, so we gave her the bottle.

~ Olivia didn’t go back to breastfeeding after that…. I was NOT expecting that sudden stop. Shed a bunch of tears. Orlund couldn’t understand why I was upset by this as even I had said she was old enough to wean. It was just so sudden, especially after she’d started nursing again. I felt like a special time with my baby was over, she’s growing up. It takes a bit to get used to.

~ Joy also got the cold the same day Olivia did. And she still has it. She also got Croup in there….fun… She’s over the Croup but still has a bad cough.

~Last night Joy didn’t sleep. So neither did the rest of us.

~ We’ve been looking at all the things around the house we want to do. It’s extensive! But this year we hope to tear down our old fence (on one side of the house) and put a new one up. Put mulch down in the back where Orlund had a garden last year (this will give room for the kids toys that isn’t on the grass). And install a ‘lattice’ like contraption on our back cement wall and plant some vines to crawl up them. I think that will be all we can afford this year. But it’ll make a HUGE difference around here!

~ Our neighbors trimmed our front Junipers (I think that’s what they are called). Completely cleans up the front of the house!

~ A bunch of people I know just had babies. I know a whole bunch more that are pregnant. Sigh. I held a -almost- week old today, he was so adorable! The same weight as Joy was, but 2″ shorter. So cute!

~ Joy is pretty much Potty trained. I say pretty much as she still wears a diaper at nap/bed times but otherwise she’s doing great! Even played at Grandma’s today and didn’t have any accidents. I told her if she goes until her Birthday (1 week away) without accidents then she can go to Sunday School with her friend “Ky”.

~ Joy is obsessed with her friend Ky. She talks none stop about Ky. “Ky nap?”"Ky nummies?” “Ky go outside?” etc etc. it’s cute. However whenever we actually get together with Ky Joy just stares at her and is shy! Unless we are at Ky’s house, then Kylie bosses her around and Joy is happy to play along.

~ Joy is getting better and better all the time with her language. She’s saying words I didn’t even realize she knew, and picking up words wonderfully. Sure she still seems behind other kids her age, but she’s doing GREAT.

~ I have a book (like a binder but not, forget what they are called) that is full of my “to do’s and goals” for the year. I have each month written out. Of course I’ve fallen behind, but I’m doing alright. I finished Olivia’s cross stitch and bought the frame today to finish it off completely.

~I also have another book that has other lists in it. Part is organizing for a trip we plan to take to visit our Grandparents, and the other part is organizing for Joy’s Birthday party. The first part isn’t very big yet, just dates and people to contact etc. Joy’s part is big. I have people to invite, time, what to feed everyone, and that sort of stuff. I have grocery lists, cleaning lists, organizing lists, decorating, and general prep work lists. I like my lists. And I’m getting them checked off wonderfully! I have the goodie bags all purchased, and any groceries I could prepurchase purchased, cleaning is on schedule. I actually got ahead on the cleaning, then I noticed and somehow fell a bit behind now….Oh well, it’ll all get done. I plan to have it all done by Thursday, so Friday can be decorating and any outdoor chores (we will be in the back yard). Then her party is Saturday morning, so before the party I don’t want to be running around, I want to be getting the girls dressed, hair done etc. I’m looking forward to it.

~ Have I rambled enough? Once I find my camera/computer cord I’ll upload some pics of Olivia’s birthday. Promise.

Oh I think Orlund is done the ‘mysterious’ business (think perhaps its to do with Mother’s day? Just a thought.). I’m going to go now and spend time with him! God Bless!

Monday is my 27th Birthday.
Tuesday is Olivia’s 1st Birthday.
We decided to have a joint party Sunday. Tomorrow.

I have my house all ship shape and ready to go (minus a bit of cleaning in the downstairs tv room). I do however need to cut out and decorate our birthday cake. When Orlund saw I’d purchased the cake mix he asked me “you’re going to bake your own birthday cake?”. Yup. Didn’t want to ask anyone else to do it, and besides I wanted to bake Olivia’s birthday cake. I baked the cake yesterday, Gabe helped, so it’s cooled off and ready to be cut and decorated. I usually try icing the cake way to soon and it just runs off. I wont have that problem this time. I am planning to cut the cake into the shape of a 1. Then ice it with instant pudding, and decorate. The icing will be interesting as instead of mixing it with cool whip we opted out of buying a big tub, so I’m going to make the icing different. Wish me luck! I’ll need it! Icing a cake is always very VERY messy for me! I don’t get how people do it without having to shower after (okay a bit exaggerated, but not by much).
We are only having family over for our party, so only 10-11 adults and 4 kids. That’s all! crazy!
As I sit here typing, in my nice freshly cleaned living room, Olivia is sitting in the toy box tossing all the toys out into the living room… the opposite of what I just did! At least it’s easy to clean up again.
I’ll post pics. Promise.
I’m also doing a cross stitch for Olivia’s birthday. I was hoping to have it done by the party, but I think I’ll have to give it to her on her actual birthday.

I’m excited for the party. For the pizza (trying something different, hoping it’s easy). For the family visits. And for the wonderful naps the girls will have tomorrow

God Bless you and hope you have a fabulous day!