Penciling It In

While I was pregnant, I was so exhausted that if I didn't plan things in advance, my poor little toddler would be stuck inside with me all day, every day, because I just didn't have the energy to think of something to do with him every day and then actually go do it. I found a great suggestion on a parenting discussing board on how to keep things exciting and productive for you and your child by planning a different activity every day of the week. It was specifically for kids home during the summer, but since my son isn't in school yet, it's like summer all the time, and I want to keep him stimulated, happy, and hopefully that will be good tantrum prevention. The idea is as follows:

"Make It Monday": Make a fun craft
"Time to Read Tuesday": Go to the library and check out some awesome books
"What's Cooking Wednesday": Do a recipe with your child. Not only is it fun, it teaches great life skills!
"Thoughtful Thursday": Do some thoughtful act of service for someone, like writing a note or taking a treat to them
"Somewhere Fun Friday": Go somewhere exciting and, obviously, fun

Like I've said, I'm a list/chart junkie, so I immediately wanted to make a spreadsheet for this :) I switched my library day to Thursday because our local library has toddler story time on Thursday mornings. I also added a "Family Outing" on Saturday to make sure that I wasn't staying inside all day Saturday doing chores on the one day that my husband doesn't have to be at school. I need to remember that family memories are more important than a clean home. (But I do have another spreadsheet to help me keep up with my chores :p )

We don't go anywhere on Sundays because they're reserved for going to church and other quiet, Sunday-appropriate activities, like spending time at home with family, reading good books, etc., so I used my Sunday line for FHE (Family Home Evening), which is typically held on Monday evenings, where we have a short gospel lesson and a fun family activity and, of course, a treat. Right now we're going through the Nursery manual because our toddler is 2 and has a short attention span. It's the best. I'm not sure what we'll do once he graduates from Nursery, lol.

Anyways, here's my spreadsheet! It's the month at a glance, although I fill it in one week at a time so that we go places that are interesting to my son at the time, and do service for someone who really needs it at the moment.

Enjoy!

Family Activities			Week of:
Sunday	FHE	Lesson:	Treat:
Monday	Make It Monday	Craft:
Tuesday	Thoughtful  Tuesday	Person:	Item/Service:
Wednesday	What's Cooking Wednesday	Cooking:
Thursday	Time to Read Thursday	Library
Friday	Somewhere Fun Friday	Destination:
Saturday	Family Outing	Destination:
Family Activities			Week of:
Sunday	FHE	Lesson:	Treat:
Monday	Make It Monday	Craft:
Tuesday	Thoughtful  Tuesday	Person:	Item/Service:
Wednesday	What's Cooking Wednesday	Cooking:
Thursday	Time to Read Thursday	Library
Friday	Somewhere Fun Friday	Destination:
Saturday	Family Outing	Destination:
Family Activities			Week of:
Sunday	FHE	Lesson:	Treat:
Monday	Make It Monday	Craft:
Tuesday	Thoughtful  Tuesday	Person:	Item/Service:
Wednesday	What's Cooking Wednesday	Cooking:
Thursday	Time to Read Thursday	Library
Friday	Somewhere Fun Friday	Destination:
Saturday	Family Outing	Destination:
Family Activities			Week of:
Sunday	FHE	Lesson:	Treat:
Monday	Make It Monday	Craft:
Tuesday	Thoughtful  Tuesday	Person:	Item/Service:
Wednesday	What's Cooking Wednesday	Cooking:
Thursday	Time to Read Thursday	Library
Friday	Somewhere Fun Friday	Destination:
Saturday	Family Outing	Destination:

The Ultimate Menu Board

I'm a sucker for lists, charts, and ultra-organization. I find a new technique and go crazy on it, totally committing myself for life to it...for about 2 weeks. My husband just kind of shakes his head now when I tell him about the latest and greatest thing that I'm trying out.

I made a dinner menu board from a Pinterest pin a few months back and I was really excited about it. I spent a lot of time putting it together and used it faithfully. For about 2 weeks. But after having our second baby and slacking off for 6 weeks while I recovered and got to know her, I'm ready to get my household affairs back in shape, and cooking dinners for my family is high on my list of priorities (after trying to keep up with the new girl's feeding/eating rhythms and showering/brushing my teeth every day :p ). But having a toddler at home, I have 3 meals a day that I really want to plan out in advance so that I make sure he's getting good, balanced meals. (This drive may have been strengthened by the fact that while I was in the hospital and for a few weeks after, his breakfast consisted of his dad pouring some dry cereal on his tray and giving him a banana.)

So I designed my ultimate menu board to cover breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I drew from a bunch of different aspects and ideas from menu boards I'd seen on Pinterest, and here's what I made:

Ta-da!

I have all of the entrees, side dishes, and desserts I like to make and we like to eat written on individual cardstock tags. They're stored by category in the boxes along the bottom of the frame, and each box is divided into two so that I can put meals we've already eaten on one side to keep them separated from the "fresh" meals, so we don't end up doing the same thing all the time (unless we want to!). I love having everything on its own tag so that I can "layer" each meal with an entree, sides, and dessert to make it as simple or elaborate as I want. On the back of each tag, I have all of the ingredients listed so that I can put together my shopping lists quickly and easily. I also note where each recipe is found in my cookbook library, and how much time it takes to prep and cook so that I can make sure to save the time-intensive meals for days when I can cook at my leisure and stick with simple, fast meals on hectic days.

I got the corkboard (17"x23") from Hobby Lobby using a 40% coupon from their emailer, and spent some time in the scrapbook aisle with Jason picking out printed paper for the day, meal, and box labels. The boxes along the bottom are made from an "upcycled" Lucky Charms box, and the individual meal tags are cardstock. I want to switch the brass thumbtacks to plastic pushpins (clear plastic for aesthetic purposes) because the thumbtacks are a huge pain to take out of the board.

Enjoy! :)

Dream House

I just planted my tomatoes and peas in my container garden today :) So, I have 8 pots growing peas, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, and carrots. I have 2 more pots waiting for beans and my transplanted tomatoes, since I have them in small pots so they can come in when it's cold. I have 7 carrot sprouts, about 20 lettuce sprouts (I have to seriously thin those guys), and 3 spinach plants (I'll give them til Saturday for more to pop up, and then I'm going to poke a few more seeds in the pot).

All my research on container gardens and gardening in general has really made me crave a real garden--probably a raised bed garden, so I don't have to stoop to work in it, but a garden with lots of space in a real yard. And then I started thinking about the other stuff I want in a dream house someday, so I figured I should catalog it:

A library with floor to ceiling built-in bookshelves with sliding ladders, like in Beauty and the Beast. Thick carpet (like the kind that comes up to your ankles...not shag, just thick and velvety), and on the outside wall, wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling windows, preferably looking out on the garden/orchard(/stables? :) )/lush, rolling hills and distant tree line. A secret passageway behind a bookcase leading to a secret room...maybe the turret I always wanted :p

A laundry room with lots of cupboards and room for a sewing table. I don't want a whole room for sewing stuff/crafts, because I'll just fill it up with crap I'll swear I'll use "someday."

A garage to store bikes and strollers (and cars, of course). It sucks having to carry a giant stroller downstairs to take Ezra for a walk, so I don't do it much, but I should. Room for tool storage. Lots of organization solutions (closets, bins, shelves, etc) and no useless clutter. I want the garage to be clean and nice.

A raised bed garden :) Lots of room for all the stuff I want to grow (tomatoes, peas, cucumbers, peppers, carrots, strawberries, etc), but not too big to make maintenance a hassle.

An orchard with apples, lemon, and orange trees (no, I have no idea where we'll live, but my fantasy allows everything I want without regard to climate). A small vineyard for growing grapes.

Nice outdoor space out back for eating outside, or whatever. Just clean, cute, inviting.

A pool, if we can afford to pay someone to keep it up :p

A clothesline so I can line dry the laundry. Utility savings!

I think it would be fun to have chickens for the fresh eggs, but they're mean and messy, so maybe not.

A biiiiig pantry. Maybe a walk-in. Room for all of our food and a year of food storage. (I also want to actively rotate food storage so that we know how to use it and it stays fresh, no keeping rusty cans for years that would do no good in an emergency. I also need a good system for inventory and use.)

An island in the kitchen. Lots of cupboards, but not too high, because I'm short and it's wasted space because I hate dragging around stools and chairs.

No tiles in the showers :( I hate trying to clean the grout. No separate, closed off dining room.

Probably an office for Jason.

LOTS OF WINDOWS.

Dishwasher, central heating and air. :)

And then when we've raised all of our kids and it's just me and Jason, maybe we'll live on a boat :p

OH, a few things I forgot earlier:

1. Windows in the bathrooms and kitchen. I want lots of natural light. That all-caps statement wasn't an overstatement. I'm thinking I want more glass than wall for the outer walls.

2. A room to use for a gym. It could be the house proper or the basement, but I want room for the standard machine, bench/dumbbells, and, most importantly, a punching bag and a dummy, because I intend to live out my dream of taking up kickboxing to feel like Buffy the Vampire Slayer one day, when I'm not pregnant/nursing all the time.

Reflections I neglected to mention.

I also forgot how irrationally irritated I can get when I'm pregnant. It's like, BAM, I'm really mad and I know the reason is silly, but dang it, I'm mad. Luckily, that's happened maybe twice this time around. I feel much more emotionally balanced than I was with Ezra. Man, I was a wreck with him.

Pregnancy goes by so fast when you've done it before. It's probably a combination of having been through it before so you're not so worried about stuff and having your first child to keep you busy. But I'm already 15 weeks and this new baby is 4 inches long! We'll find out if it's a boy or a girl next month. That. Is. Crazy.

Ezra is in love with the birds that eat the bird seed off of our across-the-way neighbor's balcony floor. I'm going to go pick up a plate from the dollar store today to turn it into a feeder for our balcony so he can see them up close.

Maybe the chickadees will scare off those obnoxious doves that show up every spring to growl and hoot on our windowsills every morning at 5 am. Darn our landlord for putting up a nest when he lived here. Darn those stupid doves for not finding a new place. I used to love doves, honestly. Until they started waking me up with their ugly, non-coo-like growling at 5 am. Every day. :(

Reflections on Pregnancy, round 2

As of Thursday, my official 14-week milestone, I've officially gone public with pregnancy number 2. As in, I posted it on facebook and say without hesitation or awkwardness, "Yes, I am," to anyone who asks. (Unfortunately, that's been a lot of people...people who know me started asking at 6 weeks. On Friday, I was asked for the first time by a stranger. My husband tells me to take it as a compliment that it's clear I'm pregnant, but I'm not too happy about the idea of looking so obviously pregnant so soon.)

There are some things I'm realizing and learning this time around:

1. You forget how physically miserable it is to be pregnant when you're not pregnant. You're sitting there with your son or daughter and thinking, "Yes, it's time for a second child." Then you get pregnant. You get exhausted, nauseous, uncomfortable, and miserable, and you think, "Yes, this is the last time I get pregnant. I think if we want more kids, we're definitely going to adopt." I'll probably fall right back into the same trap when this one gets older, though, and be all excited about having another, because I'll forget how miserable I am pregnant.

2. Your body remembers what it's like to be pregnant. It's like all of your muscles and ligaments just let go as soon as you get pregnant. I seriously started having round ligament pain 3 days after I got pregnant, which is depressing, since I didn't get it with Ezra until 7 months. Now I have to assume the fetal position any time I need to sneeze or cough, to keep from feeling like I've been shived in the side.Oh, and we won't even go into other precautions I need to take when I feel a sneeze coming on :(

3. Maternity clothes are so generous and forgiving in their sizing. I've gone down a few pant sizes from even my pre-pregnancy size since Ezra was born, but I've never, ever been a size 2. But I am in Liz Lange under-the-belly maternity jeans! That's a nice ego boost for when you're ballooning up, but it's something of a double-edged sword, because I'll probably only ever be a size 2 when I'm actually pregnant...so I lose the size when I lose the balloon-esqu figure, lol. Unfair.

That's all I had floating around in my head at the moment. I'm sure I'll have more as I get more pregnant.