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Kole
03.31.11

One year

Someone at our house had a birthday today.  

Despite my best efforts to stop it from happening, my sweet little man turned one.
Kole was excited.  For what he didn’t know.

What he did know was that everyone he saw throughout the day was awfully happy to see him.  And smile at him.  And sing to him.  And he quite enjoyed all of the attention.  

What he didn’t enjoy was his birthday hat.  He humored mom just long enough for a few pictures, and then was done humoring.  

He was a bit unsure about his cake,

but after immense coaxing and excitement from his sisters,
he decided it was a good thing after all.

So now my little man has moved from size 6-12 to 12-18 months.  

I have survived my very last “year of the baby”.  I thought it would feel so good.  And can I be honest?
 It doesn’t.  

I sat down last night and started a post at around 8:00 pm.  A post all about my sweet Kole.  Random pictures from the past year and random things about him that make him so special to me.  By 9:00 the tears were flowing from my eyes so quickly that I couldn’t see my computer screen.  I couldn’t finish the post (obviously).  I cried for two hours straight and have continued to cry on and off throughout the day today.  Words can’t express how much this little boy means to me and how grateful I am to have him in my life.  And I guess I’m having a harder time than I thought I would watching him grow so quickly.  Where did that year go?  I was just bringing him home from the hospital.  It feels like last week.  Those of you who have followed my blog for a while know that I can’t have any more children, and I’m so ok with that.  This isn’t about wanting another baby.  I guess it’s just about wanting Kole to stay my baby forever.

Happy birthday sweet boy.  You bring so much joy to this family and I treasure each moment I get to spend being your mommy.  
xoxo, Erin
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Ellie and Addison
03.29.11

Recent pics

An early morning rainbow out the dining room window.

Girls saying their good-byes before Ellie heads to school.

 Addison gets ready for pre-school and wants to wear mom’s boots.  Again.
 Someone was being very quiet…
 and then was caught…
 and then scooted away leaving a fun mess for mom.
 A favorite traveling companion.
Saturday afternoon lounging – photo taken by Ellie.
 Flowers blooming in the back yard.
Date night. 
 Story time.
Dancing to a favorite song – just home from swimming lessons.  The girls love swimming with daddy after their lesson.  They also love dancing.  Mom loves capturing moments like this one.  
xoxo, Erin
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home decor 2
03.28.11

Spring Decor

Hello friends!  Sharing pics of my home with a few touches of Spring!  I had so much fun decorating my mantel for Valentines Day —

that I decided to change things up a bit for Spring–

It was hard for me not to use red!  But I love the way the green and white work with the black to give my mantel a cleaner, softer, more “Springy” look.

I already owned most of the stuff I used.  Just switched out the candles, added a simple white pitcher,

and moved the plant around.  I found these cute Easter eggs and put them in some Apothecary jars (how can you not love Apothecary jars!?),

and of course kept up my favorite little black jars.  I first tried filling the jars with Easter candy, but ended up just leaving them empty.  I like the simple, clean look for this simple, clean time of year.

Here are a few more Springy updates:

Welcome!  A fun Spring wreath on my front door.  I fell in love with this wreath when I saw it because it looks so real!  It reminded me of all of the wild flowers that grow on Boulder Mountain (a favorite family camping spot).  Plus it cost me a whole 11 bucks.  What’s not to love about that!?

Of course there have been all sorts of tulip arrangements in various spots around my home.  Tulips are my favorite flower and my friends and family all remember that every March for my birthday.  This particular arrangement was left on my door step a week ago.  A special gift from Kenny.  While I didn’t get my diamonds last March because I opted to have the baby early ;)  I did get a year of fresh flowers.  Kenny gave me a card that said he had ordered me a year of fresh flowers (one arrangement would be delivered each month) to get me through the “year of the baby.”  I have so enjoyed finding a new bouquet of flowers on my doorstep each month that represent the current season and time of year.

LOVED the tulips.  Almost enough to forgive Kenny about the diamonds.  :)

This really has nothing to do with Spring, but we finally hung the family portrait…

and the picture of the two of us.  The individuals of the kids will be trickier because I need to figure out how I want to collage them on the wall.  I found this plant when I was visiting family in Utah in February and fell in love with the vase.  I can’t get seem to get enough of yellow lately!  Yellow is such a happy color, isn’t it!?

Speaking of yellow, I fell in love with this little yellow and gray set.  I put them on our black coffee table in the family room because this has become a landing spot for Kenny’s keys, wallet, and Blackberry after he gets home from work.  I have tried putting other decor here only to be annoyed when it is tossed aside so that he has room for his loose change.  I finally decided — why fight it?  Now he has a place to put his things after work that is stylish and makes us both happy.  Ok – Kenny is actually pretty indifferent.  I’m the happy one.  :)  Would have photographed it with his keys and wallet in their new stylish home, but those items are only there at night and I’m usually too tired to think about taking pictures at that stage in the day!

Last year I filled this fun, little set of jars with flowers from my yard… 

This year I filled them with Easter candy.  We had to have jars of Easter candy somewhere!  It has been great motivation for kids who choose to have a good attitude during homework.  And for a certain mom who feels she too deserves a reward for maintaining a good attitude during homework.

Found these shiny Easter eggs and hung them from the kitchen shelf.  They look a little cheesy, but my girls love stuff like this.  

This is a fun little tree I picked up at a great specialty store I just love called “my mom’s house.”  (for real – I stole it from my mom’s last time I visited.  Her house is one of my favorite places to shop.  You can’t beat the prices.  ;)  Love you mom.)

I’m crazy about these little lemon trees I bought at Pottery Barn last year when all of their Spring decor went on sale.

I love them so much…

that I have to share them…

from every possible angle.

Our Easter tree didn’t really work with the decor I had going on downstairs…

so I brought it upstairs into the girls’ bedroom and created a festive little Easter display for them to enjoy.

Ellie’s contribution was the little framed picture she made of herself last year in Kindergarten.  She even put the scotch tape on the back herself and got it all ready for me to hang.  :)

You all know that I’m in a constant state of “Spring cleaning” at my house no matter what the season, so Spring cleaning doesn’t feel like much of a change.  But I do have my one shelf of dishes I make sure to wipe down from top to bottom every time Spring rolls around.  My little way of welcoming in the season!

The Bougainvillea in our yard is growing like crazy!  It always brings a smile to my face when I pull into my garage.

Welcome Spring!!!  So happy you are here!

p.s.  That may have been more than “just a few” touches of Spring!  Sorry for the picture overload.
p.p.s.  Linking up at The Stories of A2Z!

xoxo, Erin
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organization2
03.25.11

Kids’ School Work

I can’t believe it’s already Thursday night!  My house is a mess, my fridge is empty, and my kids have been totally fending for themselves.  Kenny and I have been consumed this week with our quest to find our dream home.  I’m a bit burned out and am starting to think our dream home is just that: a nice dream.  Oh well!  Gonna keep on dreaming…and keep on hunting…and while I’m at it, I’ll also dream about my current house cleaning itself and my fridge stocking itself with groceries (I like my peppered turkey super thin thank you very much).

Anyway, switching gears – I wanted to answer a question that has popped up quite a bit from time to time.  “What do you do with your kids’ school work?”  My previous post touched on this so I thought I’d wrap it up with this post.

I LOVE my kids’ artwork (what mom doesn’t!?) but it can sure be overwhelming because they come home with SO much.  The stuff I hang on to always falls in one of these categories:

A)  Shows their personality
B)  Shows their growth in a certain area
C)  Speaks to me and makes me smile

Everything else gets trashed.  Of course, before I trash a lot of it, I display it all over the house.  I display things in the playroom…

And the door to our garage is always covered with happy art work… 

Here’s my very own Vanna White (or maybe Princess Leia?) showcasing her originals.

This picture of our pantry door was taken last November.  Makes me in the mood for Fall!  :)  Here’s the thing with seasonal artwork – the kids always bring it home from school toward the end of the season!  These cute turkeys and scarecrows came home two days before Thanksgiving.  Since I like to have seasonal artwork like this up at the beginning of the season, I save things like this just to put up the next year.  I have a place for seasonal art – the stuff I want to display for a year or two during a certain season and then trash.

In my hutch organization post, I showed these boxes on the right side of my hutch for keepsakes.  I don’t have a picture to share, but the left side of this hutch is where I store seasonal artwork.  Next November I’ll hang up my girls’ artwork from previous Novembers.  They love to see their past work displayed each season.  Plus it gets us all excited about the upcoming holiday!

The stuff that I really treasure (usually written work that shows my girls’ personalities) I save for their scrapbooks.  You all know the new system I’ve developed to keep this work organized!

Everything I want my girls to have, I try to some how work into their scrapbooks (Project Life albums).  I fell in love with the Project Life albums because of that very reason – such a great way to incorporate everything I want my girls to have as keepsakes.  (Updated school file folders here)
I think having these hand prints of Ellie’s on her first day of Kindergarten displayed with pictures from that day makes the memory extra special. 

Anything I want to save that is too big or just doesn’t make it into the Project Life albums I am currently keeping in these bins.

I bought one for each of the girls (5 bucks at Target) and hope one is all I need.  I really try to keep this in mind when saving school work:  How much do I really need to save?  My mom saved a couple of boxes of stuff for me from my school days and I treasure it all, I really do.  But how often do I look at it?  Not that often.  I look through my childhood photo album a lot more than I go through my box of school work.  I really don’t want to hand my kids’ 20 boxes and 20 albums full of their childhood (which would be easy for me to do!).  At some point when this box is getting too full, I’ll go through it and decide what’s really worth hanging on to.  
So that is my system!  Some on the walls, some stored as seasonal decor, some in their albums, some in storage bins, and the rest (about 85% of it) gets recycled.  
What about you?  Any other fun ideas/systems for saving kids’ school work?    
Any other fun ideas/systems for getting your house to clean itself?  Keep dreamin’…right?  :)
xoxo, Erin
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organization2
03.22.11

Project Life Organization

So I’ve been running into a couple of minor snags in my system lately.  First, you all know that I “borrowed” a corner of Kole’s room for my scrap space…
 

and then I “borrowed” a few of his drawers to hold all of my Project Life supplies…

 

making his room a perfect place to work on my Project Life Albums.

All of that would have worked wonderfully – except for…
 {Minor Snag #1}

The napping baby.  I can’t work on the PL albums in my scrap space while Kole is napping and of course, that is the only time I can work on the PL albums.

Because of this, as you all know, my kitchen table has been looking a tad messy lately.
{Minor Snag #2}

The messy pile of school work.  There wasn’t enough room in my PL drawer to hold all of the girls’ school work I want to eventually put in their albums.  AND because their work was just in a big unorganized pile, it was taking too much of my precious “baby is napping I can finally get something done time” to organize everything.
{Minor Snag #3} 

 

My homework drawer that used to look like this…

has lately been looking like this.  Too many papers and workbooks for one little kitchen drawer and it was becoming hard to keep track of things.

So as you know, I treated myself to a little St. Patrick’s Day trip to Target and Staples to pick up some organizers.

I bought this green crate to hold all of the girls school work/memorabilia that I might include in their PL albums.  After adding all of their work I still had plenty of room, so I also used this for extra school stuff from my overflowing homework drawer.  I created three tabs (A for Addison, E for Ellie, and S for school stuff).  I divided the folders into seasons (spring 2010, fall 2011, etc.)  because I usually do about a season at a time when I work on these books.  This will be so easy to stay organized!  Addison brought home a beautiful self portrait from pre-school today and I just slipped in into her “spring 2011” slot and it will be there waiting for me when it’s time to work on that section of her Project Life album.  I’m hoping to stay caught up enough that I only have about a years worth of work in this crate at a time.  Then I’ll just write new tabs for the new seasons as needed.  The folders in the back are for school stuff we are always working on like Ellie’s journal and spelling pages.

 

 Now that all of the paper has its own home, I can just keep workbooks and supplies in my homework drawer.  I’m so happy to see it looking like this again!
Next, I decorated a PL journaling card to put on my cute little green portable caddy…

 

and turned it into a place to hold a all of my PL supplies.  (I just knew I bought those blinged out green letter stickers for a reason!)

 

It’s the perfect size for all of my journaling cards and scissors and pens.  Love it!

I’m going to keep these somewhere in my kitchen (in a cupboard or the bottom of my pantry) so I have easy access to them.  Working on my Project Life albums while Kole is napping will now be a much easier task!

Minor snags are solved and all is right in the world again.  :)
xoxo, Erin
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Ellie and Addison
03.21.11

2010 Family Pictures

Just sitting here on my couch organizing some pictures (Kenny found Star Wars on TV so to say I’m bored is an understatement).  I just realized I never posted our 2010 family pictures and I want them on my blog for the someday when I get around to printing my blog into books.  I know you’ve seen these pictures before from my fall header and our 2010 Christmas card so sorry about the repeat!  Feel free to click on the next blog on your list or start your Monday to-do list.  Laundry?  Dishes?  Work?  Yeah…on second thought you may want to stick around and procrastinate a little longer…   :)

(Ellie age 6)
(Addison age 4)
(Kole age 5 months)
(Kenny and Erin ages 24 and 22…approximately…)

We spent way too much money and ordered really big prints of all of these and had them framed, but we haven’t hung them yet because we keep thinking we’ll just wait and hang them when we find a new house. Thinking I need to just hang them in our current house or Kole will be 5 years old by the time we get around to it.

p.s.  Unlike our 2009 photo shoot, I made sure not to post any photos that would elicit “ghetto booty” comments.  ;)

Have a great Monday everyone!  Vader has just saved Luke from the Emperor and is taking off his mask.  I’m off to get Kenny a tissue…

xoxo, Erin
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Kole
03.18.11

Green Love

Did everyone have a great St. Patty’s Day?  My girls had a blast at school.  They go all out with the Leprechaun business around here.  Ellie and Addison both looked so festive in their green, but we were running late this morning (still not used to this time change!) so I didn’t get a picture of them.  I did, however, take a picture later in the afternoon of my little St. Patty’s day splurge –

Green organizers.  Does it get any better?  :)  Of course I would have gone with the green whether or not it was St. Patty’s day, but since it was the 17th of March when I bought them – well – they are just that much cooler.  I’m working on a better system for a few things around here and these little beauties are just what I needed.  Although I have to say that I’ve had a hard time staying focused and accomplishing much of anything this week because we have been enjoying such beautiful spring weather!  Birds are chirping, blossoms are blooming, and the park seems to call our names every afternoon.

Here is my other green love of the day.  Kole still isn’t crawling, but you should see this little dude scoot!  He zips across the grass like no ones business — putting all sorts of fun things in his mouth every step of the way.  :)

Hope you have a great weekend!  Maybe we’ll run into you?  You know where you can find us.  :)
xoxo, Erin
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home decor 2
03.17.11

Master Bedroom Decor

Sharing some pictures I took a while ago of my bedroom.  I have to say that my bedroom is the room I am MOST anxious to re-do after we move.  I am really tired of this look – not my furniture – but everything else.  :)

Notice the hideous black alarm clock on the left.  Can’t see it?

Here’s a close up.  This is Kenny’s “nite jammer” from the late 80’s.  I have tried to trash this thing more times than I can count.  It is the one thing he will NOT allow me to whisk away to goodwill.  When I decorated this bedroom I begged him to let me get him a new alarm clock.  He said that this clock was sentimental to him because it had woken him up for all the major milestones in his life starting with middle school graduation, then high school graduation, college graduation, and law school graduation, passing the California bar, and oh yeah…our wedding day (see…he’s smart to throw that in there).

Well crap.  How am I ever going to feel good about trashing it now?  So there it sits.  Looking hideous.  His goal is to have this wake him up for the rest of his life.

Think I can paint it?  Wonder how the “nite jammer” would look in a nice buttermilk?

Moving on…

See my hutch?  I went on this decorating kick about five years ago and decorated my whole house in about three months.  I got my room finished, but didn’t know what to put on the top of my hutch.  I decided I was tired of decorating so I just set a couple of things on top of it thinking I would eventually get around to fixing it…
 

and there it sits.  With an empty vase of sorts and a big red plate.  Kenny calls it my “number ten.”  
A few more accessories…

And just to prove how badly we are running out of space in this house…

here’s the lovely pile hiding in the corner of this room.   :)

xoxo, Erin
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Birthdays
03.15.11

B-day and Project Life

Thank you so much to everyone who took a minute to wish me a happy birthday!  You are all incredibly kind and it was so much fun hearing from friends throughout the day.  I had a great birthday weekend and was completely spoiled as I’m sure you can tell by the picture above.  The girls made me a lovely birthday cake topped with 34 candles and a few favorite “friends.”  I got the piece with Ariel on top because “Ariel is mommy’s favorite princess!”  :)  And yes, this was my second yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  The treadmill and I will become fast friends this week.  
Also thanks to my sweet friends who brought by gifts and flowers on my special day.  They all know me so well.  My house is full of tulips, Cadbury eggs, and shiny silver gift cards.  :) 

Now on to Project Life!  I’ve been working on Ellie’s album and once again my kitchen table looks like this…

What a mess!  
At least it’s a fun mess.  :)  
End of February 2010
I added some art work and her Kindergarten class list.  The mermaid picture above is a blog post I printed about Barbie in A Mermaid Tale and my girls’ obsession with it.  We’re big fans of the Barbie movies around here.  :)
Another blog post I printed about Ellie’s morning friend “Snakey.”
Some of my favorite pictures of my girls and their daddy riding bikes at the park.
Ellie made the above picture with the pink ribbon around the time Kole was born.  It is a portrait of our new family of five.  :)
I also included some other random artwork from last March along with one of the many pictures of cakes she drew me last year on my birthday.
Kole is born!  The note she wrote last year (top right page) says:
“Dir Erin I cant wat for baby Kole to pop awt.  Love Ellie.”  
I will never get tired of little notes like this one.  I’m seriously sad that this year she is learning to spell everything correctly!
The girls meeting their new little brother for the first time.  Such a special day.  I treasure these pictures and I’m so glad my girls will each have their own copies of them.
Newborn pictures of Kole and some sweet notes from Ellie’s grandma’s soon after he arrived.
I also love this little turtle Ellie drew.  She hung it on Kole’s door when I was decorating his nursery in a turtle theme.  It has been there for a year and I just took it down last week to include in her book.  More fun Kindergarten spelling — “trtl”– exactly how it sounds. :)
On the left is a page from her journal writing in school.  They were supposed to write what they did over Spring Break.  Ellie wrote: 
“I went to the Easter egg hunt.  I got a new baby.”
And of course another picture of our new family of five.  Along with the sun, a butterfly, and a flower.  Because what picture is complete without those three things?  :)  
So so sweet.  
Wrapping up April!  I’m still pretty much a year behind but I’m making progress!  Whenever I feel overwhelmed with these albums and trying to catch up I hear Dory from Finding Nemo in my head –
“just keep swimming, just keep swimming…”  You can tell what’s been on at our house lately.
If I can just catch up on the girls’ albums I can get going again on this little guys baby book!

The two of us had a day date on my birthday.  I brought the party hats, he brought the party.  :)
xoxo, Erin
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Birthdays
03.11.11

Maybe finally

Well.  This is it.  It’s almost 11:00 Pacific time so I have just over one hour left to be 33.  Tomorrow is my birthday (woot woot!) and 34 will be my new norm.  What will 34 feel like!?  I’m sure it will be such a huge change.  I bet I won’t even recognize myself tomorrow when I wake up.  I’ll look so ….. mature?  
Maybe I’ll finally be old enough to start going to bed at night before mid-night.
Maybe I’ll finally be old enough to stop eating my kids’ leftovers.  Especially the spiral mac-n-cheese.
Maybe I’ll finally be old enough to really learn how to use my computer and camera instead of just faking it all the time.
Maybe I’ll finally be old enough to start learning the real lyrics to songs instead of just singing my own versions. 
Maybe I’ll finally be old enough to stop eating a turkey sandwich every day for lunch and start mixing it up a bit.
Maybe I’ll finally be old enough to pay attention to Kenny when he starts talking about finances instead of just completely tuning him out and going to my own little happy place in my head where budgets and savings don’t exist. 
Maybe I’ll finally be old enough to stop speeding and to be a much more cautious driver.  
Maybe I’ll finally be old enough to learn actual directions and stop relying on my passengers to get me where I need to be (especially since my most frequent passenger isn’t even a year old yet).
Maybe I’ll finally be old enough to enjoy cooking.
Maybe I’ll finally be old enough to stop dreaming about being the star of So You Think You Can Dance and practicing in my kitchen every now and then when nobody is looking.
Maybe I’ll finally be old enough to feel like a real mom and wife instead of just a kid who is playing house and totally winging it most of the time.
Maybe I’ll finally be old enough to stop feeling positively giddy every time a holiday is around the corner.
Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and realize that I’m not finally old enough for any of that stuff.  Maybe I’ll finally be old enough for all of that when I turn 35.  :)
My adorable friends took me out for dinner last night to celebrate at my favorite restaurant.  It took us over 15 phone calls and text messages to finally realize there wasn’t one night this week that everyone could make it, so we were missing a few friends.  Our solution to that little problem?  Two dinners.  You all know I have no problem spreading my celebration out for as long as is humanly possible.  :)
Here we are last night…
And the year before that…  (K – I’m a WHALE in this picture.  I so remember my birthday wish last year.  Get. this. baby. OUT!)

And here we are the year before that. 
We haven’t changed much and I’m glad.  I LOVE these girls just the way they are.  Shari made me the most delicious homemade yellow cake with chocolate frosting (my favorite) and we ate cake and chatted and laughed the night away.  They had to kick us out of the restaurant which seems to be the norm for us.  :)  I had successfully lost two pounds in the last few weeks and after this week I’m quite sure I will have successfully gained them right back.  But it wouldn’t be a true birthday without a little weight gain — right?  
Maybe tomorrow on my birthday I’ll finally be old enough to stop telling myself it’s perfectly ok to pig out at certain major milestones in my life.  
Maybe I’ll also finally be old enough to stop thinking that about every two weeks is a major milestone in my life.  
Nah.  
Bet that comes at age 35 too.  :)
xoxo, Erin
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Ramblings
03.09.11

My #1 Priority

Hi friends!  So the week isn’t even half way over and I’m exhausted.  This week is so busy!  A birthday party, parent/teacher conferences, play dates, one dentist appointment, two doctor appointments, several appointments with my realtor to look at homes, school registration forms due (for next year — already!?), summer camp deadlines…..the list goes on.  Plus all of the regular running around we do.  Bummer.  All I really want to do is finish decorating for Spring!  I’ve made some simple changes and my house is feeling so festive!  I can’t wait to finish.

So it’s after 9:00 and the first time I’m sitting down for the day.  I did want to do a quick post about my exercise routine though because so many of you have asked and have been very patient to wait for an answer.  I mentioned before that exercise is a priority for me.  It’s important to me for several reasons.  First the obvious reason — keeping my skinny jeans from busting at the seams.  But I also make it a priority each day because I love and enjoy exercise.  It makes me happy.  Must be all those endorphins!?  I love to have a little “me time” in the morning to get lost in my music and work up a good sweat.  Then I feel better about myself and I make better food choices.  It just helps me start the day off right and I am a MUCH better/happier mom if I’ve exercised.  And if mom’s happy, everyone is happy, right?  :)

My workout routine varies depending on the situation with my kids.  When Ellie was a baby I would get up and strap her in the baby jogger and we would walk/run together.  Sometimes we’d walk with a friend and sometimes it would just be the two of us.

What a doll.  :)  Ellie was 6 months old in these pictures (2004).  She would usually fall asleep during our walk and take her morning nap in the jogger.  I did this every day until she turned about 15 months old when she just wouldn’t sit still for me in the jogger anymore.  That’s when I joined a good gym with a great day care set up.  Until Addison was born I took Ellie every morning to the gym and would do an hour of aerobics while she played.  That worked out great….and then baby #2 came along. 
(2006)

Upgraded the baby jogger to the double BOB jogger (LOVE this stroller by the way.  By far the smartest and most used baby purchase we ever made).  By this time Ellie was two and could look at books and sit still in the stroller again.  Addison was a month old in this picture when I started walking each morning with the two of them.  Same morning routine – waking and running with the jogger until Addison was older (I think around 9 months) and then I started going to the gym again.

If I can make it work with my schedule to do a morning aerobics class, that is my favorite.  I LOVE aerobics.  I danced my whole life all the way through college and aerobics gives me my “dance fix.”  I love Kick Boxing, Hip Hop, Step, Zumba (anyone tried this?  It’s SO fun)…anything cardio that gets you moving.  I’ve always thought it would be a blast to teach aerobics classes someday.  If I go to the gym at a time when there isn’t a class, I get on the treadmill for 30 minutes, the elliptical for 15 minutes, and then do weights for another 15 minutes.  (I’m a cardio junkie but HATE weights.)  Nothing fancy, but that is my routine for the gym.

Right now, I just can’t make it to the gym.  I’m currently still in the “year of the baby” which translates to mean “survival mode.”  Currently my family all wakes up around 6:30 a.m.  I get Kole fed and changed, the girls dressed and fed, hair done, and lunches made.  Kenny takes Ellie to school on his way to work around 7:30.  I throw on my gym clothes, slick my hair back in a ponytail, and 20 minutes after they leave I take Addison to pre-school.  Then I come home and put Kole down for his morning nap and hop on the treadmill in my garage.  It’s not ideal (I’d much rather work out at the gym) but my motto with exercise has always been that something is better than nothing.  I make that 30 minutes count.  I blast my workout mix on my i pod and walk really fast up a huge grade (like I’m walking up a big hill).  I hold 2 pound weights and punch the air while I walk.  Yes, you heard me.  I practice my kickboxing punches while I walk — forward jab, cross jab, upper cut…  I look like a total dork!  Kenny walked in on me mid-workout once and laughed for 20 minutes.   Then for months he teased me by imitating my boxing moves.  He can laugh all he wants.  Deep down he knows he wouldn’t want to cross paths with me in a dark alley.

Two days a week Addison doesn’t have pre-school and is home with me all day.  On those days I get Ellie off to school, get Kole down for a nap, and turn on “Little Bear” for Addison.  She watches it for half an hour (exact time of my workout) and then we do some crunches and lunges together.  You don’t want to mess with Addison in a dark alley either.  ;)  As soon as I can hold Kole’s morning nap off a little longer I’ll start going to the gym again in the morning and taking the kids with me.

Like I said in my previous post – it’s all about priorities.  I try not to make appointments and schedule things early in the morning.  I like to exercise as soon as I possibly can because I know if I don’t do it early, it won’t happen.  A lot of days (especially lately) I exercise and then never even change out of my gym clothes.  Today was one of those days.  I stayed all sweaty in my gym clothes with no make-up on all day.  I was running around in ten different directions and didn’t get a chance to shower until 8:00 at night when all of my kids were in bed and asleep.  Oh well!  I got that 30 minutes of exercise time done this morning and that’s what matters to me!  Aside from keeping my kids fed and alive, exercise is my #1 priority.

K – I said that would be quick and instead it was long and boring!  I hope that post answered your questions.  If you have other questions, leave a comment and I’ll answer your questions in my comments too.  How many times did I just say “questions?”  It’s late.  And I need to get to bed because I have an early morning date with my treadmill.  :)

xoxo, Erin
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organization2
03.07.11

Time Management Tips

I’ve had some questions e-mailed to me lately from the sweetest readers.  Questions like: “how do you do it all?” or “how do you fit everything in?”  So this will be a really short post.  Here’s my answer:

I don’t.

Ha!  Seriously though.  These are questions I don’t know that I have the answer to.  I don’t think I have it all figured out and have found a way to magically “do it all.”  Every day is a little different and every day (especially since I had baby #3) has been a huge challenge for me to make the most of the time I have.

Even though this is an area in which I’m constantly striving to improve and I don’t consider myself an expert, I’m happy to share a few things that have helped me manage my time.

1)  Decide your priority for each day and write it down.  It’s all about priorities and planning to make time for them.  Each night before I go to bed I glance at my planner and take a look at the next day.  I find the small pockets of “me time” (when Kole is napping and kids are in school, etc.) and I decide how I’m going to spend that time.  I always think “what is the most important thing I want to accomplish tomorrow?”  Exercise takes top priority for me.  I always figure out when I’m going to exercise first.  (I’ll answer questions about my exercise routine in another post soon.)  My binder I shared in my paper organization post helps to remind me about things that need to be done soon (immediate/important actions and projects I am working on).  I look at my schedule and then fill in the “down time” slots with things from my binder I want to accomplish.

2)  Be specific.  When I write my to-do’s for the next day I am very specific and realistic about what I’m going to get done.  I don’t write “work on Project Life albums.”  That is overwhelming to me.  I write “select next photos to develop” or “organize March – May art work.”  I focus on just one step of the project I’m working on.  If I want to organize my closet (something I would never have time to complete in one day) I write “go through Kenny’s shirts.”  You get the point.  If I’m specific and realistic about what I want to get done I have a much better chance of actually doing it.

3)  Set routines for yourself.  I’m a routine kinda gal.  Having a set time to do certain things each day helps me a lot.  I always exercise as soon as I can in the morning, do housework in the late afternoon/evening, and blog at night.  I resist the urge to clean at other times during the day so that I can get more done on my to-do list.  There is always something that needs to be cleaned and if I didn’t have my set cleaning routine, I would just clean all day long…and still have messes!  

4)  Make the most of every minute.  I have found that since I had Kole, I have really learned how to make the most of every minute.  Moms are amazing multi-taskers!  For example, I wrote the outline for this post in the carpool lane.  :)

5)  Watch the computer!  The computer is such a time trap, isn’t it!?  I don’t tweet and I haven’t been on facebook since October.  Blogs are my weakness!  I’ve found that for me it pretty much needs to be all or nothing.  I can’t sit down at my computer and think “I’ll just check my blog and a couple of others….”  Before you know it I’m lost in blog land and 20 minutes has turned into an hour and there goes the only time I had to get anything done.  Since I had Kole (and my free time has become incredibly short) I don’t get on the computer much at all during the day.  I answer most e-mails, upload and organize pictures, write my blog posts, and read other blogs all at night after my kids are in bed.  (I stay up WAY too late!)  I have also had to really cut back on how many blogs I read and how often I read them.  I still read all of my friends’ blogs (and new friends I’ve made in blog land!) but as far as “just for fun blogs” I only follow six or seven.  If I find a new blog that I love and want to start reading, I make myself drop a previous one.  Harsh, I know, but there are only so many hours in each day and again, it’s all about priorities.  

6)  No TV during the day.  When my girls were little I’d watch Oprah, or just turn the TV on during the day while I cleaned to feel like I had adult company in the house.  Not anymore.  There isn’t time at all now for TV during the day.  (Still love listening to music though!)  My mom gets frustrated with me that I never know what’s going on in the world because I don’t watch the news.  The news hour is when I’m cleaning, doing laundry, bathing two kids, and entertaining a baby all at the same time.  Who has time for Brian Williams!?  ;)  Besides, the news is mostly depressing and if my TV is going to be on in the afternoon, you better believe we’ll be tuned into Max and Ruby or The Wonder Pets so that I can have a short moment of peace to get something done!  

There you have it.  A few things I do that help me make the most of my time.  I hope that answers some questions.

What about you?  Any tips or tricks that have helped you with time management?

xoxo, Erin
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