A Day in the Life of ME!!

So lately I have been so busy!  Busy doing what, I don't know!!  So I saw on another persons blog that they kept a log of their entire day, more to just show people how they did it.  I know my day is not near as exciting as hers was, but oh well!   So for me I was just wanting to know where all of my time was going.  What I found out through this little experiment was that when I am writing down what I am doing, I was a little better at staying on track!  A few weeks ago I had created a daily schedule and posted it up in my home.  I think I do a good job of "roughly" following it, but I still do not know what is getting done and where all of my time is going.  Between juggling an infant, a 4 year old, a 7 year old, a husband who is working overtime, a small at home business, church, family, and housework (not in any particular order!) I am feeling a little stretched!  So here is the rundown of my day yesterday, which is a typical day for me except for the fact that Little N was sick and did not attend preschool.  I wanted to get pretty detailed so I could keep track of where my "wasted" time was going.  So bear with the "up to the minute" updates!  Thanks to my iPod touch I was able to jot notes down while doing other tasks!

Tuesday January 31, 2012
6:15 alarm goes off for the first time, hit snooze

6:17 hear Baby Z begin to fuss, hoping he will go back to sleep, and he does

6:24 alarm goes off for the second time, hit snooze again

6:33 alarm goes off for the third time, seriously need to get up, but the house is cold and my bed is
warm

6:45 FINALLY get  up!  Hubby goes and fixes a bottle for Baby Z and cereal and milk for Big E and Little N, while I go and wake up Baby Z and change  him

6:52 Big E is dressed and eating breakfast

7:00 I begin feeding Baby Z his bottle, I have to remind Big E to stop playing and eat breakfast, Hubby gets in the shower to get ready for work

7:05 Grab a quick time with the Lord while giving Baby Z his bottle, I recently downloaded Our Daily Bread for my iPod, its great!

7:07 Little N wakes up, now to convince him to get dressed and ready for the day (not always an easy task!), he tends to take a while to wake up.

7:10 Tell E to go put his and Little N's clothes away, and of course this brings arguing and complaining, so I remind him its one of his chores.  He finally goes and does what he was asked!

7:17  Both boys come out of their room yelling and crying about, well I am never really sure what its about!  Someone is not doing something right, is usually what I get out of the situation.  So after getting everyone back on task, I continue to feed Baby Z.

7:20 Remind Little N for the third time to get dressed!

7:28 Finish Baby Z's bottle just in time for me to get my quick shower before Hubby leaves for work.

7:47 Hubby leaves for work, about 10 minutes later than planned!

7:59 I am finished getting myself ready for the day (I have never been a person who can go with out a shower, and my hair is short so I can't just let it go!)  I begin to rethink the short hair, but who has time to let it grow out!  Now to get the boys ready to leave the house to take Big E to school, praying at the same time that Little N's nose isn't running so I can take him to school, since he had to miss yesterday.  He only goes two days a week and I look forward to those couple of hours to get some things done.

8:12 Leave to take Big E to school on the way there I call Little N's school to tell them he won't be there today because of his cold!  YUP, nose was still runny!

8:15 Drop Big E off at school and heat to the store because after looking at my menu for the week, I realize its kind of hard to have French Toast, eggs and bacon, without butter, eggs and bacon!  So to the store we go!

8:25 Arrive at store and grab the few groceries after having to get the big awkward car cart that Little N insists on having, and I remember that I need to pick my battles so I go with it!

8:45 Arrive home, Little N asks for a snack, because he didn't eat breakfast.  So after putting Baby Z in his room asleep in the car seat, I put the groceries away and get Little N a snack.  I look at the time and realize that he can watch a little TV while I do a few chores.

8:55 I throw in the first load of laundry, and realize that I am almost out of my homemade laundry soap, so I put that on my agenda (the list in my head which means I will probably forget!).  I begin to hear Baby Z fuss and now Little N is asking for some hot chocolate.

9:00 Go get Baby Z up and changed, and decide that I maybe should get him dressed since he is wearing the same pjs from the night before, which he also wore all day yesterday!  The poor third kid!! I then go get Little N his hot chocolate and realize that Sesame Street is on!  YEAH!!  That usually keep Little N engaged for at least 45 minutes, maybe I will get that laundry soap made after all!!  I also take this time to grab my first Diet Coke for the day!

9:15 I go whip up a batch of laundry soap and realize I only have enough to make a 1/4 of a batch, oh well that will get us through until I can get to the store AGAIN!

9:24  I decide that I can take a few minutes to check Facebook and Etsy.

9:45  Wow was I on the computer that long!!??  Time to change laundry and I also decide to make some French Bread.  While the Baby Z's bottle is in the warmer I whip that up!  I mean stick it in the bread machine!

10:00  Baby Z's bottle time, and Little N gets to play the computer

10:30 Finish Baby Z's bottle, check on the laundry and bread, empty trash can that should have gone out yesterday because today is garbage day!

10:45 I suddenly realize that we have company coming tonight and maybe I should clean the house up a bit!

10:55 Wondering why I am so hungry!?  Oh yeah that's because all I had for breakfast was a granola bar that I shoved in while taking Big E to school!  I decide to fix us an early lunch.

11:00  We eat our hot dogs and cheese sticks while Little N watches some more PBS.  Baby Z begins to fuss so I think its time for another nap, maybe I can get some cleaning done while baby naps and Little N watches some TV, fingers crossed!

11:15  I did get the main bathroom cleaned

11:30  TV show is done for Little N, bread is ready to come out of the machine and sit to rise.  Time to get off the computer again!

11:35 Little N and I sit down to read some books

12:10 After reading about Star Wars character for the past half hour, I am done!!

12:13 Little N asks to play a game, so he goes and gets Candyland set up while I switch laundry.

12:15 We begin the first game of Candyland!  Now time for Diet Coke number 2!

12:21  After the quickest game of Candyland I have ever played, we got for another round!

12:34 Finished the second game pretty quickly as well, so Little N goes and gets another game, this time it Noah's Ark!

12:45  Baby Z wakes up so we finish our game and I go get him.  Little N asks to watch a movie, so I tell him to pick one while I change the baby.

12:47 I put the movie in Little N and go prepare a bottle for Baby Z.

12:50  Load dishwasher and do up a few dishes while bottle is warming.

1:03 Sit down to feed Baby Z.  While feeding the baby I can't believe its 1:00 already!  I still have laundry to fold, vacuuming to do and a kitchen to clean.  I also see that I have lots of sewing to do and I begin to wonder if I will ever get to the many projects that are on my list!  That gets me thinking about the treadmill that we got for Christmas and I wonder when am I ever going to find time to get some exercising in?!  I think it would help if we got the cable TV hooked up downstairs.

2:00 FINALLY finish Baby Z's bottle!  We are trying to get him to take more and so sometimes it takes him a really long time to take a bottle!  Now to change the stinky dipe that happened during the bottle!

2:10  Begin washing bottles, Little N comes in to "help", so I put him to work taking things to the recycling bins in the garage.  After that I let him wipe the counter.

2:30 Sit down to fold the two baskets of laundry while Little N is playing in his room and is Baby Z is playing on his mat.

2:50 Finish straightening up the house.  I also have about 10 more minutes until we have to leave and pick Big E up from the bus, so I get on the computer and check Etsy and Facebook.

3:00  Put Baby Z in his car seat and tell Little N that its time to go.

3:10 Leave to get Big E off the bus that tends to come any where between 3:15 and 3:30, so you just never know!  I drive by the mailbox to get the mail, while waiting to pull out I notice this busted up Trailblazer come down the road.  As it passes me I see the lady driving is holding a mirror trying to put on lipstick or something, no wonder he car is busted up!  That gives me a good laugh!

3:25 Bus finally arrives

3:30 Walk through the door tell Big E to go potty and wash his hands while I go get the trashcans from the curb.

3:33 get them a snack and some apple juice and we talk about Big E's day.

3:40 Begin Big E's LARGE reading assignment, he has to read 3 chapters!  Remember he is only 7!  We read for 20 minutes and he almost finished a chapter.  But its time to feed Baby Z!

4:00  The boys are allowed to watch Wild Kratts on PBS while I feed Baby Z.

4:15  Finally sit down to feed Baby Z

5:00 Baby Z finally finishes his bottle, we had to stop half way through to change another stinky dipe!
5:08 Begin fixing dinner

5:25 The boys and I sit down to dinner

5:35 Baby Z gets fussy so I put him down for a nap, while the boys finish their dinner.

5:40 I begin the dinner clean up, the boys are jumping around and not eating so I tell them they are done, they help clear the table and clean up.

5:50  Big E and I sit down to finish his reading assignment, Hubby get home, earlier tonight because of our company that is coming at 6:30

6:10  Big E finished his reading and Hubby and I get a few minutes to chat before the company get here.

6:35 Company arrives and we chat with him.  The boys are told to play in their room until bed time.
7:10 Baby Z gets another bottle.

7:50  Our company leaves, the big boys were told to clean their room and now its time for bed.

8:15  Time for Baby Z's cereal, I decided to add a a lithe applesauce to see if he would take it any better.

8:22  He is not!!

8:29  Decide to call it quits with the cereal.  I put him on his mat to play until bed time.

8:50 Baby Z gets fussy so I go change him (yet another stinky diaper), and get him in his pajamas.  Now its bed time for him.  This is bit earlier than normal but I think he's tired.

9:00  With Baby Z in bed I sit down to get on the computer and watch the news for a bit before bed.

9:40 Turn off the TV and computer and head to bed.

10:00 I am in bed getting ready to a little reading before turning off the lights.

10:27 Lights out!!

3:47 am- Baby Z starts to fuss, and I wonder if its time to get up.  Then I hear Hubby get up and look at the clock and realize that its still night time!!

5:46 am-  Baby Z fusses again, once again Hubby get up.

6:15am- Alarm goes off!  And another day begins!


Well that was yesterday!!  I got tired just going through it again!!  As I said that is a typical day, although I was a bit better at getting the laundry folded and put away since we had company coming.  Normally I just leave it in the baskets for a day or so!  In going over this day, I realize that there is not much "extra" or "free" time in my day.  Or maybe there is I just still can't find it!

So here is what my schedule looks like on paper:

 Daily Schedule:

7:00am -  wake up feed Z/ get breakfast for E

7:30am – Shower

7:50am – Joe takes E to bus stop

8:15am – Get Breakfast for / and myself

8:45am – Monday and Tuesday- Take N to school

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday- prepare to run errands/activities for the day

9:00am – Put Z down for a nap, clean/do laundry/ play with Noah

10:00am- Feed Z/ N TV time

10:30am- computer time/ etsy shop time

11:00am – Lunch time

11:30am – Put Z down for a nap, book time/ playtime with N

12:00pm – Sewing time/ N Movie time

1:00 pm – Feed Z

1:30 pm – Playtime with Z and N

2:00 pm – Put Z down for a nap/ finish up cleaning/ laundry

3:10 pm – Prepare to go get E from bus

3:30 pm – Snack time

4:00 pm – Feed Z/ TV time for E and N

4:30 pm – Computer time

5:00 pm – Prepare dinner

5:30 pm – Put Z down for a nap/ dinner time

6:00 pm – Bath time/ Homework time

7:00 pm – Feed Z/ E and N play time in their room

8:00 pm – E and N bed time

8:30 pm – Z gets cereal

9:00 pm - Z bed time

10:30 pm- Bed time!!!

Pinterest, how you draw me in!!

As I was up until almost midnight the other night, I realized that I had been on Pinterest for about 2 hours!!  I think I am slightly obsessed!  I have found so many awesome things there though, so it can't be all bad, right?!

The best of Pinterest:
DIY Cleaners, Fake it products, activities for the kids, design ideas for my home.

I have found so many recipes for homemade cleaners and laundry products.  One of my favorites is the yellow armpit stain remover!!  I have yet to try it but I am so excited, Jill over at One Good Thing by Jillee said she had amazing results!  Another of my favorites is homemade Oxy Clean!!  Also from One Good Thing by Jillee!

Pinterest, even though it draws me in and takes up apparently hours of my time, I think its also saving my family money!  I have found awesome ways to still have the products I love but made cheaper and with less packaging and chemicals!  What an awesome way to spend a few hours or minutes a day.

Cleaning Crazy

I just updated the Frugally Sustainable Challenge page on here.  Check it out and you can see what I am learning through this process.  I am so full of great ideas!!

There has been a crazy clean out going in my house!   I have been so frustrated with the amount of clutter that has come into my house over the past year.  Since I was pregnant for most of last year, not a lot got done.  So now it is all coming to a head and I am going cleaning crazy!!  Tuesday I started in the kitchen, and got rid of so much stuff, that was just taking up space!  I am so happy that its gotten cleaned out and I am ready to get moving on the rest of the house!  Today I worked a little bit in our dining room and got rid of a ton more stuff.  WHOOO  I am on a roll.  Pics will come soon!!  I still have a few last minute details to finish up before the house will be picture ready.

What I learned in 2011...

What I learned in 2011.... its a lot of work growing a person!!  As I was reflecting last night over the last year I realized that all of 2011 was spent growing a person and learning that person!  WOW that was a busy year!  I am so thankful for my little Baby Z he is so special and so fun!  Since he is number 3 I think he is more aware of his surroundings than the other two.  Its so fun to watch him watch his brothers, he gets so excited to see them going crazy!  Big E has been so interactive with him lately, it just melts my heart!  Although I do get a little nervous when I am in another room and the baby starts crying out, then you wonder what happened!  Asking Big E doesn't always help, because he seems to want to try and hide what he did.

I have been trying to figure out what my goals are for 2012, so far I have come up with very little!  Not sure if that's a good thing or not.  For 2012 my main goal is to learn how to be more frugal!  Since adding another boy to your family I just keep adding up the bills in my head (not so much for now, but down the road!).  I grew up with two brothers and I just remember how much food my mom would say she would have to buy in a week!  Its amazing parents didn't go broke!!  5 gallons of milk!!!  3 gallons of ice cream!!!  5 boxes of cereal!!  OH BOY!!!  Frugality needs happen in this house!!

So beginning tomorrow I will be doing the frugally sustainable challenge.  I am really hoping to gain some better knowledge of what that truly means to others and then to apply that to my family.

To be frugally sustainable, to me means, not wasting, being able to produce as much on your own as possible, and reusing things that we may normally just toss.   For the past few years we have "tried" to have a garden, not very successfully, I might add!!  So one goal for this year to get it under control and take some more risks in what we plant.  I would love to learn to can our produce and have food stored up for the winter.

For now those are my goals, I am hoping to add some more to this list in the next few weeks.  Hopefully by the end of the month I will have a good goal set for the coming year.

Living Frugally in 2012

Recently I have been burdened with the feeling of being wasteful.  Last year my husband and I decided to try and "live like our grandparents" meaning, not to be wasteful in our living.  We changed to cloth napkins, cloth diapers, reusable sandwich bags, and tupperware containers instead of plastic bags.  I feel like that went really well this year.  So why not take it a step further in 2012!?

If you have followed my blog you have seen some projects that I have been working, like the cloth wipes and making our own laundry soap.  Those are just some of the ways we are making changes in our daily life.  Today I stumbled upon a blog called Frugally Sustainable.  She is issuing a 23 day challenge to live frugally.  I took the pledge, and you can as well.  I will link to her blog where you can sign up along side over 500 others from around the world!!  This is so exciting for me because this is close to my heart to not just live frugally for the sake of saving money but also to be responsible in taking care of our world that God has blessed us with!

For this year my goal is to make as many cleaning products as I can to save some money and not have the toxins brought into my house.  I also plan to reuse as much as I can and not be wasteful.

Eight Days... ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!???

I can not believe that Christmas is only 8 days away!!  REALLY!!???   I have realized how slow I have been this year at getting the "regular" Christmas things done.  First is the decorations...since we were out of town the weekend after Thanksgiving (which is the normal time we put up our decorations) they didn't get done until the weekend after.  Even then all I really felt like doing was putting up the tree, all of my other decorations pretty much stayed in their storage bins.  Then I realized that we needed to get our stockings out, so that prompted me to get out a few other decorations, not many though!  As for the outside lights and decorations, they are not going to make an appearance this year!

Next was the Christmas cookies, which I also normally do the first week in December.  I finally got some baked the second week in December and then just had to make some more for a cookie exchange today at my MOPS meeting!

We also buy the kids ornaments every year, this year we were a little late in getting those (as in we just went tonight and got them!).  Of course they didn't' have the ones our kids wanted and the ones they did want were CRAZY expensive!!  So they decided they wanted to share one this year, we will see how that goes over in the future!  We did find a cute one for Baby Z though.

Then there is the buying and wrapping of the gifts!  The shopping we did get done with the first weekend in December but I still haven't' started wrapping anything!!  8 days, REALLY!!???    I think I better get a move on it!!  I also still need to do a deep cleaning on my house because of people coming over for Christmas Day!!

So not only do we have Christmas stuff to get done we also have a birthday on January 1st to get ready for!  I feel so sorry for my poor Little N because every year I tend to "forget" its his birthday, because of all the hoopla that goes with Christmas.  I usually end up pulling together a "party" during the 5 days between December 26th and December 31st.  This year we do actually have his present bought and we think we know what kind of party he wants.

To finish this up, I think I am finally ready for Christmas, well at least when the presents are wrapped!  That will hopefully be a tonight and this weekend thing.  I will feel so much better once all of that is finished!

A road trip, family, Thanksgiving and Christmas, all in one weekend!

WOW!!  We have had such a crazy few weeks!!  First we were preparing for a quick trip our east to visit my brother and his family for Thanksgiving.  Then we were busy unpacking and trying to get back into the swing of things again after the trip.  Finally I have a few minutes to do some blogging about what's been going on!

First about this "quick" trip we took.  This is the first long car trip we have taken with our kids, we have been places that are 3 hours away from our home but no further!  So this 15 hour trip was quite daunting to think about.  The planning and packing and preparing was so exhausting that I was tired before we even left our house!!  Some great tips I learned from this trip though was that driving during the night is the best way to travel with small children!  Although I did feel bad that they were missing out on a lot of scenery, it kept me and my husband sane!  I also learned that thinking ahead about the times you will be in the car will help you pack!  We planned on eating lunch in the car but were never in the car during lunch time, so the bread, peanut butter and jelly were not necessary!  On the other hand we brought breakfast food and that was great to have in the hotel room so the kids could eat breakfast while my husband and I got ready for the day.  We also over prepared for the kids car activities, we brought coloring books, books, crayons, color wonder markers and books, matchbox cars, etc.  When in reality it was dark for 90% of our drive both ways (because we drove at night!) and all they wanted to do was watch movies!  So the DVD player and movies was probably all we needed to bring with us!

My nieces at Thanksgiving dinner!

Big E and Little N

More nieces dinner!

Little N helping Papa change the oil in his truck.

The babies wearing their sweaters that Nana made for them!

This was the first Thanksgiving in probably 5 years that my whole family has been together!  It was so much fun and a great time to share together.  I have two older brother, so with my family of 5, there was a total of 14 kids, and 8 adults (including my parents!)  We are praising the Lord that He blessed us with a beautiful weekend!  The temperatures were in the high 60's which meant that 14 kids could play outside and not in the house!!  While at my brothers house we celebrated Christmas since we were not going to be together this year for Christmas.  We did a homemade Christmas, where the presents had to be homemade and we all drew names.  The kids drew names among themselves and the adults among themselves.  It was so much fun, this is the second year for my family to do this!

My mom had my name and made me a duct tape coupon book!  Love it!!

My dad had my husbands name and made him a duct tape sudoku puzzle book!  He loves it!!

I had my sister in laws name and made her a shopping bag! 

I didn't get very good pictures of the gifts my kids received, but Big E got a picture frame, and Little N received a number memory game.  Such cute ideas!  We didn't include the babies this year because they are both so small! 

The last lesson I learned on this "quick" trip is that Little N gets car sick!!  Thankfully we learned this lesson when we were about an hour from home on our way back!!  The poor kid was so upset!  So along rain, and wind we had to try and clean up a sick little boy and the car!  It was all over his car seat and the van seat!  Thankfully he was able to use his big brothers booster seat and big brother was able to just sit in the seat.  Probably not legally but when you are in a pinch you do what you have to do!! 

We went to the shore and there was this cute Christmas store where we got to talk to Santa!

Little N playing at the Shore!

Big E and little N at the shore

We got to go to a  Lego Store, I think the highlight for my boys!

The aftermath of the LONG drive!!  This is the car seat after the car sickness!  We had no where else to put it!