Joy in our Journey: April 2010

Please don't feel obligated to read...this is loooong and mostly just for myself to read back on later :)

I read a post by my friend, Linda, a few weeks ago about how she organizes something her life…it was amazing. She uses A Home Organization binder that you can purchase for $2. To see her amazing organizational ways, go here.

This inspired me to do a post about how I organize some things in my life right now. I can’t tell you the number of times I have written a post and have come back to the blog and either erased or reworded the whole thing. I love that I have this little online family journal that can become a book, but I just worry that people will take something I said wrong…or think I’m strange for posting something like…let’s say, how I organize things. Anyways, I am just posting this mostly for my sister (because she also loves organization and gives me great ideas) and for myself to read back on in a few years. I am not anywhere perfect at doing everything on my organizational plan…many of these things I am striving to be better at. So, yeah…this is what I AM STRIVING TO DO…but not necessarily always do…some I’m okay at and others I need to get A LOT better at…maybe we should just call this My Organizational Goals...

TIME: SET-IN-STONE DAILY ROUTINES: I have a three set in stone plans for time. I have a morning routine, afternoon routine (when Angela naps), and a night routine that is pretty much set in stone. Part of the morning includes my exercise time (Angela has been sleeping past 5:00 – 5:30AM!! This means I get to go running every morning! So wonderful! And when she does wake up at 5 or whatever – she will sit on the couch and watch me run on the treadmill while reading her books and eating a snack…such a good little girl), personal scripture study, family scripture study, preschool time with both girls for about an hour, and reading time (we read A LOT together throughout the day but in the mornings I make sure to try to set at least 30 min. aside to have reading time with the girls). The afternoon routine is what I follow while Angela sleeps/Carolyn has her quiet time. I have a different task set aside that I need to accomplish for each day of the week during Angela’s/ Carolyn’s quiet time (Monday- clean; Tuesday – finances; Wednesday – Calling/Blog/organize; Thursday – Extra baking and cooking; Friday – Deep clean/weekly clean). And then night time is the regular stuff you do at night with your kids before bed. Once they are in bed, each night of the week I have a different task to complete for the night (Mondays – preschool planning, Tuesdays – calling/fold laundry/weekly random tasks, Wednesdays – ironing all Andrew’s work clothes, Thursday – organize something/deep clean something). On the side of my fridge is a list of my set-in-stone routines.

TIME: DAILY TASKS: So, on top of my “set-in-stone” routines in the morning, afternoon, and night, I plan out my days for the week usually on Sundays. This is actually a new goal for me that I just started for myself this week. It was inspired by my friend, Christy, who is all-around amazing. Each Sunday, I reflect on my weekly goals and then make a weekly schedule for each day to fill in the time in-between my set-in-stone routines. So far this week, it was been great…thanks for the idea, Christy! In addition, each mornings I review my Daily Tasks and revise, add on, etc. so I am set for my day!

BUDGET: MEALS: Andrew and I have a pretty tight grocery budget. Well, especially if you consider the fact that we like to eat healthy – which isn’t cheap – so planning meals and groceries is something that is somewhat time consuming for me. I want to be able to get the healthiest foods for the family and still stay in a budget. Each week, I reflect on how much money I have to spend that week and make a list of the essential foods that we need. Then, I decide (depending on how much money I have left to spend for the week) the meals for the week. I write each meal that I want to make each day of the week on the calendar and then build on my grocery list according to what I am making for the week.

BUDGET: FINANCES: We keep track of everything we spend. Yes, it is time-consuming and something I try to keep updated on once a week…but it’s so rewarding. We use a great program called Quicken. It will keep track of all you spend on the credit cards, banking accounts, etc. and then you can categorize the spending. It will keep track of all the categories and help you know if you are keeping the monthly budget that you have set for yourself. Andrew and I spend a lot of time as a couple figuring out our monthly budget. At the beginning of each year, we spend a few hours making a rough plan of our monthly spending in each category (grocery, clothing, childcare, etc.) for the entire year based on our financial goals and inspirations for that year. Then, at the beginning of each month, we discuss the month more in-depth and set a budget for each category. Of course, life is unpredictable so the budget is not always kept, but it’s something we work hard at achieving.

CLEANING: I like living in a clean home. I like how my sister, Michelle, once put it, “When my house is cluttered, my brain is cluttered.” That’s how I feel. Not that I am at all claiming that my house is always clean and organized, but I like to do the best that I can. But I also don’t want to be spending all of my time cleaning…so I have found that if I have a few tasks that I do (and Carolyn is good at her chores, too) everyday – keeping a clean house really doesn't take too much time...everyday just feels like “touching-up” instead of a deep clean. I just do the basics everyday (dishes, wipe off counters and table, trash, wipe down bathrooms, dishes, etc). We usually try to tidy up the toys twice a day so it’s not so overwhelming at the end of the day - once right before quiet time and once before dinner. For laundry, I do about a load everyday (or as needed…sometimes just 3 times a week).

For deep cleaning (the fridge, oven, microwave, etc) and organizing, I have one day a week set aside where I spend the girls’ quiet time doing and if I don’t have a lot of other things going on, I have once a week at night to do deep cleaning.

I do not like a cluttered home...not that I'm perfect at this and there's definitely some drawers and such I need to de-clutter right now (and my closet..and some other things I can list off..)...but I am very anti-pack rat. If there is something I do not use, it's not in my house. Once again, clutter house = a cluttered mind for me. I also like making sure everything in my house has a place...if there's not a place for it in my house, I need to get rid of something else or decide if I really need it.

MY JOURNAL: I’ve always been a big journal writer and have found that I love, love, love keeping a blog personal journal! You can tag your posts with key words so you can find the posts later (like everything I write about “prayer” – I tag with “prayer” …if I ever want to find a talk or scripture that I wrote about in my journal or an experience, I can just click on “prayer” and everything I wrote about it will come up). Anyways, I love it. It's where I keep write down my thoughts, feelings, and inspirations while reading scriptures; where I track my goals; and where I write about whatever.

PRESCHOOL: To organize preschool, I have a bin with 5 slots in it. Each day of the week (Monday- Thursday) has a different folder assigned to the day (Friday is random/review day). One day a week at night I spend 1-2 hours planning and preparing for the week. While preparing, I put each of the girls activities in their folders for each day of the week. The extra folder in the bin is for items that we use everyday (i.e. the calendar and C's current workbook). Some days we don't get to preschool; when that happens, I just save the material for another day the following week.

I also have another bin with worksheets, papers, or activities to use in the future.
I am saving my pennies right now to get a filing cabinet for crafts and preschool items, but for now... I have two big tubs in our pantry. One of the bins holds extra preschool activities that I have made in the past. The other bin holds papers and crafts. I also have a smaller bin where I keep the girls coloring books, crayons, and a couple of extra art projects for the week. The three little containers you see on the side hold craft items such as paintbrushes and paint.
Here is our current preschool schedule. I change and adjust it a lot, but this is what we’ve been doing for the past little bit that has been working fantastically! Sometimes we don't get to everything on the agenda, but we just try our best...preschool is fun so if my daughters don't want to do something on the schedule, we just skip it that day...and sometimes I am lazy so we skip something (this is just my GOAL for everyday...which I am good at not always achieving goals I set for myself).
1. CALENDAR: We look at the calendar, count the days in the month, talk about significant days in the month (count how many more day until that day), sing our days of the week song, discuss “today, yesterday, and tomorrow” using our Days of the Week cards, etc. We also put the weather on our daily “Today is…” poster.
2. GOSPEL: I think this is the most important part of preschool and one that I have been striving to get better and better at. It includes teaching the girls about gospel principals and stories from the scriptures using pictures and books. Last week we talked about Joseph Smith. For our gospel part of preschool I usually use one of three things to talk about the gospel. One, I use the amazing Gospel Art Kit that has I think almost 700 church pictures in it. When I planning for the week, I pull out some of the pictures from the kit and put them in sheet protectors so the girls can hold them while we are talking about them. Two, I just purchased the animated The Book of Mormon for kids to learn. Three, I use the Gospel Art Picture Book (Carolyn loves picking a picture out of the book and hearing the story that goes along with it...Andrew came up with this activity and has started doing it a lot with Carolyn).
3. WORKSHEETS: For worksheet time, Carolyn either does worksheets that I print off from online or one from her workbook. She usually picks to do 3 worksheets (she gets to pick to do 1-3 worksheets).
4. HANDWRITING: Either using something I made or a worksheet from online Carolyn does a handwriting worksheet…or we write letters, practice writing our friends’ names or our favorite words, etc. to get some handwriting practice in. For Angela's Handwriting time, I usually make her a letter book (for example, last week one of her books was a “X” book where I stapled pages together to make a book and wrote “X”s in it..she loves looking at the book and coloring in it).
5. ANIMAL TIME: My girls love animals so we learn about an animal for part of our preschool routine. I either use my own “Animal Fact” sheets I made or we read about an animal that we found from the library.

6. READING: For reading, we usually make a phase book. A is working on pre-phase one books and C is working on phase two books. After we make the books, we read them together and sometimes do worksheets/activities with the books.

7. PRESCHOOL LEARNING TIME!! This is where I bring out a preschool activity that I put together. My goal is to come up with at least two new ideas for the week and the other three days I use previous learning games/activities that I have made that I keep in my big preschool bin. They can be for learning how to read, about the topic we are focusing on for the week, Social Studies, math…whatever. Just one fun learning activity.
8. CRAFTS: Most of the time the craft is coloring, but sometimes the craft is playing with play-dough or shaving cream...or some other bigger craft activity.
9. READING TOGETHER: The girls and I read, read, read!! (We read a lot through out the day, but I try to set aside 30 min. here to get some more reading in for the day)

ANYWAYS, those are the things I attempt at doing in my life to stay some-what organized. Like I said, I'm not anywhere close to being perfect at actually doing all of those things all of the time - but I am working on it. I love organizing because I feel like it allows me to do so much more with my time and helps me in my attempts to achieve my goals.

What's better than that? Andrew took off of work Thursday and Friday...we didn't do anything "big," but enjoy some extra time with the amazing Andrew. On Thursday we went to a Rockies Game and then to Carolyn's swimming lessons! It wasn't the Rockies' best game, but it was fun going there and hugging Dinger, eating peanuts, and dancing...Carolyn started swimming lessons this month and JUST LOVES it! She is an awesome swimmer and is learning so much...she was so excited that Andrew could go to a lesson and see what she was doing. I LOVE watching her at her lessons...most every time she does something in the water, she looks over at me and smiles so big (and sometimes gives me a thumbs-up)...she's a pro and loves to know that I know that :) She's awesome. Friday, my wonderful and dear friend, Lisa, watched the girls while Andrew and I went to the temple and to Cafe Rio. Yes, you read that right...Denver now has a Cafe Rio!!! I'm sorry, but no one makes a salad like they do. And Saturday we got to hang out with Aunt Chantal. I started a Babysitting Group with two of my friends in the ward where we switch off watching all the kids once a month. So, basically, I babysit one time a month on a Saturday and then Andrew and I get two Saturdays to go out. It's great! Anyways, our little babysitting group started today.
This is the only picture I really got this week. Tonight we celebrated Chantal's birthday with her. Carolyn made this cake for her (she did the eyes and mouth...and helped with everything). The cake is David...check out that beautiful rock on the girl's finger! She is engaged! We are so happy for her and we are all in love with David...Carolyn has asked him on a few occasions before they were engaged when he was going to marry Chantal...so we are happy.