week in review...

I have felt so compelled to write lately, but since I've taken quite a long break, I almost feel like I don't know where to get started. I think this is the easiest way for me is to dust off this blog of mine.  I'm feeling an urgency to journal my thoughts and my life.  I'm sure this will be lots of rambling, but hopefully this will help get my rusty writing skills back on track.

Life is busy.  My days are filled from morning until evening with stuff.  Things to do.  Places to be.  But, we are in a beautifully content spot in our lives.  I love my kids ages.  I'm loving the time I have with Tim.  I love our life right now.  Every week my iphone is filled with pictures like the ones below.  These probably give the best sneak peak into my life.

I always get a wild hair and start projects like this on a whim.  One day, after the cleaning the playroom, i felt like the Lego's weren't being utilized as well as they should.  Who could find anything in that huge container, with millions of different Lego pieces?  I HATE having things in my home that are not being utilized!  I wondered if they were organized better if the kids would play with them more.  Therefore, this project was born:

We spent the weekend sorting Lego's in our free time, which actually turned out to be perfect since I came down with a nasty cold and didn't have much desire to do anything else.  A few days later, our Lego's were all organized and now look like this.  I need to spruce it up a little more and give them some proper Lego's, but I'm so happy we got this far.  I got this idea here from the blog I heart organizing.  Hoping to make mine as cute as hers soon!  I am happy to report that my boys have been playing with Lego's for a week straight and they are still perfectly organized in the bins.  (Wish me luck).

Tim was trying to participate in "Movember" but couldn't do it any longer.  This is what he showed up to dinner looking like one night.  I'm happy to report that nobody approved of the handlebar mustache and it was removed shortly hereafter!  (Please note the can of coconut milk on the table!  I asked Cooper to go downstairs and bring me up a can of mandarin oranges, this is what we got instead!)

I take pictures of EVERYTHING!  What did I do before I had an iphone?!  When I want to remember a quote or send it to someone, I just take a picture of it.  The result is lots of these pictures on my phone.  I love that I will have documentation of these inspirational things.  I really do love the idea being taught here.

Crew has a friend!  He has more than one friend, but he now has a friend that he is always asking to play with.  "Call Mack", "Mack's House", "Mack come over."  They are adorable together (most of the time).  Sometimes Crew can be a bit overwhelming to Mack, but I love watching these little relationships form. 

Parker has a million friends!  This kid is the life of the party.  Tim and I were at the school for Cooper's parent teacher conferences, which were held during the day and decided to go spy on our other boys.  We found them in the lunchroom.  Here is Parker's crazy group of boys that he was eating lunch with.  I couldn't get any of them to hold still long enough to take a picture!

In a magical moment, Payton was also in the lunchroom!  He had to be a dun-dun-dun LUNCH WORKER.  Ugh, he hates it because you have to miss recess.  And it requires work.  This kid would not even acknowledge that he knew us so I did what ever normal parent would do, pulled out my camera and started taking pictures.  (Maybe I am just a little embarrassing!)

Whizzing by me as fast as can be...

Sometimes a clean playroom needs to be documented...

And a delicious dinner that was thrown together with a bunch of leftovers...

And these crazy kids dressing up and having fun...

One of my favorite moments of the week, was how excited Parker was about his Cub Scout den meeting.  They did a service project where they handed out "free smiles" and suckers to people that were coming into the rec center.  How would this not brighten anyone's day?  He has the best Cub Scout Leaders and always has so much fun!

Other notable events from this past week were the boys Parent Teacher Conferences.  They are all great kids.  I'm happy their teachers seem to know them and love them.  I'm happy my kids are able to do well and don't need too much help from us!

Cooper almost got hit by a car in the Target parking lot.  Happy I didn't see it, but scared us to death for a few days.  Reminded to slow down just a little bit and focus on what's most important!

Time out for Women, Catching Fire, Bergstrom's Thanksgiving Dinner, Sophia's Birthday party, indoor soccer games...it's all in a weeks work, but I love it.  I'm where I always dreamed I would be!

Journaling

I am in checklist mode.  This means that anything I have put on the checklist is essential.  I put "journal" on the checklist and managed to neglect it last week.  This week I must do better.  Today our lesson in Relief Society was a culmination of all the things I have been trying to implement in my life over the past month (six months, sixteen years).  BALANCE.

I started using these checklists.  Getting back to my organizing roots and the last two weeks have been amazing.

First things first.

Prioritizing.

Big picture.

Now...I've even returned to this journal.  I've realized this is something essential to my life.  I'm happier when I'm reflecting on my week through writing in a journal.  I absolutely love looking back at the past.  Typing is a much easier venue than pen and paper.  Now that google reader is no more, I don't even fear that anyone will read my deepest, darkest, journaling tales.

I feel like when I'm not journaling, I'm being ungrateful for the many blessings and memories that Heavenly Father has allowed me to have.  I also have the worst memory and, although I have a picture, I can barely remember the details of what happened last week.  This is my resolve to be better.  Not perfect.  Just better.   

Back to the checklists.  These have changed my life over the past couple weeks.  I'm so happy to be starting week 3 and feeling better than ever.  Sure, they are great for my kids.  I'm certainly not nagging as much and I don't have to hear, "You never told me to do that."  But, my favorite checklist is not the one I made for my boys.

My favorite checklist is mine.  Who knew that by checking off a little box, I could make sure my teeth were brushed by 8 am every morning (instead of remembering around lunchtime)?!  Who knew that I could be so diligent in my scripture study?!  So far, I've missed a few exercise check marks, but for the most part, this has been fabulous.  Apparently, keeping things super simple works for adults too.

I love that I get to spend more time with these cute boys!  It was the first Utah Football game on Thursday.  Tim & Payton were the lucky ones who got to go to the game.  The rest of us were busy with birthday parties, soccer practice and house chores.  


Parker went fishing for Cub Scouts.  He loves Cub Scouts.  He loved fishing.  He is lucky that he has super awesome leaders who send me these adorable pictures.

I am blessed.  My life is chaotic and messy and crazy, but sooo wonderful.  I don't ever want to forget these amazing memories!

note to self

My friend, Dani, gave me this wonderful idea.  She did this last year and said that it made a huge difference in her Christmas this year.  I think this will be one of my new post-Christmas traditions.  You can see my other post-holiday traditions here.

s.i.m.p.l.i.f.y

Say it - we all say it every. single. year, right?  This year, I'm going to simplify Christmas.

Ignore it - but then we turn right around and start planning, shopping, addressing and baking.

Moan about it - until we are so stressed out that we can't see straight so then we just complain.

Pretend it - but then we remember that we can't do that during the holiday's.  Bah humbug's are frowned upon.  So we must keep up the act.

Lose it - until we can't keep up the act any longer and we finally lose it.  We hit our wit's end.

Invite it - so we decide to invite the spirit into our lives.  We invite the chaos and the joy to fuse together.  We surrender to the inevitable.

Find it - and we FINALLY find it.  We find the true meaning of Christmas.  We find the peace, the joy and the love this time of year can bring.

You did it - then we pat ourselves on the back and say "You did it!"  And we swear that we've learned our lesson and that next year will definitely not be the same...until...

Please tell me that I'm not the only one who goes through this viscous cycle every single year?  I'd love to say that this year I am only "ify" ing.  There will be no "simpl" going on around here.  Or else I'm just stuck in the whole "pretend it" phase.  Either way, we're having so much fun celebrating the holidays.  So far.  So good.  Here's how I'm "ify" ing Christmas this year:

1.  Do things that work for our family.

We went to the Festival of Trees.  Our dear friend donates a tree every year.  Payton & Parker are standing in front of her tree (the one with all the cute bears) along with the McAllister girls.  Cooper wouldn't be in the picture.  He was too busy throwing a tantrum on the floor, in his Spiderman costume, because we wouldn't let him play with the toys surrounding the trees.  Love that kid!  (Just reminding myself.)  One way that we are "ify" ing our Christmas is by agreeing when something isn't working out.  If our kids aren't enjoying the hundreds of trees (even though I am), then let's move on.  And we did.  We spent an hour there.   We went to Hires for dinner then stopped by my parents house for a visit...Happy Holidays!

2.  Do things that make me happy.

This wreath makes me happy.  When I walked past it in the store, I thought it was so fun and pretty, but decided that it maybe it wouldn't work well with the whole scheme of everything else in my house.  Instead of going through to whole "simpl" process, I just said, "what the heck!"  I "ify" ied the situation (anyone still following this?!) and bought it! 

3. Let my family help.

This year, for the first time ever.  My kids decorated our family tree all by themselves.  It was done in 20 minutes and looks exactly like it has every other year.  Also, Tim offered to buy gifts for all the men in our family.  At first that scared me, but then he gave me no choice and I realized that I was crazy to have not given him that burden wonderful job years ago. 

4.  Enjoy the simple things.

My kids love the Christmas shows on TV.  Disney's Prep Landing, Shrek the Halls and A Charlie Brown Christmas are this week's favorites.  I'm realizing that these simple things are more fun for my children than many elaborate ideas I come up and it's their way of celebrating the season. 

They also love reading Christmas stories, drinking hot chocolate and eating candy canes.  Simple, right?

5.  Don't over complicate everything.

Normally, I take all my everyday wear dishes out of my cupboard and replace them with my Christmas dishes.  This means I have to take 6 loads of heavy items down to our basement storage just to bring them back up again 4-weeks later.  This year, I decided to leave my everyday dishes were they are and put my Christmas dishes on my shelf.   Now, they also serve as a decoration.  Win.  Win.

I also tried to keep my decorations super simple this year.  This is as simple as it gets...

{Before}

{After}

{Before}

{After}

{Random kitchen items displayed together}

6.  Focus on the true meaning of Christmas daily.

I've been looking for small and simple ways to do this.  Scripture study, prayer, reading the Ensign or any uplifting articles are a must for me.  Trying to see the needs of those around me.  Serving my family.  This time of year it's easy to let the every day things get lost so I've been determined to make family dinner and homework a priority every night.  It's so simple, but it's helping me stay focused on the real reason we celebrate Christmas.

I'd love any other ideas on how to "ify" Christmas?

Happy Holidays,

playroom mini makeover

I consider our playroom my organizational nemesis. I am never at peace with this place. It's the one room in our house that I can never seem to keep clean or organized to my liking. Probably, because it's the kids domain. Probably, because it's something that easily overwhelms me.

I've frequently be heard sharing my disgust of ALL the toys we have. For ALL those toys, I'd like to give thanks to extremely generous grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, etc who have donated to this cause.

Every six months we give away bag{s} of our toys and yet they still seem to duplicate in record time. I swear those toys are reproducing in the closets!

Once again, it was time for me to give our playroom some love and get rid of more crap, I mean, toys. I want the playroom to be a place for the kids to explore, create, play and have fun. However, I believe that when there are too many options the kids get overwhelmed {just like me}.

I wanted our playroom to encourage play and creativity, without being overwhelming. I made a quick trip to IKEA and bought a few items that helped give our playroom a mini makeover. So far {it's been two weeks} the playroom has been a sanctuary instead of a dumping ground. Let's hope it lasts for at least a couple more weeks!

{I bought these artists smocks to preserve my children's clothing when they want to use the chalk, markers or paint. They love them and have wanted to use them all the time.}

{I bought these glass jars to store the scissors, markers, crayons, colored pencils & regular pencils. I had them in drawers before, but they were always out and everywhere. Plus, this has encouraged the kids to use them more often. For me, I love the way they look!}

{I also pulled all the coloring books out of the drawers and put them in this basket. Once again, they are getting much more use because of the exposure.}

{My favorite idea, which I think would be so darling for a little girls playroom, is the garment rack. I bought this at IKEA for $20. I also bought some wood hangers, which were only $2.99 for 5 hangers. I hung the boys costumes that they love to wear.}

{As you can see, I'm trying to remind my boys that they can do other things besides video games. Payton hasn't caught on yet!}

{Luckily, Parker and his friends have totally caught on and they are loving our new playroom!}

meal planning with kids

My friend Michelle gave me the best idea and I just had to pass it along! She recently told me that she's been having her kids help with meal planning. She lets them each pick out a meal every week. I loved it and decided to find a way to implement this in our family.

I printed pictures of my kids favorite meals {I found pictures online using google pics.} They get to choose one of each...

Main dish

Vegetable

Fruit

They absolutely love it!
They get so excited to pick out their meals.
They love helping make their meals.
The best part is that they love eating their meals!

I was nervous to give up control because I absolutely love picking out yummy meals to make during the week, but it seems to work out perfect. My boys get two nights a week and I get to choose the other three nights {we usually eat out one night and do family dinners on Sunday). It's a great balance and a good way to get the kids involved. Thanks Michelle!

time management tip #4

Raise your hand if you recognize these pretty pages? Oh boy, do I. These are the "blooms" Franklin Planner Refill Pages. They bring back so much nostalgia from my days with a trusty planner. I absolutely loved my Franklin Day Planner. I got my first one when I was 10-years-old and used it faithfully until I was 28 years-old. Obviously, Franklin was doing something right if I could use the same planner for 18-years of my life. I always received my new inserts for Christmas and loved spending Christmas Day adding in all my information to my new planner. I loved the fresh clean pages. I loved using a nice fine point pen to write so neatly on those pages. Yes, I am already well aware that I'm a complete nerd! However, about 4 years ago my love for this planner started to change. I now had two kids I was hauling around with their toys, diapers, jackets, etc. I didn't have room to carry a bulky planner around anymore. I also didn't have time to spend all Christmas Day neatly filling in my pages. It was heartbreaking, but I had to say goodbye to my first planner. I was brokenhearted, but quickly rebounded with ical. The new planner love of my life. It's a Mac thing so if you don't have one you are totally missing out, but I'm sure you can find something similar with your PC {Entourage I believe}.

With that said, time management tip #4 is...Use A Time Planning Tool {aka a Planner}

*Choose a daily or weekly planning calendar that works best for you.
*Take time to learn how to use your new planning tool.
*Record ALL of your activities in your planner.
*Refer to your planner often to help you stay on task.

Here's all the tips...only one more to go! Is anyone still following this?

Tip #1: Define Your Goals
Tip #2: Examine Your Time Usage
Tip #3: Plan Your Time
Tip #4: Use a Time Planning Tool

children's chores

I am not great at having my kids help me clean around the house and doing weekly or daily chores. My boys are very responsible. They make their beds every morning, brush their teeth, get dressed themselves and always keep their room clean, but it's the other household chores they don't often do. Not because they don't like too, but because I don't let them. They absolutely love cleaning the toilets, vacuuming and dusting so I usually try to do it when they are not around so that they won't ask to help. What's wrong with me? I'll tell you. I'm a perfectionist. I've recently realized that this is not helpful for my children. I know that I need to involve my children in the household responsibilities whether I like it or not. It is my responsibility to teach them, not to make sure they have a perfectly clean house to live in.

I have tried to establish different chore routines for our family, but none of them have worked with our lifestyle. The only day we could all clean together would be Saturday's and that is impossible with our sport schedules.

I've tried to assign my children to certain areas of the home, but they always get jealous of what somebody else is doing. Also, I've noticed that a lot of times things were getting done that didn't need to be. Therefore, I came up with a solution that I could have complete control over, but still allow the boys to help. I would chose a Daily Chore for my children. I've tried to do this before, but was always too lazy about it. I would make up silly little tasks for my kids to do just to make them feel like they were helping. However, this wasn't teaching them anything.

In order to give more responsibility to my kids and also make myself accountable to actually let them help, I typed up and laminated a bunch of chores that always need to be done around the house so that I don't have to try to come up with something off the top of my head. Each day I put up a chore on their charts depending on the needs of our home. We've been doing this for over a week and it is working out fabulous. My kids are so excited to see what their daily chore is and I am forced to pick something and have them do it. It has been more work for me right now because I have to teach them the proper way to do things, but I know this will pay off down the road. Soon enough I will have amazing little workers who can unload the dishwasher, dust the house and vacuum the floors just the way I like it {or close enough}! It's also helping me realize that letting go of control is not so bad. These boys really can help out and do a great job.

Here is how I implemented our new chore system. I made a "Vacation Countdown Calendar." We have done this every time before we've gone on a trip and it's worked so well for my kids. We are planning to go to Disneyland in June. The boys use these charts as a way to earn money for the trip. If they complete all of their "Jones POWER responsibilities" on the left side of the chart they earn a sticker for the day. Each sticker is worth 50 cents. If the boys get a sticker every single day they will be able to earn $40 to spend on the trip. If they don't earn a sticker one day, they just won't earn that money so if they choose not to do their chores one day {which has happened in the past} they just get less money. I don't have to nag my boys to do something. They have a choice. They have a reward or a consequence. It's really a best case scenario all around. Tim & I figure that we would spend at least $40 on souvenirs for them anyway. So, why not have them earn it?

Here is the chart I use to start with:

This is the Daily Chore portion that is laminated so that I can easily transfer it to future months chore charts.

I pasted the calendar on to a 12x12 card stock paper.

Then I let the boys personalize them.

Both of the boys charts hang in our kitchen near the pantry where they easily see them all day long. They are constantly reminded that they have a goal they are working towards.

My absolute favorite part of this chart is that I incorporated all 5 aspects of our family motto. I was trying to think of something I could do for "enthusiastic," I thought of things that make me happy; exercise and serving others. I added these two things to the boys chart and it's been their favorite thing. They have been sharing with each other so well. They are constantly telling me all the nice things they are doing for each other. They are also doing push-ups and sprints every night. It's pretty cute!

Now, let's see how long this lasts?