Quick & cute weekly calendar

I knew that once I succumbed to pinterest I would be in trouble, but I think I've done a fairly good job at making some of my pins into reality. (This is not to say that I have even completed 1% of the projects I've pinned...not even 1%, but I've done some. Some is good).

I saw one yesterday that was so cute that I decided to take the plunge with it today. 

I saw this incredibly cute idea to make a weekly calendar using a collage photo frame, and knew that this would be a quick and easy way for the entire family to know who needed to be where for the week.  Depending on the space, I may decide to incorporate our weekly dinner menu onto this as well, but we'll see.

I picked up the frame at the Dollar Store ($8)

...then I rummaged through my paper scraps trying to find inspiration for the insides of the frames.

After some experimentation, I decided that I liked the thicker paper better, as it made the frames tight.  Considering that I was going to be writing on the glass with a dry erase marker, I decided I didn't want the glass to be 'wiggly'.  You decide what's best for you.  I played with the color scheme.

Then had what I was comfortable with for a finished product.

Add the days of the week and your calendar with a dry erase marker after you hang in the spot of your choosing and you're ready to go!

January Running Review

My overall goal for 2012 is to average a mile a day for the year.  A secondary goal, considering how the months went in 2011, is to meet that goal at least half of the months of the year in 2012.

I am taking a 90 day challenge to start off the year....run/walk for a minimum of 30 minutes every day for 90 days.

1 - 3 miles (31:50 - 10.36 min/mile)
2 - 3 miles (32:08 - 10.42 min/mile)
3 - 2.53 miles (32:52 - 11:13 min/mile; 12:17 min/mile, walked .53 mile)
4 - 2.04 miles (1 mile @ 10:49 min/mile pace; 20:11 - 1.04 mile walk with Jacey in stroller)
5 - 2.52 miles (31:03 minutes, walk/jog)
6 - 2.5 miles (34:31 minutes, walk/jog)
7 - 1.65 miles (30 minutes, walking with Kellen while pushing Jacey in stroller)
8 - 1.5 miles (34:15 minutes)
9 - 1.5 miles (30:30 minutes)
19 - 1.5 miles (30 minutes)
20 - .5 miles
22 - 1.5 miles (30 minutes)
23 - .5 miles
29 - 3 miles (33:16 minutes; 10.26, 12.35, 11.15)
30 - 3 miles (50:47 minutes, walking with Jacey in stroller)
31 - 1 mile (have no idea about the time because the app when wonky on my phone - Jacey & I walked to pick up Kellen from school)

January mileage total = 31.24 miles
Average per day = 1.01 miles/day

January Review:  I obviously didn't make the 90 day challenge I was initially shooting for, but lost out on that goal when we hit some rain on January 10th and I lost my particular running window of opportunity.  That seemed to kill my motivation for this month, but I ended up eeking by with meeting my goal of averaging a mile a day, so all-in-all, I'm not too upset.  And this was a rough month...we have had a lot going on, so I was able to work this in along with life.

And really, isn't that the goal?

Jacey's 18 months old update

The littlest princess is 18 months old.

Where did the time go?

What's that saying, 'The days are long but the years are short.' In this case, the months are short....

18 months...really?

Her 18 month check up was a day shy of her 18 month birthday, but we'll take it.

She weighed in at 21.9 pounds (insert Mommy's incredibly HUGE *Happy Dance* here) (putting her at the 16% for weight - WHOOP, that's UP from 10% at both the 12 and 15 month check up!)

She also grew 2 inches in height (putting her at the 86%, down from the 95th at her 12 month check up, but considering she *finally* grew, I'll take it!)

[For those wondering what that comment means, she didn't gain any weight or grow any in length between her 12 and 15 month check ups. That, along with some other longstanding feeding issues, earned us a referral to ECI]

Here are some pictures of her in the doctors office entertaining herself with the other baby in the mirror.

She has undergone a verbal explosion over the last couple of weeks....her vocabulary has increased exponentially...it's remarkable, really.

And now she begins her newest adventure attending daycare where her sister has been attending for quite some time.  This adventure for her will make life easier for Mommy, who will now only have two - count 'em - two, drop offs every day.  While we are sad to leave her old daycare and the teachers who love us behind, we know this is the best move to make.

Matt and I were remarking the other day that we can barely remember what life with like without our littlest princess...We are so thankful that God blessed us with her..even when we didn't know that she was what we needed.

I think she likes it!

I don't have many pictures of Jacey with food faces...we work really hard around here to get her to eat.  So it was with great joy that I realized she liked Hamburger Helper Cheesy Enchilada.  I paired it with Ranch Style Beans and she was loving this dinner.

Now, if only I could get all three kids to agree to like the same meal.....

January date night!

It was the first of many for the year....considering that I gave Matt a years worth.....So it may not be exciting for some, but my man and I went and picked out birthday cards for our kiddos and my niece and some other friends kiddos last night.  And we went out to eat.

And I loved it!! He knows that I'm trying to get organized this year, and totally humored me with going to Toys R Us to pick out the cards (because I also wanted to use my rewards card...if I buy 5 of a certain brand of card, I get one free!).  Yes, he humors me.

And I love it.  It was a great night.

I have a friend who is also trying to incorporate more regular date nights, so she and I decided that we would swap babysitting for each other. That way, we both get nights out with our man...but we don't have to stress about babysitting. It's a win-win. And we're going to try to make it work at least 8 of the 12 months. Realistic.

I have awesome friends. And a fabulous hubby. Even if my date nights consists of going to Toys R Us to pick out birthday cards. It's my own brand of fun and I'll take it!

Fearless

I always knew Tatum was fearless....and at a recent birthday party she proved it.

She climbed to the top of the climbing wall on their rope wall and touched the ceiling...it's probably 4 stories tall....when she got to the top, she wanted to just jump off into the pit below her rather than climb back down.  But the workers told her she couldn't do that, so climb back down she went.

Amazing.

I want her to have an appropriate sense of fear, but love - absolutely love - that she takes challenges like this and pushes herself.

A Years Worth of Date Nights

As I reveal more and more of the Christmas gifts...the one to Matt is especially fun.  I gave him a years worth of Date Nights. Our 'default' is dinner and/or a movie, so I wanted to branch out and try to pick things for us to do during the year that we enjoyed and that we would look forward to.

I planned out date nights once a month for a year. Once a month because I'm being realistic...I know there are experts out there that recommend date nights once a week and I'm all for that, but we're lucky if we get to see each other once a week sometimes...a whole date night once a week just seems a little unrealistic right now.  We'll get there, but we'll start with something a bit more manageable.

The gist is, he got 12 envelopes, each labeled with a month on it.  He got another envelope that explained what the overall idea was and that he was to open the corresponding envelope on the first of the month and we were - at that time - to coordinate schedules and pick a date night for that month. And stick to it.

I also gave him some extra envelopes....one with gift certificates to places in town and another with places to a town where his parents are (and subsequently we are quite a bit), so we have additional date night options that we can add in if time permits. An added bonus, many of the gift certificates utilized for this don't have expiration dates, so I'm in the clear if we end up not using them. Note: not all of the months include gift certificates, but restaurants.com has great deals and you can use coupon codes to get gift certificates at an incredibly low rate (ex. $1 for a $10 gift certificate or $2 for a $25 gift certificate, or even less...)

I'll try to update this particular post with the date night themes or topics as the months progress.

January - Gift certificate to Potato Shack & Trip to Toys R Us to buy birthday cards for our kids and niece for the year (starting the year off right with organizing!)

February - Registration for a Love & Respect Marriage Conference, complete with child care arrangements

March - Gift certificate to Italian restaurant, Gift certificate (for family) to a family-fun restaurant for us all to go to over spring break, Gift certificate for another restaurant for he and I to go to lunch

April -

May -

June -

July -

August -

September -

October -

November -

December -

I tried to vary things...keeping most of these local and inexpensive.  So what are your ideas for fun date nights?

Family tree

Now that Christmas is over and the presents have been exchanged, I can share some of the items that I worked on for gifts.  They are largely the result of my new found pinterest site...and surprisingly,  some ideas became more than just ideas on a computer screen or pins on my many boards.

They made it creation and are hanging on my (and others!) walls. I made three of these from our hand prints and both sets of our parents got one, and of course I had to make one for us!

The original idea can be found here. Her writing looks so much more professional than mine, but hey...

I gathered my supplies, which included the following:

• Paint (assorted colors, which we already had from my maternity pictures with Jacey when the kids colored on my belly)
• Paint Pens (which I didn't have, but this was the same shopping trip as when I got them for the Reindeer ornaments and the Grinch ornaments, so I just needed them in brown and black, which were the same colors as for those two projects)
• Frames (this was the trickier one....I needed a large frame for this, and as you know, those can get pricey, even with coupons.  However, Big Lots had their collage frames on sale, and although I didn't need the collage frame, the size worked out perfectly.  So I snagged 3 frames for what 1 would have cost me at Hobby Lobby).
• Poster board (I was making 3 total family trees)
• Foam brushes for the paint (a package with assorted sizes was just a little less than $3)

I measured the size of the frame insert, then cut the poster board to the correct size.  Then I worked on drawing a tree that didn't look like a hand (like she writes, it really is harder than it sounds). I used a paint pen in brown and colored it in.

I then grabbed each kiddo individually, let them pick out their color, painted their hand with a foam brush, and we placed their hand print onto the poster board.  Let me just say, with each successive hand print, my perfectionist self got more and more nervous about something messing up.

I did the older two kids, then mine, grabbed my hubby (he's such a trooper!!) and did his, and we left the baby for last.

I let each of the hand prints dry, then penciled in the wording.  Once I was comfortable with the spacing of the words, I went over the words with the black paint pen.

Let everything dry really well....then framed the masterpieces!

I did end up taking these out of the frames and putting the year in the corner...didn't think about that at the time.

And they were BIG hits as gifts.

Back on the coupon bandwagon

I have fallen off...and now I'm getting back on.

And my first step is to get my coupon circulars organized. (I have them, they are simply in no discernible order).

Something I've learned in this process.....coupon circulars have dates on them...on the outer covers - the covers are like spines in a book and the date is on there (I'm specifically talking about the Sunday paper circulars here).  Kudos to you if you already knew that, but it was certainly my revelation for the day!!

2011 Running Recap & Looking Ahead...

2011 Running Recap

January - 16.33
February - 24
March - 5.18
April - 32.17
May - 27.3
June - 27.8
July - 11.5
August - 24
September - 56
October - 62.7
November - 24
December - 49.05

2011 Mileage total = 360.03

To review, my 2011 goal was to average a mile a day.  Considering that I *almost* made the yearly goal after only hitting the monthly average on 4 of the 12 months, I think the overall goal of consistency needs to be improved upon.  So that's what I'm going to work on in 2012. And there it is...in black and white.  My fitness goal for 2012...Consistency.  (Again)

Aggies win!!

Thanks to a great friend, I was able to attend the A&M bowl game, along with Maw Maw, Tatum, and another friend Donna.  Our beloved babysitter Emily watched Jacey, while Paw Paw and Aunt Boo attended and sat with some other friends, and Daddy and Kellen sat with yet another set of friends.

It was a fairly good game, and the Aggies managed to break their streak of shooting themselves in the foot on national television during bowl games.

Whoop!

Here is my sweet princess and I.

Notice that she's looking at her own reflection rather that at the camera, but hey...she's 4.  And she did remarkably well during the football game!  Sat nice and still and was fairly attentive for the entire first half, which in my book is pretty darn good!!

She ended up playing in the concourse area during the second half with Maw Maw and Paw Paw, who could still watch the game on the numerous TV's well positioned there but who enjoyed playing with her almost (or more??) as much as watching the game.

We had a really good time.  It was a long day, and Tatum was quite the trooper during the whole thing.  She finally gave out and fell asleep on the way home, which was to be expected.

Gig 'em, Aggies!!

Review of Running - December

3 - 8 miles (1:40 min)
11 - 26.2 miles (6:01:57) MARATHON!!

14 - 1 mile (walked...knee still a little sore) 
16 - 1 mile (walked)
18 - 1 mile (walked); 1.03 mile; 10:07 for 9:51 min/mile pace - with knee brace; .5 mile walked; 1.52 mile walked (pushing Jacey while the kids practiced their bike riding - great family fun!!) (4.05 total)
28 - 3 miles (36 min - on the dot); 1 mile (walked while Grandpa pushed Jacey for 1/2 mile and Tatum rode her bike) (4 miles total)
29 - 1.3 miles (walked, pushing Tatum & Jacey in the double stroller with Kellen beside me....no reason we can't use foot power to get to a play date!)
30 - 1.5 miles (walked with the kids)
31 - ~2 miles (walked, to and from the stadium for the Aggie bowl game, and the 'from' mile was holding Tatum, so I think it qualifies as cross training) :)

December mileage = 49.05
Miles per day =  1.58 miles/day

2011 mileage total = 360.03 miles
2011 Miles per day = 0.986  miles/day

Started December with deficiency of 23.02 miles

Ended 2011 with a deficiency of 4.97 miles...which is pretty darn good in my book, despite not actually reaching my goal.

Future architect, shopper & astronaut?

After a stroller walk for Jacey and I to accompany Kellen and Tatum on their bikes, we had brunch, put Jacey down for a nap, cleaned up the house, and then headed to the Children's Museum once she woke up from her nap.

The kids had a BLAST.

They have redone quite a few of the exhibits since the last time we had visited, and the older two had fun rediscovering the exhibits.  Jacey wanted to go where the big kids were, especially on the rocket ship, which is expressly for kiddos 4 and up.  She wasn't pleased when I wouldn't let her play in it.  She did have a lot of fun in the "under 2" area, which made her forget (for the moment, anyway) about the forbidden areas.

She very much enjoyed the grocery store section, and REALLY liked to put things in her shopping cart and then, to a slightly lesser extent, put them back on the shelves.  She loved pushing the shopping cart around as well, but couldn't figure out why there wasn't a section for a baby doll to sit.  Smart cookie I have there, huh?

Actually, all three of the kids had some fun in that section!

I figured that Tatum would have gravitated towards the arts section, but she really surprised me by spending quite a bit of time in the construction zone, building a house.  Add that to her careful construction and decoration of her gingerbread graham cracker house referenced in an earlier post and who knows, I might just have a future architect on my hands!

Kellen seemed to want to stay in the rocket.  I think he would have been fine to play there the entire time.  He made some new friends, but I forced encouraged him to join his sisters and me at the art section when we were painting and making igloos and polar bears.  He had a lot of fun with that, too.

And they had one of those 'insert your face here' signs that both kids wanted their picture made in, so....

They all really had a blast.  And while we were there, I got minimal attitude, which I appreciated.  After I got home, well....that was a different story, but hey...they were all wore out and naps were pretty much a breeze.

I'm just glad that I'm getting the chance to do this kind of "fun" stuff with the kids over this break.  This is the type of stuff I feel like I 'miss out' on as a work-outside-the-home mom.  So perhaps I go a little overboard on these activities when I have the chance.  :)

Aggie's Ball!!

Is a common phrase at Aggie Basketball....which the kids got to experience.

And Jacey got to experience it for the first time!!  I actually think this may have been her first Aggie sporting event (actual sporting event...the Yell practice doesn't count...and I'm racking my brain to think of an Aggie sporting event we have taken her to before now, but I'm coming up blank).

And, despite having a start time that was 30 minutes past when she's normally in bed, Jacey was remarkably well behaved and interactive.  She was a little overwhelmed to start things off, but then played with us all and ran between the seats and was enjoying playing peek-a-boo with Maw Maw.

Tatum wanted to play her leapster almost immediately. 

 
Kellen was into the game for quite a while.  Considering that he's playing basketball right now, I think he really enjoyed watching the guys play - and WIN!!