A little organization.

As we go through this house room-by-room & painting & decorating, I am also purging.  Some of my purging involves making a future garage sale pile in the basement.  Some goes on Craigslist.  And some gets trashed.  With the hopes that once I get done with the house, everything we don't need, is gone.  Should we have done this before we moved, yeah, but we don't tend to do things the normal way around here.

Our kitchen "office" nook had been taken over by, well, by everything that didn't have a home.  Kids' papers & art from school.  Junk.  To do piles.  Pieces from old projects.  Just endless stuff.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore.  I dug in this past weekend.  I got it all purged & organized & I'm excited to KEEP it that way.  Since I was going, I also dug into the file cabinet.  Yikes, that took a day in itself & is still not 100% done.  I felt a bit like I should have been on the hoarders TV show all the stuff I cleaned out of there.  Most of it was at one time important stuff, just 3 years ago, not now.

I have one file to organize yet in the file cabinet.  I need to find a new address book to organize all my torn off old Christmas card labels I have stored.  And I want to organize a couponing book eventually.  But its so much better than it was.

Inside of 2 drawers before I got started.

 The cabinet.  I forgot to take a before picture inside the doors before I cleaned them out, but trust me, it was BAD! 

After!!

Cork on the right door for tacking up papers to not loose.  The right has a clip board for a grocery list & key hooks.  The middle shelf bins are labeled for Jeff, Katie, Kids & Bills. 

The 3 ring binders organize all the manuals we have.  Before all of them were just crammed in a drawer.  This takes up less space & is so much easier to find what you want.

Pocket dividers are labeled inside.

I have a stack of manuals too that I think are all our stuff from the old house.  I need to sort through them yet & make sure that's what they all are.  Then mail them back there or go stick them in the mailbox.

The GREATEST thing I did with this project is "invest" {cause they really aren't spendy} in a label maker.  I'm not real sure how I have lived without one thus far in life. 

The little black basket holds a file for receipts, business cards & gift certificates.  Some coffee cups from Costa Rica for loose change & stamps.

 The desktop has a charging station. More cork added to the tile with command velcro for a place to pin & not loose important stuff.  And the white bin is a catch for kids artwork/papers to sort through.

Everything of course got pretty shelf liner {cause I love it!}  And I found some clear organization bins at Target too.  Check out the chapstick!  See, all that mess we had we could never find a chapstick & we had 5!! 

I also got a bin to stash mail & hold our daily use keys.  

As for the file cabinet.... my process looked something like this.

 Part of my shred pile.  I had a paper shredder.  Had as in I got through about 3/4 of the stuff & then the kids started "helping" and then... well its broke.  So I need to get a new one.

Most of this was bills, statement of benefits, etc. from 2009 & 2010.  We had SOOO much stuff when the kids were born.  And I battled so much with insurance.  I had notes of who I talked to & when & what they were resolving, etc, etc.  I think it was time to part with that stuff.  

I bought some pretty Washi tape to put "pretties" on the front of my files.  And to cover up old writing on some of the file folders.  Then everything got a pretty little printed label!

It feels SOOOOO good to have most of this behind me!


Next....the front hall coat closet....

A beautiful fall day!

Here in a couple weeks we are taking 4 year old & family pictures.  Hoping the weather cooperates or we can find a cool place to do them indoors.

We have had wind & cold & rain & frost... but the weather today was B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L!!  So we got out, went for a walk, played at the park & took some pictures too, just for practice.

They were nerdy a lot of the time.  And we have TONS of out-takes for booger picking, a horrible underbite, cheezy smiles & a variety  of other reasons.  

 But we snuck home with a few pretty good ones too.

Hayden Thomas

Olivia Paige

Logan Daniel

My almost 4 year olds!!

Happy Fall from Olivia, Hayden & Logan!!

4 year checkup

This morning we had the kids' 4 year well check.  All went well & they all did great.


We talked a lot about all their "past" issues.  Umbilical hernias, Hayden's sacral dimple, reactive airway disease, tonsils....and more or less came up with no real health concerns at his time.

Logan & Olivia's tonsils are definitely still large, but not changing.  And neither of them snore, so we'll just keep watching.  I do sometimes wish I could see what Logan's adenoids look like though, as he seems to be more "nasally" in speech & the least articulate.  We're gonna try some nasal spray steroids that are supposed to shrink them down, we'll see what that does.

Gonna keep Olivia off steroids this winter again & see how she does with her respiratory status.  She had such a good year last winter compared to the previous years.

The only thing that is on my agenda (& its been on my agenda for several weeks I just have not gotten it done for a million, trillion different reasons) is calling the school district to have them all evaluated by the early intervention people.  The school systems offer this for free & if they qualify for any services, that too is free.  Its something lots of preemies are involved in all along & I've taken the route of not calling unless a concern popped up.  And since they have always been on track developmentally, I've never called.  

I don't have any major huge concerns, but I've always heard "Lots of times preemies don't show any delays until you hit school age.  Then it becomes more apparent."  And with school-age being just around the corner I just want to make sure there isn't something we need to be working on to get them all off on the best possible foot.  

The reason it first came up is Olivia's shyness.  Its extreme.  To the extent that if she was going to Kindergarten next year, she'd probably fail on account of she wouldn't talk to the teacher & the teacher would think she was a mute who knew nothing.  I'm not exaggerating.  We had her parent-teacher conference at daycare/preschool this week & confirmed my decision to call.  She is "improving" there & talking some, but I was stunned & amazed when Mrs. Starr went through her evaluation with us the things that Olivia refuse to do, try, or show that she knew.  At home, for me she could do probably 99% of the things on their form, but she did probably less than 40% of it for her.  She is listening & retaining, she just can't figure out how to share it.
And since I'm doing it, I'll have them all evaluated.  Whats the harm?  They say by age 4, strangers should be able to understand 75% of their speech.  And I'm not sure the boys are that articulate.  Its hard knowing whats "normal."  Especially because Olivia {when she talks} is extremely precise & articulate, its hard to know if the boys' articulation is normal too, or delayed.

So since its free... {and my tax dollars pay for it}... we'll give it a whirl.  Maybe they will all qualify for free preschool next year?

They are managing to continue to grow like weeds:

Hayden
41.3 in tall (74%) & 44 lbs 6 oz (95%!!)!
Last year he was: 38 in (58%) & 36 lbs 9 oz (90%).

There is no denying he is a big dude.

Olivia
40.8 in tall (75%) & 37 lbs 3 oz (69%)
Last year she was: 37.5 in (56%) & 31 lbs (55%)

Logan
39.2 in tall (27%) & 34 lbs 3 oz (35%)
Last year he was: 36.25 in (17%) & 29 lbs 6 oz (26%)

They are all continuing to "catch up."

They have this little computer program thing, that you plug in the parent's adult height & it predicts the kids adult growth.  Then they are "supposed" to plot +/- 10% along that predicted growth curve to show they are growing right.  Logan falls below.  I'm not all about a computer tool predicting what someone "should be."  And the boys are clearly VERY different people.  But we discussed Logan's poor diet in relation to this.  He is just SOOO picky!  Besides keep trying to get him to try new things, there isn't much to do.  It's less about being a concern that he is "smaller" now but more of a concern that poor diet now (he is a carb maniac!! who eats no protein at.all!) sets him up for risk of obesity later.  He is continuing along his own growth curve just fine.

No shots for them this year, next year they will get all their Kindergarten shots.

We went out for Runza & ice cream afterwards!  

I can't believe they are almost 4!

Awww...

This is a picture, taken of a picture, so excuse the quality.  

Our little fam's Church yearbook shot.  You wouldn't believe the negotiation it took to fight with one child or another about which side they stood on, or whose step was taller, or keeping fingers out of mouths. {See me holding Olivia's hand}  

Surprisingly, it turned out pretty good.

Halloween Festivities 2013!

Again this year, we went for home made Halloween costumes. Grandma GG again came to our aid with some awesome hats.  And I put together some weather appropriate outfits & accessories.

 I even went as far as using dye to color green sweats!!

Wednesday night was our Church Trunk-or-Treat.  The HS youth also had games for the kids.  Like pumpkin bowling, pin (tape) the nose on the pumpkin & bobbing for apples.  

 Logan would have done this all night!

 Olivia lasted not much longer than the 6 seconds it took me to take a picture.

This year the kids elected to go as Team Umizoomi.

Hayden was Bot.

 Logan was Geo!

 Olivia was Milli.

Incase you don't know Team Umzoomi, this is them.  They are tiny little superhero type characters that help people solve every day issues with the help of Geo's shape belt, Milli's pattern power & Bots belly, belly, belly screen.

Go Team Umizoomi!!

 Trunk-or-Treat this year was fun in that the kids actually know some friends there from Sunday School & they enjoyed going trunk to trunk with their friends.

Halloween afternoon we found some time for manis & pedis before a late afternoon nap in preparation for a late night.  Check out Hayden blowing his nails dry :)

Halloween night, Miss Analeigh & Molly came with us. Analeigh was in a super picture taking mood :)

 Attempts at getting all 4 of them looked a little something like this:

 The best I got!

 Ready to go!  Hooray!!

 They did really well at first.  Lots of "Trick or Treats" & "Thank yous."  Analeigh & Molly hit about every other house as my big kids took off running ahead.  

 As time went on though, Analeigh caught on to the fact that she got candy at each stop & was NOT ok with skipping any doors anymore.

Stopping to check out her goods.

One house handed out Capri Sun juice pouches & after that, it went down hill.  All they wanted to do was go home & drink their juice.  So we slowly made our way home.  We were out for probably 1.5 hours though & they got plenty of loot.

We headed home for popcorn, candy & to drink those darn beloved juice pouches!  

Logan showing off his red candy tongue.

 Olivia showing off her green candy tongue.

 Hayden showing off his green candy... everywhere!

 One poor girl got "tricked" though :(  She got tripped up & face planted into the sidewalk pretty hard at one house.  In addition to her candy, she took home a scraped up nose & eye.

 Friday, November 1 after Halloween, the kids were still begging to paint pumpkins.  With finishing up one job & starting orientation at another, I had worked/oriented more than 50 hours in the 6 days leading up to Halloween, so we just had never got any pumpkin painting or carving done.  Better late than never?  The boys painted briefly, Olivia worked at hers for a good hour.  

 Hayden actually made a face on his!!!

 Olivia painted a person on this side of her pumpkin.  She had a scene of some sort on every side.

 Logan, well he wasn't as in to it.  He isn't a big fan of messy hands, so he ducked out pretty early.

My little Team Umizoomi had a great Halloween!!  Hope you did too!!