Organizing Bug

I have been bitten by the organizing bug. Monday I worked on organizing my finances. Obviously that is a work in progress, but so far so good. Today I bought some groceries at Smiths. I saved almost $20 and only spent $27. Woohoo!

Anyway, since Weston's birthday I have been wanting/needing to re-organize the toys in our house. Yesterday we started the day at IKEA to get a couple organizing items. We also discovered the cheapest lunch out ever. At the IKEA Bistro (not the upstairs restaurant) we got a combo of 2 hot dogs, chips, and a drink for $2 including tax. We all shared. When we got home we went to work. My goal was to consolidate all the toys into the boys' bedrooms. No toys in the den. No toys in the living room. My hope is that this will make cleaning up at the end of the day easier. Also it will mean that there aren't quite as many things to scatter in every single room. It also required us to get rid of some things, which we needed to do.

I ended up filling 2 trash bags with toys for DI. And another with baby toys we want to keep, but don't currently need out in the house. The boys rooms look great. Here are the areas we re-organized.

Weston's room . . . He got another new set of Mega Blocks for his birthday, so I bought that red mesh basket for his blocks. They fill it almost all the way full. He also got some new dress-ups, so we dedicated the bottom 2 bins of his toy bin shelves to dress up stuff. We took out the little activity table which frees up the room a bit.
I cleared the bottom shelf of the bookcase, then moved all the books to the bottom two shelves. The new blue and green bin from IKEA now holds bigger cars/tractor.
In Davin's room I moved all his books to the top shelf, then fit the rest of his toys into the bins and on the bottom shelves. All his bigger toys fit in the toy box.
As long as I was emptying things out and tidying toys I decided I may as well have an actually clean house, so I went ahead and dusted, vacuumed, and cleaned the bathrooms. It felt so nice to have things cleared out and clean for a little while.

Last night, while I was waiting for Ian to get home from bishopric meeting so we could watch the season premier of Lost, I entered a bunch of blog giveaways. It was kind of fun. If you're interested in entering one . . . my awesome cousin, Tasha, is doing a giveaway on her craft blog. Go check it out!

Finally I just had to share this picture of my goofy boys. I took this today while they were eating lunch. Weston just thinks he's so cool I guess. He told me about how the paint farted today at school. First of all, we don't use the word "fart" at home so I knew he had picked it up at school. Sigh. However, the way he told the story and laughed so hard was just too cute. He's growing up so fast. But for now I will still enjoy being his favorite.
This morning while I got ready for the day I thought of all the back logged cleaning and organizing projects I want to do. Up next . . . tackling the desk drawers and filing cabinet.

Finances. Sigh.

Now that all the birthday madness is over and I am starting to get over my cold I feel the need to be productive and "get my life in order." You know the feeling. Anyway, last night Ian did our taxes in record time and we found out that we were going to be getting a pretty decent tax return. Woohoo! We are still in the stage of our lives where we look forward to tax time.

Anyway, today I decided that we need to have a real budget. We have never had a real one. I mean I keep track of our bills and pay them all on time. We have excellent credit, but it seems like the first thing we have to do when we get any chunk of money is pay off a credit card that has snuck up on us. This is the case with the tax return too. I have read countless articles about money management. I know the tricks, so here goes. I am feeling pretty gung-ho about it because I really am tired of being in the exact same place we were a year ago . . . every year.

Please don't think I'm whining either because, truly, we are so incredibly blessed. We have a great house, a new van, our kids can go to preschool, we keep plenty of food on the table, and we manage to enjoy more than enough other comforts, but we're not real savers. And I kinda want to be.

Things I have done today to be more financially responsible . . .
-Finally set up Davin's college fund.
-Set up recurring transfers into all of our savings accounts each month.
-Wrote out a "budget" including our fixed expenses and how much will be left for flexible expenses.
-Got our FSA account set up for the year (ok, actually Ian gets all the credit for this one).
-Tacked an envelope on my bulletin board to put the month's grocery/household receipts in as they come in so I can keep track of my spending.
-Stocked up on chicken, ground beef, and fish at Sam's Club (this may or may not be financially responsible, but it certainly needed to be done regardless).
-Called the power company and got "equal payment" set up. I have now done this with all of our utilities.

Things I still need to do to be more financially responsible . . .
-Clean out my files and allocate another drawer for additional files.
-Get a shredder.
-Stick to my budget.
-Be vigilant about ONLY putting gas on the credit card.
-Stop buying things I don't need at the grocery store (aka ice cream, chips, pop tarts, etc.).
-Keep up my menu planning.

Finally, I have toyed with the idea of switching to using cash for my flexible expenses like groceries and entertainment. It seems like such a pain, but I'm sure it would help me be more aware of what I'm spending. Have any of you done this? What are your thoughts?

So, wish us luck and keep me posted on any killer grocery/clothing deals or financial management tips you have used.

Star Wars Party!

Today was the big party day. I'm so glad that we decided to do it early in the day. I got up, got ready, then cleaned the house while Ian took the boys to get a donut. When they came home it was basically time to party. Here's how the timeline was a supposed to play out. Actual timeline differed. The games didn't take as long as I had planned for them and we were basically done by 11:30ish, but that was ok. Weston had a great time and I think the other kids did too.

10-10:15am- Gather, play in Weston's room, eat snacks.
This actually more or less happened. I was impressed that everyone was mostly on time, especially considering they came from Lehi, Ogden, Saratoga Springs, and Midvale.

Davin was a fan of the popcorn and M&M's we had for snack. Makenzie, on the other hand loaded up her plate with M&M's while telling Natalie that she didn't want any popcorn because it isn't really healthy. Funny kids.
10:15- 10:25- Play Light, Light, Saber.
This game is just like duck, duck, goose. For some reason the kids didn't really get it. They also couldn't seem to form a circle in the middle of the room, so there wasn't much room for running around the outside of the circle.

10:25-10:35- Play "Restore Order to the Galaxy" game.
I bought this game at the party store. I didn't blindfold the kids because I thought they were too little. They weren't. I should have used a blindfold. I did spin them before their turn and I think they still liked blowing up rebel star ships with their stickers.
10:35-10:45- Play musical chairs.
This was supposed to be a non-competitive version, but I didn't get it quite right. We put a picture of a different Star Wars character on each chair, then I picked one out of the hat and whoever was sitting on it was supposed to get a little prize and then be out, but alas, I forgot to get little prizes for this, so we ended up doing it more like traditional musical chairs with taking away a chair each time. It was ok. The kids had fun marching around the chairs like storm troopers to the Star Wars theme music.

10:45-11:10- Destroy the Death Star (pinata)
This was a big success. We had everyone put on their jackets and go outside to do the pinata. They loved hitting it with the lightsaber. It took about 4 rounds through the line before we finally let the kids just rip it apart with their hands. Darn indestructible Death Star.

Weston taking his best shot. He seriously could hardly wait in the line for his next turn. So much fun.
Davin took a turn near the end too. He barely nudged it, but he felt special.
In hindsight filling the pinata with individual bags of mini cookies wasn't such a great idea. The fruit snacks survived the beating just fine. Chips Ahoy, not so much.
11:10-11:30- Open presents.
Of course this was one of Weston's favorite parts of the party. He got some fun new things from his friends. He has already beat me once at Connect 4.
11:30-11:45- Do cake.
The lightsaber cake was a little bit of a process, but I was very pleased with how it turned out. It was my first attempt at a shaped cake and I think I'm glad I started with such an easy shape. At least Weston knew what it was and thought it was cool.
My friend, Natalie, was kind enough to share her cake with Davin. Mmmm.
11:45-12:00- Play in Weston's room. Say goodbye. May the force be with you!
We had a good time visiting with friends while Weston played with his new things in his room with the kids. He has some cute little friends. I am so glad that they were all able to come. We ended up with 9 kids (including Weston and Davin) and 8 adults (including us). It was a full house, but a big success.

Ian and Christian hanging out post-pinata.
One of many lightsaber duels, which we tried to confine to the bedroom. It looks like a close one between Lincoln and Kyler.
Weston with some of his friends. (Claire, Weston, Lincoln, and Bryce)
I am oh so glad that the party is now over, but I'm also oh so glad that we did it. Weston had a blast. And it was actually kind of fun making the pinata and the cake. I wish we had gotten a picture of all the kids together. I also wish that the games had gone a little more according to plan, but really no major complaints. A huge thanks to Tara and Natalie for helping corral and feed kids, and for taking pictures. :) I'm sure glad that Davin doesn't require as much fanfare for his birthday. I am going to go lay down on the couch now. For the rest of the weekend.

Happy Birthday Weston!

Weston has been looking forward to this day for months now. I think he can hardly believe it's here. I can hardly believe that it was 4 whole years ago that he was born. Time sure flies when you're a parent. I am so thankful to have to privilege to be Weston's mom. He is one of the most sweet, fun, and easy kids I've ever seen. He sleeps great. He makes me laugh. He is smart and loves to talk. He is a very kind (most of the time) big brother. He loves his Heavenly Father and going to church. He has the most amazing eyes. He's one special guy and I'm glad he's part of my family.

When he woke up this morning he came in and asked if he could open his presents. He was very patient and let us take a picture before he ripped into them. He liked getting to pick which one to open next. He was pretty nice to Davin too who just wanted to help and be part of the action.
Weston loves his new Star Wars book. He also got an army guy outfit and a set of army guys to play with. He got a new influx of Mega Bloks from my parents and a new game from Ian's parents. He got the movie "Up." To which he looked up and said "Thanks guys!!!" It was adorable. He played all morning with his new stuff. He almost didn't want to go on his birthday outing because he was having so much fun playing. But we did end up going to Jumpin' Jacks to play and then out to lunch at McDonald's. All Weston's choices. It's about time for naps, but tonight we are ordering pizza for Weston's birthday dinner and watching Madagascar 2, which he picked out at Blockbuster. I think he's having a truly wonderful day. And that's the whole point! We are also all getting excited for the big Star Wars party tomorrow!

In other news. Yesterday Davin got a haircut. He did SO much better than last time. He only cried a little bit. Here's a before and after. Although it's not a great comparison because he has a bath mohawk in the before picture.
Well I sure hope that my light saber cake turns out good. I will be decorating it tonight, so send me good, creative vibes. I'm sure the party will be fun. I might be a little stressed, but Weston will have a blast. Stay tuned for the party pictures!

Storm Trooper

Weston's birthday week has officially begun! Today when he got home from school he had a birthday card to open from his great Grandma & Papa Squire. They sent him some birthday money and he immediately knew what to do with that. He wanted to go to the store that second. First off he said "I want to go to DI!" I laughed and told him we could go to the toy store where they had more toys. He decided that was an ok alternative to DI.

I had a super productive day today. After I dropped Weston off at school I came home and made my grocery list and rotated the laundry. Then Davin and I did some shopping. Walmart for groceries and party food. Then Zurchers (the party store) for additional party stuff. I am a lame-o and didn't count my own 2 children in the birthday party head count. Also everyone we invited is coming, so we are going to have more kids than I was really planning on. Oh well. I'm sure it will be fun for all. :) I did need some more treat bags though. Anyway, we came home and put the groceries away then went and got Weston from school.

The kids both took great naps! Woohoo! While they slept I rotated and folded laundry, baked Amish friendship bread (and let me tell you it is SO yummy!), cleaned the bathrooms, cleaned the stove, emptied the dishwasher, weeded out all my old magazines that there's no chance I will get to, painted the first coat on the baseball soon-to-be Death Star pinata, and looked for Star Wars character pictures online. It was quite the afternoon. When Weston woke up we watched Jungle Book together. It was fun to snuggle with him without interruptions or feeling like there was something else I should be doing.

Ian knew he was going to be working late, so we decided we would get dinner and take it to Daddy's work. We ate together and then Ian came with us and we all went to the toy store. Weston had fun looking around and trying to decide what to spend his money on. He ended up picking out a Storm Trooper dress-up outfit, one of those robot arms that's like a claw, and a little cheap plastic cement mixer truck. Thanks to our Toys R Us Birthday Club coupons it all cost less than $20.

When we got home, after dropping Ian back at work, I let Weston put on his new Storm Trooper suit (as he calls it). Someone is in love. He just thinks he's the coolest and he was extra excited when I told him he could wear the outfit for his Star Wars party on Saturday. I am impressed with how well the costume fits him and with it's quality. It is thicker than most outfits like that and has velcro up the back rather than the tie string. Isn't he the cutest Storm Trooper you ever did see???
Not to be left out is the little brother who wanted his picture taken too. You can see Weston's other toys in the background. It was certainly a fun kickoff to birthday week! Thanks for funding the toy shopping trip G&G Squire!!!

Kiddo Update

Davin is just about the cutest thing ever right now. He is finally picking up more and more words. I was getting worried since he speaks so much less and less clearly than Weston did at this age, but once I made a list of his words I felt better. He has quite a few and I'm sure he will start speaking more and more clearly in the coming months. Here's his word list (more for my own record): Buzz, car, hey, hi, bye, eat, eyes, Weston, mama, dada, grandpa, turtle, Nemo, thank you, toy, ball, yum, amen, dog, moo, meow, frog, star, duck, quack, bear, go. There might be more, but so far that's all I've got on his list. He also can sign more and please, but I haven't gotten him to try out the real words yet. Here's a video of Davin talking.

Weston is also quite the cute preschooler. He is slightly more annoying because he has been talking back and giving me some attitude lately, but I'm thinking it just goes with the territory of being almost 4. He thinks he's very funny and is always wanting to tell us "silly jokes." They are usually just little stories involving weird characters (like baked potatoes talking to crabs), but every once in awhile he tells one that is actually pretty funny (for a preschooler). After Davin did his video Weston wanted a turn, so here's his current stand-up routine.

On the parents side. I am bored. Still. It is snowing and cold. I did, however, get a very fun book from the library a couple days ago. It's called "A Little Bit Wicked" by Kristen Chenoweth. She is one of my favorite actresses and I love seeing her on talk shows and stuff because she's just so cute and funny. Her book is exactly the same. I'm really enjoying hearing her own "coming to fame" story with all the wit and down-home southerness that is Kristen Chenoweth. If you're looking for a fun, interesting non-fiction book I highly recommend this one.

Ian has been working long hours at the office and is spending this weekend at a scouting training of some sort. It was all last night and all day today until 1pm. I wish we had some extra money to go see a movie tonight. That sounds so nice. Sigh. I guess it will have to wait, but I have some theater trips to make before Oscar night, so it can't wait forever. Just in case you were wondering . . . the Oscars are on March 7th this year. Put it on your calendars! ;) I know it's weird, but it's like my Superbowl.

Old Movies

I finally got the CD with all the pictures from our Oregon trip on it, but I just don't feel like sifting through it and posting a bunch of pictures tonight. I will work on that one tomorrow. Tonight I have been thinking about how much I love old movies. My Grandma and Grandpa Snowball were famous for owning hundreds of movies. Many of them oldies. We pretty much always watched a movie whenever we went to their house. I fell in love with several of them. Here is a list of my favorite old movies. If you haven't seen them, then get yourself to Blockbuster (or the library) pronto!

In no particular order . . .
1. High Society-with Grace Kelly, Bing Crosby, and Frank Sinatra
2. Most Shirley Temple movies, but I especially love Heidi.
3. Meet Me in St. Louis-with Judy Garland (I just picked this one up from the library to watch later when the kiddos are asleep)
4. Singin' in the Rain-with Gene Kelley and Debbie Reynolds
5. Charade-with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn
6. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
7. Pillow Talk-with Doris Day and Rock Hudson
8. White Christmas-with Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney
9. Gone With the Wind
10. Roman Holiday-with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck

There are certainly more old movies that I love, but that is the short list off the top of my head.
Happy movie watching!