fitness, toddlers, sanity and all the joys in between: Fall is coming, Fall is coming!!!!

Hello again, I realize it's been some time again, but I can tell you where time has gone! The days and months seem to be going by so quickly. I mean just this month my babies turned 3 (August 17th) & 1 (August 6th)!! And today is my husband's birthday (he turned 29!!) so we've had a busy month of celebrating. Then to top it all off this Saturday we're having a birthday party for the kids (and my husband) with family and some friends. I'm so looking forward to it because this year the party is actually going to be at our house instead of somewhere else......this is huge for us! Typically we have so many family members coming we don't really have anywhere big enough to house everyone, but this time there are only going to be roughly 24-25 people so about half of what generally attends. So with the party right around the corner, my urge to get projects done around the house has moved up to full blown obsession! Since I've been terrible with the fitness part of my days, I'm desperately trying to off set that with minor tweaks to my eating habits, such as less sugars. Which in general is just an all around better idea for me, pregnant or not. I learned my lesson when I was pregnant with my son, I purchased things with no added sugars and just tried to avoid the bad sugars all together and gained a wonderful 22lbs! On the other hand, when I was pregnant the first time with my daughter I didn't watch the sugar hardly ever and gained a devastating 40lbs! Now it's interesting to look back and compare them because when I was pregnant the first time I really didn't feel like I had gained that much weight..................until I seen the pictures! YIKES!! Even more interesting, even with all the weight I gained with my daughter she only weighed 7lbs 10oz, with my son, he was 8lbs 6oz and I only gained 22lbs!?? Apparently my daughter took all the sweetness and left the worst of it for me to deal with post pregnancy! So now I'm just hoping to keep the sugars in check and I'm trying to expand my eating habits into more veggies that I really hadn't tried before nor had a taste for, such as peppers! I'm finding I really enjoy red peppers and cooking with them is great! Speaking of cooking......................

Since it is the hubby's birthday, I spent a good amount of time in my kitchen this weekend baking him a homemade carrot cake (his fav!). Little nervous about this baking adventure as I had never baked a carrot cake before and generally me + baking = DISASTER. Surprisingly, this went very well and it was completely edible! A win, win for me!! Beau said it tasted really good, so that is also a plus and he ate another piece of cake tonight so it must not have been too bad or he wouldn't have gone for seconds!

After spending so much time in my kitchen this weekend I found that certain areas aren't flowing very well. So tomorrow, I'm exercising my organizing skills and working on my mental health and trying whip my kitchen cabinets into a more functioning unit! Sadly, this whole "project" has me uber excited! So I dug out all my organizing bins, buckets, baskets and shelves to figure out how to incorporate them into my work areas. I'll empty all my shelves onto my counters and table and observe the damage (a wonderful tip I picked up from one of my frequent blog stops, IHeart Organizing................LOVE!!). After all this I'll begin putting things back away that are absolute necessities and pieces that are used on a daily basis, and work my way down. Things that aren't used, or I don't feel an absolute overwhelming love for or basically just don't fit will be tossed! As will any leftover organizing bins. I'm really just hoping to maximize the space I have rather than shoving things here and there and keeping non-pantry items in the pantry, etc. I will even be organizing my refrigerator (another idea/tip from IHeart Organizing..................seriously check out her blog, it's amazing!) Here is a picture of my wonderfully clean kitchen (I said in my last post I would provide an updated picture now that it is completely unpacked and put together, that is until tomorrow!)

See that beautiful wooden drying rack!! I've been looking for one of those literally for MONTHS!! Couldn't find one in good condition or within my budget, until a random trip to Family Dollar one day! Seriously, I paid $5 bucks for that mama jamma!! I love it! I give a it a big, "I"m so glad I found you" sigh whenever I'm doing dishes! (too much??)

So all those cabinets will be emptied and re-organized to hopefully better suit my everyday kitchen needs. It's basically one cabinet that NEVER stays organized no matter what I do and it's just ended up a hodge podge of this and that. That doesn't work for this gal! I'll be taking pictures to share with you through my adventure, but be prepared for the crap that will flowith from those cabinets!

To leave you with a smile here are a couple pics of my babies celebrating their birthdays with cupcakes!