sweat is fat crying

Hey there all. So much for my streak of posting....two days in a row and I blew it on Thursday :( But I did do my workouts and as always they are slowly whipping my butt into shape. Today I actually did a 21 minute workout! I will tell you about it in just a minute, but first I wanted to share some equipment I'm hoping to add to my collection. The first is the abs and dip station.



It will be amazing to have this piece to use in my workouts. There are so many different things you can do with this and my goal is to just really be able to rock out some reverse pull ups with this thing. The cost of this station deflates my excitement a little because it's $129 bucks! That's a little too much for this cheap skate sitting here, but if I could find it on sale and then dig up an online coupon some where, well then folks I might just be willing to splurge a little. However, my solution is even better and probably a lot cheaper too! The good ol' handsome (and handy!!) hubby is going to build me one for Mother's Day (per my request of course!). He found some plans online and will be putting those little babies in motion soon! I am uber excited for this.

The other thing that I would like to invest in is called an Ugi ball. Here's what it looks like



I think the 8lb would be perfect. They're similar to a medicine ball and also soft like a bean bag chair rather than the rough exterior of the medicine ball. Guess how much this baby is???.....Give up? It's another $129 bucks! That apparently seems to be the magic number for all the things that our catching my. With this, I'm willing to compromise, I'll invest in a good old fashioned medicine ball and just be tickled to death with it. We have been doing a little browsing locally and they seem to run about $45. Big difference and since I've found them locally, there will be no online purchasing or paying for shipping! Double bonus.

I also wanted to share with you the website that I get my workouts from. It's called BODYROCK.tv and it's awesome. I'll post a link here to the homepage and you should definitely check it out. I will warn you the videos can be very intimidating, but they will break it down for even the newest beginner. Also, another warning the girl doing the videos is wearing some tight and tiny clothing some days, but after doing these workouts, I understand the lack of clothing, baggy t-shirts and long basketball shorts are very frustrating when completing a move. So even my wardrobe has changed a little since doing these exercises. And another thing, my looks NOTHING like the girl in the video, so no worries. I still have a little post baby pouch that is hanging around much longer than I want it to! I'm hopeful it will be gone soon!

I digress. This website will even give you meal ideas also to help you loose weight faster. I've only browsed through some of them, but I'm hoping in the next couple days to really go through them and see what it's all about. I seem to be in a pretty good rhythm with my workouts so I'd really like to start focusing on my diet. I've taken the steps to improve it, but I think I can do better. I seen a thing online that said being in shape and fitness is 30% exercise and 70 % diet!! I'm hoping to develop a personal challenge for myself through dieting and see how it goes. Now when I say "diet" don't think I'm going all granola and yogurt on you or no meats, etc. That will probably never happen because I've mentioned in earlier posts, I'm a meat and potatoes kinda gal. The problem is with all the information coming out about chemicals in our food and the processed meats, etc, as a mom it's very scary for me to think of what I could be giving my kids. I'm trying to buy more organic fruits and veggies and we're researching buying our meats from local farmers rather than the big chain super markets. If you're interested, there's a great documentary on Netflix called "Food, Inc" it will change the way you look at the food on your plate. Or it did for my husband and I.

Sorry for my tyrant there, the whole food thing sorta got away from me. Back to my workouts, so from now on I'll try to post the link to the video of exercises I did so you can see someone doing them. I don't always do the exact video, some times I take different exercises and make up my own workout so I'll explain those to you when I do.

The workout I completed today is Sexy Girl Crush and then I completed a 9 minute ab challenge. It's posted on the same page. If you scroll down you'll see it. Needless to say, the workout was a real butt kicker today. The sweat today was disgusting, I mean running down my stomach and face, man sweat kinda sweat. I jumped in the shower immediately afterwards! The kiddos were down for naps so it was easier. Then after dinner we took a family walk (our doggie included) and it was hot outside.I have a feeling we're going to have a pretty intense summer.

I have my workout for tomorrow already. Very basic exercises, squats, push ups (fingers crossed) tricep extensions and crunches. This is a challenge I found on the website so I'll do as many reps as I can tomorrow in my 50 secs and write that number down and then after 30 days of exercising, I'll come back and re-do these exercises and compare my reps to the first day. So check out the website and let me know what you think! Do you think you would be interested in workouts like these? Do you have a workout that is just awesome and working for you? Hope everyone has a great night!

Two days in a row.....woo-hoo!!

I'm starting late, but dang it, I'm getting it done. Today was.......a little crazy. We got started super late, like I'm talking kids weren't even out of bed until 8:50am! We're normally up and moving between 7-7:30 so almost two hours later was a pretty big deal. Normally by 9am we're starting any errands that need to be done! So all day long I felt rushed because I had a million things I wanted to get done today, of course. Now a lot of it got pushed back to tomorrow (fingers crossed!). With everything being a little off today, so was my workout time. I didn't get it in until 9:30pm tonight!! It was ridiculous. So this post will be a shorter one because it's 11pm now and my baby girl has school in the morning.

Alright I told you I would take pictures of all the items I have on hand to help me with my workouts so I actually took the picture and have it for you!! In the picture below I have my exercise ball (it's actually weighted a little with sand because it's suppose to be used more for Pilate's and yoga), the black thing laying on the ball is my "band." These come in different colors and different levels of difficulty. Red (easiest), Blue (medium), and black (hardest). I like the bands because once the black one becomes easier for you then you add the red one with it and it changes the level of difficulty for you without having to purchase any new equipment! Next is the blue ball with the black handle, that's the kettle ball. Ours is 35lbs and it's a beast! You wouldn't really think so, but when you have all that weight rolled up into that little ball, it's a butt kicker. The blue piece by the kettle ball is "tubing." This also comes just like the bands. Tubing is one of my favorite pieces, I do a  lot of my arm work with that and I feel great afterwards. Next is my jump rope (the red and blue piece laying next to my shoes). And lastly, are my workout shoes. I don't wear these for anything else. They've never been worn outside, just in the house and only during my workouts. Having a specific pair of shoes just for workouts is a new thing for me. I never worried about it before and frankly I am too cheap to buy them. My dear old dad got these for me when I picked up my new running shoes a couple weeks ago. I was so stinking excited and he thought it was hilarious.

This pink thing is my Gymboss. It's my timer that I've mentioned before and this thing is the best. It does all the time keeping for you and all you have to do is program it for how many sets you want to do, then put in how long you want each set to be and how long you want your 'rest' time to be. For example, from the left, the BL is the beep level (low), the 12 is my total reps (4 exercises, 3 times each), the 0:50 in the top right is my 50 sec workout and the 0:10 below is my rest time. After you've done your 50 secs it beats letting you know to begin your rest/get into position for next exercise. Then after the 10 secs it beats again telling you to start your next exercise. And so on it goes. Each time you start a new 50 sec the number in the box counts down for you so when you have completed you workout it lets off a series of beeps notifying you that your time of torture has commenced. It changed my workouts completely when I got this little gem. I'll get the website for you and post the link tomorrow along with the dip station we'll be doing.

So my workout today was all about the abs. And it was torture. I was nasty, man sweaty mess. There was one point I was in the middle of an exercise and a bead of sweat rolled down the side of my nose and into my eye......it sucked because I was using the exercise ball so my hands were occupied, but in the attempt to get off the ball and wipe my eye, I'm sure the scene was hilarious for any fly on the wall because I looked like a big uncoordinated mess! Of course as I'm flailing my body the words coming out of my mouth were not rated G, if you know what I'm saying. There were some, "oh shits," and "damn it's" in there. But have no fear, I survived and completed my workout without any other ridiculous incidents.

Today my circuit went like this:

Opposite toe touches: laid on my back, then got up placing my feet flat on the floor and placing my hands underneath me on the floor also, I raised my right leg straight in the air and came across my body with my left hand and touched my toes while supporting my body with my right foot and left hand and laid back down again. That was one. I continued to do this for the first 50 secs.

Ball tucks: using my exercise ball, I placed my knees on the ball and then rolled out into a push up position while leaving my feet on the ball. Then I bring the my knees to my chest by rolling the ball with my feet, next I roll the ball back out so I'm back to the push up position again. I continued this exercise for the next 50 secs. This was the exercise that the sweat ran into my eye. Now you understand the flailing.

Side jumps: I talked about this one yesterday. It's a great one and really works your triceps and your sides. I started by placing my hands flat on the floor  and my feet slightly out to my left side, then I jump my feet to my right side and continue doing that until the timer beeps.

V crunches with exercise ball: Laid on my back with my hands extended above my head holding the exercise ball, I crunched up bring both the ball and my legs up all at the same time and placed the ball between my feet and lowered myself back to the floor. Then I crunched again bringing my legs, holding the ball up, grabbed the ball with my hands and went back to the starting position.

I completed each exercise 3 times and I was thrilled when that timer beeped for the last time. After it beeped I had a brief moment where I wondered how I was going to get off the floor because I didn't want to have to crunch up to get up because I knew it was going to hurt.

Before I go for the night, I wanted to share a couple pictures of our "princess snow white" as she's being asked to be called, helping me make our homemade whipping cream biscuits that we made for dinner tonight. Here she is crazy post nap time hair do and all. She loves helping in the kitchen so I try to include her every chance I get.

The best thing about our dinner tonight....none of it came from a can or the grocery store shelf! We had sausage biscuits, eggs and water! The sausage and eggs we got from our local farmers market this past Saturday and the biscuits were homemade!! That was exciting for us and we're hoping to be able to plan more meals like this in our future! Well, it's almost midnight so I better hit the sack! Thanks for stopping by and let me know if you're working out and how it's going. Any farmer's market trips that you've been on lately?

Holy cow! What is up??!!

Okay, wow!! Too long without a post! That is just terrible. SSSSOOOOO much has happened since, um, let's see....October! First and for most, we became an awesome family of 5 on February 7th when we welcomed our second son......

Say hello to Mr. Benjamin Richard. Born at 3:03am weighing in at 8lbs 6oz and 21.5 ins long!

He is absolutely perfect in every way. He's actually 12 wks old today! And might I say, he's adjusted very well and takes the absolute craziness of our day to day lives all in stride. Oh, and he's a super happy little guy....always smiling at everyone. So now he looks like this.....

I adore him :-) and here he is with his brother and sister,

Check out that "cheese" face on the little guy in orange!! My husband calls him our little politician because every where we go he's saying hello and waving to everyone. And I mean that literally, people just eat him up. He gives that grin, waves his little hand and says, "hi" in this upbeat little voice that just makes you smile back at him. But that's them, my crazy, stressed to the max, 'is it bedtime yet?', sweet, couldn't live without them babies! I love them so much it makes my heart hurt, really it does. Or I almost cry, either way, I'm sure I'll be a HUGE embarrassment for them in the future!

But anyway, how the heck are ya? I'm doing really well. Like I said our littlest was born on February 7th (by emergency C-section, that wasn't really in the plan!) so my recovery time was longer that I had planned and longer than my patience could take. I'm still "recovering" I guess because I do still have tenderness and weird warm shots of pain around the incision. I don't know, kinda hard to explain I guess. However, despite all that I'm back at the workouts. Have been for 3 weeks....whoop, whoop!! I've lost 8 lbs so I was super excited about that. I've sorta hit that plateau right now where the weight isn't coming off as fast and that is a little discouraging. That and like I mentioned, I have ZERO patience, so it's an all around learning and growing experience for me. I gained about 33 lbs during pregnancy and I've lost almost all of that, but I'm still hoping to drop another 20, give or take. I told my husband I'm not so worried about the "number," I just want to feel good. So I'm chipping away. To help get the weight off faster, I've also decided to limit my sugar in take. So no sugary drinks or cereals (I LOVE Captain Crunch), no candy, no ice cream, no doughnuts.....you get the idea. It's actually pretty depressing to see it all written out :-( But I'm allowing myself to enjoy some of those things on Saturdays, as long as my workouts were tough during the week. I'm doing other dietary things as well, I'll share that next time.

I'm attempting to workout 6 days a week and take Sundays off. So far......hasn't happened. I'm also attempting to become a morning person. My dream plan is to wake up between 6-6:30, eat breakfast, workout and get cleaned up all before the kiddos wake up. So far.......it's happened, mmmmm, twice maybe? So I'm still improving, but I workout Monday through Friday. The time of day generally depends on kids and schedules. If we have preschool, then it's the afternoons. If we have nothing planned, then it's in the morning. Today I worked out in the afternoon after preschool and during naps. It was tough and I'm not going to lie, it sucked a little because it is so stinking outside and my house has no central air!! So I'm hoping that the extra heat will help the pounds melt off also! For today, I did a 12 minute workout, four exercises for 50 seconds with a 10 second rest in between. I was panting like an overweight, out of shape dog. Funny I mention that because our golden retriever, Crash was laying literally in the middle of the living room floor where I was working out and never once did he offer to move. He just laid there, dreaming away, slightly snoring while I was working like a slave in a sweat shop!

Like, I said, I did 4 exercises:

 couch push ups: instead of being parallel to the floor I place my hands on the edge of the couch and the push up is on an incline. They're tough, but I have wrist issues right now and this is one of the only ways I can get push ups in.

lunges: this one is actually tough to explain because it wasn't just a lunge. I lunged backwards with one leg and then brought that leg up and touched my knee with the opposite elbow. Make sense??

kettleball bench press: laid on my back and benched pressed the 35lb kettleball we have.

side to side jumps: stood with my hands flat on the floor, in downward facing dog position. Started with both feet slightly to the side of me and then jumped my feet to the other side while my hands remain on the floor. It's also helpful to use something to jump over so I know I'm jumping high enough to feel the exercise.

I did these four exercises each for 50 secs completing as many reps as I could until my timer beeped. That's the order I completed them in also, so it's like a circuit. I'll put all the equipment I have together tomorrow and take a picture so you can see what I have and that way when I mention a piece you'll have an idea what it looks like. I'm super excited though because for Mother's Day my awesome husband is building me a dip station to add to my collection. I've wanted one for a while and we think it would be pretty easy to build, so stay tuned for the story on that one.

I also got in a little organization today. My fridge was getting a little out of control and it was already slightly organized, but something about it was just bothering me. The system I had, just wasn't working. So the wheels started turning and I cruised through blog land and with the help of some very thrifty SAHM's I was able to pull ideas and customize them to fit my family's needs. So here is what my fridge started out looking like,

The bottom left drawer holds cheeses and the bottom right drawer holds meats (hot dogs, bacon, etc.)

Random condiments and such collecting in the door.

I took everything out of the baskets, cleaned them all out and re-organized. Here's the after shots, not a huge transformation, but just cooking dinner tonight, I felt it working better already. I just need to make some new labels because everything got the ol' switch-a-roo.

Top shelf holds eggs and the drinks basket. Parents of the year right here with our kids' pediasure in with the beers! Second shelf is the leftovers and opened products (on the left) and on the right is dairy products (butter, yogurt, cheeses, etc). This basket is a little full. I'm debating gettign another small basket and putting just the cheese in it?? In the drawer under the 2nd shelf are the rolls, pizza doughs things like that, that always seem to get shoved to the way back then you forget you have them, so I gave them their own drawer. Third shelf holds the small meat basket, our Brita, extra milks and things. And now in the drawers, on the left is fruits and on the right our veggies. Not a lot in those right now because it's slim pickins' at the grocery.

Not a huge difference in the door. Just went through and threw away anything outdated. Pretty simple stuff.

A re-cap of my day....

So today we got up (at 6:45am), got my daughter to preschool, the boys and I went to the grocery (my oldest started not feeling well during our shopping trip, came down with a fever out of nowhere), picked my daughter up from school, got home did lunch, my son still not feeling well, so all the kids go down for naps, I work out, get all groceries put away, clean out the fridge, call the doctor about the fever and let them know he's not eating real well and they tell me they want to see him. My appointment is in 50 mins! Got all 3 kids packed up and in the van, took my daughter to my girlfriend's house while I took the boys to the Dr. My son has the "funk" with a temp of 102 and we should be fighting it for the next 4 days (come on Friday!!), leave the Dr, pick up my daughter, get home, start dinner, hubs comes home from a long day of surgery, we all eat dinner, watch one cartoon, do a few minutes of quiet time, then it's jammies on, kids in bed by 7:45pm. And again, I'm panting like a dog! Now we get to get up and do it all over again tomorrow! I'll end with this family picture of us. Our first family photo as a family of 5.....pretty amazing!

A Marine and a medical student!!?? Yes, ladies he is real and I just love him to pieces!

Night everyone :-)

a dresser re-do!

So obviously, I'm not the 'best' blogger! I don't know why I forget to do posts because I love blogging! I've been working on a couple different projects lately and I'd like to share some pics of my favs with you! Things are going well here.....my daughter started pre-school today! EEK! She did AMAZING, I mean couldn't have gone better amazing. She was just so excited to be "in school." Although I did have to explain to her this morning that she wasn't going to be riding the bus to her school because that was one of her first questions this morning when she woke up. Pre-school is one thing for this stay at home momma, but if I had to put her on a bus at the precious age of 3......I don't think I'd be emotionally stable!

So she started school today, both kiddos got flu shots yesterday (yuck!), but my poor little man Henry had his 1 year check up and ended up with 3 other shots on top of the flu shot......he was devastated :( But on a happier note, he's a very happy, healthy growing baby (a 14 month old baby!) according to the doctor weighing in at 26lbs and an exciting 33ins tall! "He's very tall (97th percentile) and skinny (75th percentile)" were the doctor's words. Not that I'm surprised since his mommy and daddy are 6'0 and 6'4 respectively and both pretty active! But here's my growing momma's boy trying to help me take some photos!

Look at those big brown eyes! He's going to be a little heartbreaker!

Anyway, on to my projects! Thanks for tagging along on my little rant about my babies :) So for the last few months I've been dreaming of finding an old dresser, fixing it up and putting in my entry way for extra storage, but also just because I thought it would just give the room that "pop" you know?! After months of looking and refusing to spend more that $75 on the entire project I found "the one!" I knew in my head what I wanted the dresser to ultimately look like when it was finished, I just needed to find the dresser with the right bones to it. So here's a picture of my little beauty as I found her in a second hand store for $50!!!

Obviously, not the prettiest thing, but I knew she was the one. She just needed a little makeover, some TLC and a little elbow grease and she'd be better than new! I get her all the way home and my wonderful (and very patient) husband comes out to get her out of the van and he notices that the bottom of the dresser is separating from the drawers! OH NO!! My heart sank! We pull it out and we're looking at it and it's not popping back into place. It looks as if the wood is warped and just pulling away. I'm devastated. My husband is pushing and pulling on things trying to just get it to slide back into place and it just won't budge for us. Neither one of us are really sure what to do to keep the original structure as "original" as we can with out replacing some pieces. So I'm pretty bummed out that my lucky find isn't turning out to be so lucky. Plus I'm kicking myself for possibly wasting $50!! My husband being as great as he is knows I'm upset and says, "let me go talk to our neighbor, he's always working on wood projects maybe he can make a suggestion for us." What to do we have to loose?! Nothing, so he walks across the street and my neighbor, Rocky, (seriously, that's his name!) is coming over to take a look at my "project." With one swift look he says, "oh that's nothing, we can definitely save her!" He and my husband flip her upside down and he pulls the one side of the dresser pretty far back and just starts banging his fist on the drawers, etc and every part fell right into place!! "Let me get some wood glue and clamps and she'll be good as new in no time!" So he returns with tools that my husband and I looked at each other and said, "we need to get some of those!" He put a little glue here and a little more glue there, clamped it and told me if I can leave it for a good 24 hrs, that would be best. Considering I'm the most impatient person you've ever seen coming, I was okay with the delay as long as the dresser was saved! This is what my baby looked like for a good day and a half......

You can see the bottom was pretty banged up......but it won't look like that for long! But while I waited for my dresser to dry and set I worked on another little project I found while at the second hand store also. I found this awesome stool and knew it had a very bright future in my home!

All I did was add some fresh paint then added some extra badding to the cushion and changed the fabric and this is what I have now......

I know it doesn't look like it, but I repainted the base a brown color so there wasn't a a huge difference. This little stool cost me $10 at the store and then I had all the other materials on hand, making this fabulous little find a steal!

But back to the dresser.......after the glue dried and I waited 24 hrs, I started sanding, priming and painting.

It took about two days total to get it completed, but it's beautiful and I couldn't be happier! So are you ready for the finished project??!!! I hope you love it as much as I do!!

Do you love it??!! I'm SO, SO happy with it. I kept the original handles and just painted them black to make them pop! I originally was going to replace the handles with the same style just in a nickel color, but when I tried to remove the original handles, it was a little bit, shall we say, uuuummmm, challenging! So I kept the originals and just went with paint! Plus the Halloween decor just makes it look so awesome too! My kiddos think it's great. The decorations I mean, they could careless about the dresser!

Here's a mirror I redid also. It was black, but our living room is so dark that it was just getting lost in the room. So I spray painted it white and made the moss letter myself with things from Crafts 2000 and, TA-DA it's beautiful! I've seen the moss letters in Pottery Barn for awhile, but wasn't willing to pay anything near the $65-$100 they were wanting for letters that are smaller than this one! So thanks to the crafty and thrifty little lady over at the Thrifty Decor Chic blog, I found this idea and thought....'I can totally do that!' And I did. The letter was $6 and the moss was $20 (and I still have quiet a bit left). I just love my entry way now. It's so bright and open. It turned out better than I thought it would!

So what do you guys think? Are you working on any projects that you've been wanting to do for some time now? Thanks for stopping by :)

Playroom!

Hello, hello! I told you I'd post some pictures of the projects I have been working on and I'm sorry to say I won't be posting those today, but I wanted to show you what has me completely side tracked instead! It's my kids' playroom! It's been screaming to be cleaned from top to bottomed and organized for weeks now, but I just wasn't sure where to even begin......let me share with you what it looked like when I'd walk in and turn on the lights..............

That beautiful little girl standing smack in the middle of the picture is my sweet Grace, just up from nap and eager to play! Anyway, this is what I walked into each time I came into their playroom. Anyone who knows me well enough will tell you this makes me crazy. It gives me anxiety on some level, seriously. I start looking around at all the craziness and the little voice in my head starts going, 'oh my God, oh my God, oh my God....' it's just too much and I've let it sit for too long. With colder weather coming I've got to have some place for the kids to work out their energy. I think I've been able to ignore it for so long because we've been able to go outside for so long, I haven't been forced to face it.....until now. I want it done and over with before I get too pregnant and bending over to pick things up becomes more of hassle than what it's worth!

Here are some more pictures of the rest of the room......

Picture from the corner on the right.......

Picture from the back right corner........

Picture from the back left corner..........

Here's the even better part for this space......this is also doubling as our guestroom! HAHAHA!! Sorry that kinda makes me laugh when I think about everything this space has to serve as! My hope is that the corner there straight ahead where the printer is can house the guest bed when we have people come in??!!

Picture from the right corner.......the door on the right is a bathroom, a whole bathroom actually which is really great so my little ones don't have to run up and down the steps to use the bathroom (well, only one of my little ones right now, but eventually there will be two of them using this bathroom). It's also great since we're trying to have a guest room also. They'll have their own privacy when they stay instead of having to go up and down the steps. The other door to the left of the bathroom is actually an entrance to our garage which has come in very handy since I've been moving stuff out of this room to the garbage. I can take it straight upstairs through the garage and out to the curb. No piles sitting and waiting to be taken out.

Do you see what I mean that it was SCREAMING to be helped! Now keep in mind we are renting so what I'll do to this space is limited, but if the house was ours, I'd be throwing a great coat of paint on these walls and replacing this terrible navy blue carpet! So, I don't know if you can gather from the picture that the room is rather large so that is a plus. But my kids have a lot of toys and they just had a huge birthday party so the toys doubled!

So my overall goal for the room is organization (obviously) and functionality. I'm hoping to put several sets of shelves along the wall where the boxes are currently sitting and the boxes will be emptied or gone through and put in storage. The guest "corner" I guess you should say will have the playhouse in it until company comes because our guest bed is just a nice double stacked air mattress that works perfectly for us. So it can be taken in and out very easily. I'd really like this space to have some openness to it because this will be a great place to get back into my workout routines. The kids will have more than enough to keep them occupied so I should be able to get some good stuff done, especially after this next baby comes :)

Currently the room has some organization going on in it. I've been moving toys around and steam cleaning the carpets by sections so that the kids can still enjoy some of the space as I clear the rest of it out. There is only one box left in the area and I've gone through most of the toys and put them in labeled bins. Now most of them are just sitting in a corner waiting for a shelf to come along that they can call home. All the bins, buckets, tubs, etc that I'm using are ones that I had around the house either sitting or just had stuff piled in them. So essentially getting this playroom organized is also forcing me to purge other areas and recycle what I already have! Double score!! My goal is spend little to no money at all in this room because I don't want to set it up, have it be amazing and then we move in a year and our next place not have the room for something like this playroom. So I'm really forcing myself to hold back on making the room something that I fall in love with because it can't be permanent for us :( at least not for awhile (double sad face). I'm going for simple organization here, but one day I'll be able to go crazy and let all my creative juices flow when we have a home of our own.

Oh I did want to share this with you too....as I've been cruising the internet and stores for inspiration to organize the playroom and any space in the house for that matter, I found this AMAZING bedspread that I oh so want desperately for our bedroom!! I mean I seen this beautiful quilt hanging in a store and I knew it was exactly what I've been looking for for our master bedroom. I fell in love with it just like I did our curtain fabric! And I still adore my curtains and have yet to find anything that makes me half as giddy as the ones my friend and I made! Here's a picture of the quilt......be prepared to fall in love.......with bedding!

Isn't she lovely?!!!! This is a great color for my room, but the one I found in the store was a much darker grey and would be just as beautiful! Doesn't it just make you want to crawl in bed and snuggle!! Maybe that picture isn't doing it for you, so I'll show you another one, just to be sure........

Anything?? Anything at all?? Maybe it's just me, but I just love this quilt! So why didn't I come running out of the store with my dream quilt in my arms dancing to a song only I could hear in my head? How about the fact that my dream is going to cost me $280!!!! Yeah you read it right TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY dollars! I knew it was too good to be true. When I found it in the store my BFF Nikki was with me and we both temporarily lost our breathe and slowly backed away from the quilt because if we broke it we definitely couldn't buy it! Although Nikki didn't help matters any by pointing out that this quilt would match my curtains and current pillow cases perfectly! My husband being the great man that he is says to me, 'why don't you ask Santa to bring it?' Well, dear husband I would ask Santa, but our Santa is either you or me so I guess Santa is out of the question! I've been pondering for days on how I could get this quilt....I surfed all the websites looking for one cheaper, but came up with nothing. So I figured I could just save a little cash each month until I come up with $300 so I can possibly get this quilt. Until then I will be scanning websites regularly looking for coupons, deals, sales, etc! I REALLY don't want to pay full price and to make matters worse.....it's getting fantastic reviews! No matter what website you're on everyone loves it. They all say it's a lot of money, but worth every penny. What a kick in the money saving pants! Well, thanks for listening to my rant :)

That's about it for tonight, so after I get the carpets cleaned and toys back in place, I'll take updated pictures of the playroom so you can see my progress! Then after the playroom is done, next will be my craft room....here's a sneak peek at the horror that is waiting for me in my tiny little box of a room.....

Did you let out a big 'ol shriek!? I do every time I think about all the work waiting in this room! So there you have it....everything waiting for me when I go to my basement.

Anyone else out there trying to conquer a space that you've been avoiding or putting off?

blog re-do!

Hello everyone! Sorry for the ever changing blog theme. I'm stuggling to find one that is blog reader friendly! I'd like the page to be bright, cheery and easy to read so please be patient with me while I figure this whole thing out! I'll be posting pics tomorrow of the projects I've been doing around the house. Like the kitchen cabinets that I cleaned out and re-did. I hope everyone is having a good week! Talk to you tomorrow.

Additional car organization!

So today has been kind of a long day. The kids and I made the almost 3hr trek home to spend the day with my mom and then made the 3 hour trek back to our house this evening.......like I said, it's been a long day. The trip wouldn't have been too bad except on the way back home I realized that I had never actually driven the route from my mom's to our new house in southern Ohio!?!! So there I was on the highway....driving..... alone.....pregnant.....and I have a 3 year old and 1 year in car seats and only a "general" idea of how to get us home! Awesome! Enter frustrated, 'UGH!' followed by a tiny voice behind me saying, "yeah mom, this is frustrating!" That would be my daughter! Generally, I would shrug and say, 'no problem' and punch the info into the handy dandy GPS, except my husband has the GPS with him.......in his car.........in KY!!!! Double awesome! Thankfully I have an iPhone so I have a mapquest app there, but it's really not great having to look at the phone and drive because this smart lady didn't realize the phone would talk to me and tell me the directions until after I had pulled in the driveway and went to turn the app off and accidentally hit a button that made it start talking!!! Really??!! I mean really?? None the less we're home and the kiddos were immediately put into their jammies and put to bed because it was late and all of us were exhausted! But my whole sob story does have a point. On the way home my son got super fussy out of no where and began crying. I don't mean just fussing like I want out of my seat or I need a drink fussing, I mean crocodile tears, screaming, barely catching his breathe crying! So I pull over and he is just uncomfortable, tired and of course, running a little bit of a fever! Why not, right! I mean the trip was going so fantastic anyway! But I knew when we left my mom's that he was probably teething because of the drooling and constant gumming of anything he could get his hands on. Not wanting to drive the 3 hour drive with an uncomfortable kiddo, I pulled out my newly stocked car bin that I created yesterday (perfect timing) and had some medicine for the little guy! What does my car bin look like you ask......well let me share with you!

Generally, any time I know I'm going to be traveling with the kids either by myself or with my husband tagging along, I try to prepare for just about any situation so that I can just sit back and enjoy the time with the family. I say this so casually, but for me "preparing" tends to lead to WAY over packing for even the smallest trip! But I've come to accept my moderately paranoid personality and instead of fighting it, I just embrace it. My husband on the other, well, he's still working on that some times! Here is a picture of all the contents of my "car bin": small trash bag, scented diaper bags, sunscreen, hand sanitizer, feminine products, toilet paper, Tylenol/Motrin (adult & child), band aids, neosporin, comb, cough drops, chapstick, pacifiers, wipes/diapers, deodorant, sippy cups, wet wipes, lint brush, sharpie, car freshener, snacks for each child. My kids are little so I need 'baby items' on hand just about every place I go. This isn't going to end any time soon seeing as I already have a 3 year old daughter, a 1 year old son and I'm currently 17 weeks preggo for baby #3....sex undetermined. So like I said, baby items will be much needed for some time for our growing family.

All those contents fit perfectly into this nice little container! And I picked this one because it fits perfectly in the front of my car right under the middle console by my seat so it's easily accessible (when I'm not driving of course!)

From this angle it doesn't look very organized, but everything went in so well. I was really happy with the way it turned out.

And I wouldn't be me if I didn't include a label on the outside listing all the contents! I laminated the list so that if I ran out of something I can put a check mark next to it so I know I need to re-stock that item and when I've replenished, I can easily wipe it off! Of course, after I printed, laminated and put the label on the container, I noticed grammar errors and that I completely forgot to list some items! So I'll be redoing the list in the very near future!

This bin went together so well, I thought, "wouldn't it be handy to have car tools organized and easily accessible also!?" Things like my jumper cables, first aid kit, etc that were previously just stuck under seats or in compartments in the back with no particular home. Well, that is no longer the case. With winter only a few months away, I always put a blanket, travel pillow, gloves, a hat and extra socks under each of my kids' seats just in case. You never know and since we have to travel good distances to see family, this is a season I don't mind over preparing for! But remember, I'm paranoid, probably almost to the point that I could be a therapists' dream!!!  So here are just a few things I've put together in a little bit of a larger bin to go in the back of my van. (yes, I'm the proud owner of a mini-van and I'm not ashamed to admit that I absolutely ADORE it!!). The contents of this bin are First Aid kit, extra oil, de-icer for the windows, jumper cables, flashlight, extra window scraper, windshield wiper fluid, febreeze and Lysol wipes. The only extra thing I could think that I might like to add would be an extra set of wiper blades because unfortunately, I've been in a situation where I wish I would've had an extra set with me in the middle of winter! Obviously, the sippy cups went into the first bin and the febreeze and Lysol are for more of a personal comfort!

All these contents wouldn't fit into one bin because when I put the windshield wiper fluid in, I originally laid it on it's side....not so smart. It started leaking. So I took it out and fit everything else in.

So here's an after shot!

For my flashlight, I taped the batteries to the outside so they didn't go dead sitting in the flashlight. Also, this keeps it from accidentally being turned on while driving and then you'd be stuck with a flashlight that was no use to you. I'll be getting extra batteries to put in here as well.

So here they are....all the extra contents of my car (and then some) fit snuggly in an organized and labeled place with easy access! Best part, this whole "idea" cost me less than $5 because everything in these bins and one of the actual containers were things we already owned! Cha-Ching!!!

So what about you guys? Anyone else paranoid about random things or feeling the need to be over organized with anything?