It's time to clean out the closet.

.ORGANIZE ME.

I HATE this closet more than any other closet in my entire house. The reason is because it's used often and it's a multi-purpose closet. So it's always a mess. I WISH it could just be a coat closet but that ain't happening.

PURE DISORGANIZATION right here:

So first I gutted the closet. (I took off the doors so it would be easier.) I like to start from scratch and plus it needed to be swept and mopped.

I got rid of anything we don't need, like 20 coats. I don't even wear a coat so I DI'ed several coats that we don't need. TV trays? I can count on one hand how many times Tyler has used these in the last SEVEN years. We don't use them. Plus all the kid's board games need to go where the other kid board games go, upstairs in Olivia's closet. De-cluttering made it already so much better.

Next, remember that little 3 drawer system I use for the kid's art supplies? Well the one was NOT cutting it. Who are we kidding, I needed THREE more. This little 12 drawer system makes me more happy than anyone could know.

Each drawer has a purpose and it's clearly labeled. We have greeting cards, playing cards, crayons, coloring books, activity books, paper, play-doh, baby puzzles, puzzles, church activities, church bag and put-together toys (like Mr. Potato Head and Thomas the Train). I did this early last week and it's already worked so well. The kids use the system every day and they are really good with putting everything back where it goes.

And the RESULT. Doesn't that look so much better?

And now I am DONE with the main floor of the house! I've organized every part of this level (minus the garage and deck, which waits until warmer weather and Tyler's foot to heal). Next is upstairs, which means FIVE closets, a laundry room and 2 bathrooms. Piece of cake........

pregnancy update

{26 weeks}

:I'm starting to toss and turn at night. Should I sleep on my right side or left side?

It's such a hard decision.

:This little girl is my most active.

:Her room is coming along. It's pretty cute too but I still have little details to do.

:I got her blessing dress and Olivia's baptism dress. They match.

:I measured a week bigger at my last appt. Which is typical for someone with a 4 inch torso.

:I felt weird on Friday. I knew my blood pressure was either high or low. It was 130/80. That is really high for me. I hope I don't have any problems with that.

:I still wear my support hose on my right leg. You know how it feels when you take your bra off? That's how it feels to have it on, wonderful.

:I think I will potty train Alex in May. Not looking forward to it.

:But I am looking forward to April. It's super busy for us and I love EASTER.

:My favorite time of day is about 8pm when the 3 older kids are asleep and I'm propped on the couch watching my shows.

:That's also a time when baby girl is so active.

:I go to bed at about 9:30 every night so I am ready to get up at 7am to get Olivia off to school.

:Knowing this is my last pregnancy I am just enjoying every minute.

:I have 99 days to go.

DREW.LIV. ALEX

{DREW}

This little man is READING!

And we thought he was a little "tarded"!

.haha. Only because he came after his brilliant Sister that was singing her ABC's at 18 months. Boys do learn slower in my experience BUT Drew has completely surprised me. He is actually one smart little kid.

I got to talk to his preschool teacher for a conference and she had nothing but great things to say. She actually said if only she could have 20 little Drew's in her class!

Good job Drew, gives us some real hope for Alex!

{LIV}

I just had a parent-teacher conference with Olivia as well. She is doing amazing as we expected. She is almost at a 4th grade reading level. For a 1st grader that is pretty impressive. Tyler and I joke that we didn't start reading until probably 4th grade. I am so glad she has a real love for reading and it comes so easy for her. The hours and hours of playing teacher with Drew has paid off!

{ALEX}

This little boy makes me proud too. Like when I go upstairs for 5 minutes and come back down and he hasn't completely destroyed everything, that makes me happy. He still my hardest but at the same time makes me so dang happy. And look at that face! I try to discipline him but it's so hard for me, I would rather kiss that face right off.

Feeling proud for your kids is the best feeling in the world, it almost makes it all worth it. Almost.

St. Patrick

I'm not a huge St. Patty's day celebrator but the kids did go on a treasure hunt around the neighborhood to find where the Leprechaun left all his goodies.

And I made a yummy traditional St. Patricks Day dinner.

This conversation with Drew the other day is kind of Leprachaun-y:

Drew: Mom are you an elf?

Mom: An elf? Well no. (at this point I'm scared to ask but) Why?

Drew: One of your ears is sharp.

Mom: Sharp? You mean pointy?

Drew: No sharp.

Mom: Thank you Drew for noticing.

Happy St. Patricks Day!

Of course, why not?

You know I was thinking, I'm pregnant fat, I have 3 little ones at home to take care of, one of which that is seriously like no other, I'm working my tail off trying to get all organized and clean before the next 3 months is gone before my eyes and I just signed up to be the little league team Mom again, which I think I might regret when I am 9 months pregnant on the sideline in the heat. But this isn't enough. I need more. I need to take care of a cripple for the next few weeks, which in MAN-COLD time is a few months for sure. Thankfully Tyler didn't break his foot and it's just a bad sprang. But really? I needed that foot. These men think they are still 19 when playing Church ball. At least the sprang did happen at Church, so I am owed blessings.

Get well soon hun, because we all know I am not a sympathetic one.

This picture doesn't really show how swollen his foot really is but it's pretty swollen and bruised. It's bound to happen when you have size 13 ski's as feet.

And seriously if you have never seen this video you must:

The Man-Cold

Remember that ONE post where I notice anything that is out of place?

Well I check on Alex before I go to bed to make sure he's not about to fall off his bed. It was dark but I could see something out of the corner of my eye. I had to squint to see what the heck was there. And I laughed when I saw it was Woody.

Spring Cleaning

.ORGANIZE ME.

We started Spring Cleaning!

I actually love it. This baby will come right after Spring and she will be introduced to one clean house. I put Tyler to work on Saturday. We have lived here 7.5 years and we can't remember the last time we cleaned under the stove. Which means we probably have NEVER cleaned under the stove. So it was time.

We cleaned under the fridge. yuck.

Under the stove. way yuck.

And under the washer & dryer. better but still yuck.

So glad that's done.

Also a couple of weeks ago I did go and clean the pantry and every single cupboard and drawer in the kitchen. And it only took 3.5 hours. Ha. That really only get's done every time I have a kid. So I don't know what I am going to do since this is our last kid. Everything looks so much better and makes me enjoy my kitchen even more.

Not organized.

Organized.

my big boy's bed

Our boys have been sleeping in bunk beds for about a month now. They have both done so great with the transition, seriously so proud. When I gave birth to Alex and found out he was a boy, the first thing I thought was I CAN'T WAIT FOR MY BOYS TO BE IN BUNK BEDS! Sounds silly but I think boys and bunk beds must be the cutest thing.

My boy's baseball (of course) room.

.ORGANIZE ME.

{Dinners}

The more kids we have and the older they get, we are coming to the realization that we can't eat out as much as we would like. I have always loved eating out. No preparation and no cleanup! But those eating out days are getting fewer and fewer. It's just getting very expensive.

So that means I have to cook. Which is fine for I have always liked cooking. The hardest part is the planning of the meals for sure. And I am still learning what works best for me. I would LOVE to only visit Harmon's twice a month but I can't figure that out yet. Especially when produce goes bad so quickly and I don't love to freeze meat. I like things fresh! So I am at the store on a weekly basis. These are some things that help me with meal planning:

-I ALWAYS have a list. I am a list maker with my whole life so of course I am the one at the store with the list, talking to herself, reading the list.

- Don't over buy. I guess it's different for every family but there are those days we order pizza, have date night, or things just come up. So I don't have 7 dinner's planned for the week. I do about 4, then the other 3 nights I wing it or those are the days we eat out (days of Costco shopping we always end up with polish dogs and churros). Otherwise food goes to waste.

-This is my favorite website for recipes:

www.allrecipes.com

This website has every recipe you can think of. Then they are rated. So only attempt the ones that have hundreds or thousands of ratings and they are all mostly 4.5 to 5 stars. So you know those are going to be good recipes. You can just search like enchiladas, then push best rated and you will get the best rated enchiladas. I don't like wasting my time or money on recipes that you have no idea if they are good or not. I also will look at what the people's comments are. They might of tried something a little different that you would like. Then you can save your recipe in your recipe box on the website. And this is all free.

-So when the time comes to make my grocery list I just go to the website press on my recipe box and write my list! It's so simple. Plus my family doesn't have to eat the same dinner over and over. All the recipes I have tried on the website have been great.

I hope this helps a little with dinners. It has me. And my family thanks me.

This recipe was one of the winners at our Ward chili/soup cook-off. Actually I am making it again tonight because we barely got any since it was gone so fast. It's way yum.

Baked Potato Soup

this is typical

.ORGANIZE ME.

It all started when I wanted to organize my file cabinet. I could tell the last time I did it was in 2008. So I got rid of folders and paper that we don't need and made folders for new things in our lives. Perfect.

Then that lead me to the by-the-phone little organizer to retrieve some tax info. So I needed to organize the little organizer.

Then I needed to put something in "The Black Box" where I store all the kids special school work and I didn't like the way the cupboard was looking that holds the The Black Box. So I cleaned that out and labeled a few things.

That lead me to the cupboard right above the cupboard that holds The Black Box. It's the cups/medicine/sippy cups/bottles cupboard. I felt overwhelmed at this point and headed to the pantry to eat my troubles away.

That's when I saw this mess and totally lost my appetite.

haha. Who am I kidding I still grabbed something and RAN.

I'm telling you, I have just as much of MESS than the next person (minus the hoarders on tv) and I feel so scattered.

The Birthday Dinner

{February 26}

We had a lot of Birthday's to celebrate these last couple of weeks. So we did it with dinner and dessert at The Cheesecake Factory.

Happy Birthday to Jocelyn Feb. 8th, Tyler Feb. 17th,

Me Feb. 24th and Curtis March 3rd!