Thursday, January 31, 2013

Weekly Goals

The Money Saving Mom suggests setting 10 weekly goals, and I've decided that's a really good idea for me to try.  Just 10 things to focus on throughout the week.  Doesn't seem too overwhelming, and since she rarely finishes all of her goals, I won't feel so bad if I don't finish all of mine (although that would be nice!  Here are my goals for this week:

1. Catch up on my Bible reading (I'm waaaaay behind...)
2. Take the boys outside at least once!  (Confession: some of these are already done!  But I'm adding them since they are on my list)
3. Finish packing my hospital bags, since this little girl will be here sometime in the next 5 weeks :-D
4. Finish prepping the prefolds I bought new.  They have to be washed in hot water a few times before they work well.
5. Start freezer cooking!  We don't have a ton of room in our freeze, but I think this is important since we won't be able to accept food from our church food ministry.  Yay food allergies :-/
6. Install car seat!  We still don't have one.  Yikes!  But I'm picking it up from my friend tomorrow, if all works out.
7. Birthday dinner out with my hubby's family.  Did I mention my hubby turned 30???  What an old man, lol.  This is another one I'm done with already.  We went to a place I hate, but J loves.  I ate something that was ok, and then a few hours later, got hit badly with stupid food poisoning!  It. Was. AWFUL.
8. Pay our first of three HOA fees.
9. Finish Thank You cards for my baby shower.
10. This week, I have set a goal to turn off ALL electronics for the morning.  We can have them until breakfast, and then they go off until nap time.  This is mostly to help me focus on the important things (my kids...) instead of constantly checking my texts and facebook.  It's also to help the boys learn to do things other than play on the iPad or watch TV.  They've become just as addicted as I am....  NOT good.

So there you have it.  My goals.  Overall, I'm doing...ok on them.  Like I said, I got sick, really sick, yesterday so some of them went out the window.  Like the electronics goal.  All of us watched tv a lot yesterday.  But Daddy was in charge of the boys and I don't like to tell him how he needs to parent.  I was just happy he was here so I didn't have to do anything other than lay in bed and be sick.  I'll try to remember to update on how my week went and write down next week's goals in a few days.

Side note before I sign off.  Tomorrow I reach 35 weeks!  That means I have 35 days until my due date (tomorrow).  One week until the time Luke was born, 2 weeks until I am full term, who knows how long until this princess makes her debut :-D  Exciting stuff.  Ok, now I'm off to try to reach my goal of getting caught up on my Bible reading, at least a little bit!

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Updated To Do List!

I've made a lot of progress on my pre-baby to do list, so I thought I'd update on here and get a good idea of what I have left.

* Get bunk beds for the boys, move T to L's room (bunk beds are taking a MONTH longer to come in...They were supposed to be here a week ago, now I might have the baby before they come. STRESSED!)  Still need to get this.  Just waiting on the beds.
* Paint Baby's room, decorate, get everything put away and ready (diapers, clothes, anything else that goes into her room)  Again, still waiting on the bunk beds so we can get started.  However, I have put all of her clothes in her dresser (which is currently in L's room, and L's clothes are in the dresser in T's room, C's future room.  Ha!  That makes a lot of sense, right?  But it's working.  For now.)
* WASH BABY CLOTHES!!!  DONE!  And they are put away!
* Install car seat. Actually, I need to get a car seat still. A friend offered to let us borrow hers since we only use them for about 4 months, but her daughter is still in it. Yikes! She planned to have her out of there a few months ago since she turned one in November. Lol. If we don't get it by the end of the month, I'll just go buy one.  Not done.  Another friend has offered us her car seat which is less than a year old and never been in an accident.  She said she will bring it to church tomorrow and we will get it installed next week.  Hopefully.
* Set up pack n play, which is where the princess will sleep for the first few months.  Half way done.  We realized that we somehow lost a part, so I had to order it.  It's one of the metal bars that supports the mattress.  Once that arrives, it will be VERY EASY to finish setting up.  Just put the bar in, and lay the mattress on top.  Everything else is set and ready.
* Wash all baby gear. Car seat cover, swing cover, bouncer seat cover, sheets, blankets, and the list just keeps on going....  DONE!
* Sanitize the one bottle we have just in case we decide to let her try a bottle, and the paci's. Done, mostly.  I decided not to sanitize the bottle until we know if we need it or not.  It would seem silly to sanitize it and then not use it.  I guess I could have waited on the paci's too, but I'm really hoping she takes those!
* Strip all diapers, especially since I bought some used newborn fluff.  DONE!!!  Whoop Whoop!
* Pack hospital bag. I'll post my list later with the things I'm packing. My goal is to bring as little as possible.  DONE!  I even have a little list of last minute things for J to add when the time comes.
* Pack a bag for the boys for Grammy and Papa's house.  I actually decided they don't need a bag packed for Grammy and Papa's house.  I brought extra clothes for both over already, diapers for L, they already have tooth brushes and paste for the boys, and anything else they might need.
* Baby shower next week  DONE!  It was fun.  I'll try to steal pictures from my mom and post them :)
* Start working on Freezer meals  Haven't even started.

I'm feeling really good about where we stand right now.  If she were born today, we would be prepared.  Sure, we don't have the car seat yet, but that's the last major thing we really need.  And it's not like a baby born at 34 weeks comes home two days after birth, anyway.  We would have time to get a car seat, either from one of our friends who have offered, or go buy one and get it all installed and checked before she would be ready to come home.  Same with the pack n play bar.  It will be here withing a week.  She could sleep in her swing, or even in our bed (I'm not against bed sharing when needed.  L slept in our bed for the first month or so because the ONLY place he would sleep was on top of me).

Ok, I was going to write more but the kids decided they want attention :) 

Friday, January 11, 2013

To Do List

* Get bunk beds for the boys, move T to L's room (bunk beds are taking a MONTH longer to come in...They were supposed to be here a week ago, now I might have the baby before they come.  STRESSED!)
* Paint Baby's room, decorate, get everything put away and ready (diapers, clothes, anything else that goes into her room)
* WASH BABY CLOTHES!!!
* Install car seat.  Actually, I need to get a car seat still.  A friend offered to let us borrow hers since we only use them for about 4 months, but her daughter is still in it.  Yikes!  She planned to have her out of there a few months ago since she turned one in November.  Lol.  If we don't get it by the end of the month, I'll just go buy one.
* Set up pack n play, which is where the princess will sleep for the first few months.
* Wash all baby gear.  Car seat cover, swing cover, bouncer seat cover, sheets, blankets, and the list just keeps on going....
* Sanitize the one bottle we have just in case we decide to let her try a bottle, and the paci's.
* Strip all diapers, especially since I bought some used newborn fluff.
* Pack hospital bag.  I'll post my list later with the things I'm packing.  My goal is to bring as little as possible.
* Pack a bag for the boys for Grammy and Papa's house.
* Baby shower next week
* Start working on Freezer meals

Ok, I *think* that's it.  I hope that's it.  I already know it's not going to get done.  Her room will be far from ready.  But the good news is that she will never know :)

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

New Year, New Goals!

Quick update: Baby looks good and I am no longer considered high risk!  Praise the Lord!  Thanks for all of the prayers through that rough journey.  I'm so happy to be on this side of it and not at risk for anything terrible happening.

We've set a few goals for this year, and I thought it would be a good idea to write them down somewhere.  I picked here.  If they are online, maybe I'll feel the need to stick to them.  Last year's goals kind of went out the window when we found out baby #3 was coming.  I had things on there like run the army 10 miler, pay off our car, things like that.  I have never run 10 miles before and didn't feel like it would be a good idea to train while pregnant, and instead of paying off our car, we traded it in for a minivan.  I'm ok with it :)  I'd rather have this little girl than meet all of our goals last year.  This year, though, it would be nice if I can get some of our goals met.  So, with all that said, here they are:

1. Have a healthy, full term baby!  This one is obviously up to God and out of my control, but I'm putting it on here anyway :)
2. Run a race.  At this point, I just want to run one.  I don't need to do the 10 miler this year, although I'd really like to try to get to that point.  If I can do a 5k, I will be happy.
3. MAJOR declutter.  We have way too much stuff.  I want to get rid of a lot of it and learn to live more simply.  There is just no reason why I need to keep every little thing.  I'm happy to add to this one that J and I have made some great progress already this year!  We spent New Year's Day going through stuff and getting a lot of things together to give away.  I have two friends coming over today to look through it and see if there is anything they want for their babies/families.  Whatever is left is going to Goodwill or the Salvation Army.  I would prefer to try to sell it in a yard sale, but at this point, I'm just anxious to get it out of my house.
4. Contribute a certain amount to my kids' college funds.  My dad has been faithful about giving us money for them, but we haven't been able to add as much as he has.  This year, our goal is to match what he gives.
5. We also want to tithe more.  This is something we used to be really good at, but the past year or two, haven't given as much as we would like.
6. Our last goal for this year is to take a family vacation just the 5 of us (5...EEK!  We're going to be a family of 5)!  Right now, we are thinking either Great Wolfe Lodge, Busch Gardens, or possible make a trip up to PA for Hershey, Sesame Place, or the train station where Thomas and Friends come for a visit (Strasbourg?).

So there you have it.  Our goals for this wonderful year.  I don't think I set them too high, so I'm optimistic about it all.  I'll try to update throughout the year with how we're doing on them.  For smaller, more personal goals, I have the same as always.  The big one right now is simply to eat at home more.  I'd like to eat out with my parents once a week (Sunday), out for lunch once a week, and then out as a family for dinner once a week (usually Friday or Saturday, since those are the days J is home).  I know that's still eating out more than we should, but it's a lot less than we were eating out before.  Working on a weekly meal plan has helped me out with this a lot and I plan to continue doing it.  Once I get into the hang of eating at home more, I'll move on to another small goal (cutting back on our grocery budget by learning to use coupons, shop sales, and maybe even try making more from scratch).