Time

2010 is almost here! CRAZY!!! Where has the time gone?

Speaking of time, we have a love/hate relationship, you know!

Among several things, time really stresses me out. I hate not having enough of it, I hate not being on time, I hate trying to juggle my time, and I hate having to keep track of time.

Not Having Enough
There are always more projects, bills to pay, rooms to clean, food to cook, laundry to be folded, errands to run than I have time for. Yet I still always wish I had more time. Even if I did, I'm sure my lists would still be just as long.

Not Being on Time
This hasn't always been a problem for me. When I was a teenager, I could care less about being on time. Actually, my family (more my dad than anyone) had to be like 15 minutes early for EVERYTHING! I hated it. But now, I hate being late. In my mind, I've created this idea that being late is a sign of weakness and unpreparedness. Like people think that I'm a bad mom because I was 10 minutes late to something. Or, I should have done more preparation ahead of time so that I'm not late. I shouldn't care what people think, but I've built this idea so far up in my mind, that now I'm having a hard time breaking it down. So I stress over everything to be on time to anything. I even get cranky when things aren't looking like we will make it on time, which makes everything worse!

Juggling Time
One of my biggest issues with time is figuring out how to divide up the 24 hours I have in each day, the 7 days I have in each week and the 4 weeks I have in each month. Trying to see that the kids, the hubby, the house, and the errands all get enough time, then trying to squeeze in a minute of ME time. It's quite the stresser!

Keeping Track of Time
People with out kids or people who haven't had kids for a long time, or people who have kids but still have no sense of schedule and/or time kind of annoy me. When I say I have to be home by 12:30 pm for naps, that means I really have to by home by 12:30. Not 1 or 2. 12:30!!!!! Some times I feel trapped by our time schedule, but yet for the last 8 months that's all I have yearned for. I hate not being on a schedule or routine, but now that we're on one, sticking to it is hard work. People constantly try to push you for more time. I just want to yell at them (ok, maybe just frankly say) "You take my grumpy kids then!" My kids have been really good lately, when they are well rested that is! But if they are late for their naps or for bed time, then excuse me for saying this, but all hell breaks loose! And not just for the afternoon, but into the evening and even the next day! So you can see why it really stresses me out to stay strict to our schedule.



Dear Time,

Everyone wants more of you, and sometimes I hear myself wishing for more too, but really I don't need more of you. You stress me out. You make me grumpy. You make my kids grumpy. Just please help me manage you better.

Love, Emily


***My 2010 resolution: Better Time Management***

How am I going to do this you ask? Several Ways! Most of it comes from attempting to be SUPER organized!

Projects: I started a long, never ending list of house projects, craft projects, organization projects that I want to get done. I am going to pick one each week to accomplish. That way I don't get overwhelmed with my list because I am slowly working on it.

Cleaning: My husband is so awesome and helps me a lot. I really am lucky. I haven't figured out a good way to organize the cleaning of my house, so if you have a good system that works for you, please share!

Food: Our friend, Katelyn Foutch, makes up dinner menus each month. They are extremely helpful in bringing fresh ideas to our dinner table. And if there is something on there that we don't want we just switch it out. It's so nice! Thanks for doing all of the work K8!

Laundry: I'm going to continue my laundry system that I currently have, at least for now. I do all of our laundry on Tuesdays. I start it by 7 am and usually finish putting it all away after the kids are asleep! It's quite the laundry marathon, but it's been working for us!

Being on Time: My goal is to be 5 minutes early to everything. I am going to do better about preparing the night before, so we are not rushing so much last minute. BUT, if we get behind schedule, I'm going to try my best to not make too big a deal of it. In reality, being a little bit late every now and then is not huge. I just need to get over it!

Juggling Time: My goal each day is to give both of my kids at least 30 minutes of one-on-one time. Not watching them play while I fold laundry, or work on a project. Real one-on-one time. I also need to make sure I give my self at least 15 minutes of ME time. This includes blogging, showering, watching a show, reading, or just vegging! I know 15 minutes doesn't sound like a lot, but I've got to start somewhere!

Keeping Track of Time: If I need to be home by 12:30, then I will tell myself and others that I need to be home by 12:15 so that I am not disappointed when my kids are melting down because we don't actually get home until 12:45. This should solve my problems, right? Ha! I hope!

I will conquer time this year! I really will!

Happy 2010 to you all!

Stock in Sterilite

Too bad we don't own stock in Sterilite (you know. . . the plastic storage bins)!

Wal-mart dropped the price on 2 of their sizes.

I'm organizing EVERYTHING!!!

So far I have 1936 quarts of storage bins!

But I need to go back and buy more!

That's a lot of bins!

I will take a pic of my garage when I'm done!

Back to organizing!

Sunriver

We arrived at Sunriver on Christmas afternoon.

The first thing Maisey did was go to this little play room area that is under the stairs. It really is little. Maisey can barely stand up in there. Her uncles were nice enough to play with her in there.

On Saturday we went in to Bend for a little bit, our kids had MAJOR melt downs, I took them back home for naps while every one ate lunch. Once we all met back up we went to The Village at Sunriver for a while. It was FREEZING! We got some hot chocolate then headed back home, dropped the kids off with grandma, and headed back to The Village to go ice skating! It was SO fun! The highlight of my weekend. We (each couple) made up ice skating routines like we were in the Olympics or something then each took turns performing while the other couples watched. I don't have any pics from my camera, but I think my sister does, so when I get them I will post them. It was hilarious. We did lifts, and spins, and jumps! We were pretty awesome! We also had races. In the girls only race, I was going so fast and Shaun tried to help me stop at the end so I wouldn't hit the wall so hard and I hit him like a brick wall and fell flat on my back and my head bounced on the ice. It hurt SO.BAD. That was my only wipe out of the night.

On Sunday, we woke up to about 4 inches of snow on the ground. We made the best of it out in the driveway.

Maisey and Mommy on the sled.

Brian tried rigging up a bike to pull Kelsey, but he couldn't get enough traction with the bike.

All Maisey wanted to do was build a snowman. . . but the snow was so dry that it wouldn't form a ball. We found some old blocks of ice so Shaun chipped away at them with the snow shovel and made her an ice man. Here is Brian carrying the ice man!

We used the portable ice man to build a jump. The boys took turns pulling each other and the girls off this jump. It was actually semi-entertaining. Maisey was so offended that we were using her snowman.

Daddy is letting Gage touch the snow for the first time. He doesn't look that thrilled, but I wouldn't either if I had a 103 degree fever and had puked twice the night before.

Here is grammy with the kids! It was so fun to see Maisey's excitement about the snow.

Sunriver was just ok in the Winter. I definitely like going in the summer time better, and I definitely like going when it's not so stressful. Even though Maisey had fun, I don't think we would go again at Christmas time.

Christmas Morning

The kids with their Santa presents

Maisey got a Huge Mr. Potatoe Head with lots of little ones and all of the pieces inside, lots of princess dress up clothes (Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty), Hi Ho Cherrio, a new pair of jammies, some jewelry, and a princess plate, cup, bowl, silverware set.

Gage got a wobbly lion, a train that has these spinning balls, some new jammies, sensory balls, and a Spiderman plate, cup, bowl, silverware set.

Maisey loved to help Gage (and EVERYONE!) open his presents. His favorite present of the day: a little Diego doll.

Like I said, She loved opening everybody's gifts.

Lucky for her we went down to my mom's after we finished to eat breakfast and help them open their gifts. Then we headed to Sunriver!

Christmas Eve

Our Christmas Eve was a jammed packed day! We headed down to my mom's bright and early to play a game of flag football!

We headed down to my mom's bright and early to play a game of flag football! Don't we look tough?

After football, everyone showered and got ready for the day! Shaun's friend from BYU, who now lives in Colorado, came to visit for a while! We haven't seen him since his wedding a year and a half ago! It was fun to catch up!

We played a Christmas Jeopardy game that I made during afternoon naps!

We ate a yummy dinner!

We did a mini photo shoot of our Santa Baby. . . who was so.dang.cute!

Then we started our Christmas Eve program. We have a Christmas countdown and for our second year in a row we fill each day with a slip of paper. Each slip of paper has a song, story, or game on it. It makes for a fun Christmas Eve.

Maisey performed Feliz Navidad for everyone while shaking her maracas. I practiced a lot with her before Chirstmas Eve, and she still asks me to help her practice!

The whole family sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer while playing instruments. Maisey got the triangle and LOVED it!

Blair sang "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" while Kelsey accompanied him.

We had a coloring contest.

We played a present game!

And maybe the best slip of paper from the whole night. . . A Mid 1990's Christmas Eve reenactment of Frosty the Snowman. It was awesome! And my sisters were good sports!

When my sisters and I were younger, my mom put me in charge of doing a Christmas Eve activity. I made Katelyn dress up as Frosty, we shoved her full of pillows and she was so lumpy. When we were 10 and 7, we didn't have a lot of resources, so we used a whitches hat as the top hat and a measuring cup as the pipe. We made big black circles out of paper for the eyes. So once she was all dressed up, Kelsey and I SANG the song (which was almost worse than the costume!) while Katelyn danced around and acted it out.

Daddy and Maisey pulled out the last slip of paper from the countdown. They were assigned to act out the nativity with her Little People Nativity set (since they practiced for FHE a few weeks ago!)

The fam getting ready to head home!

Once we got home, we did baths and jammies. Maisey and I put out cookies and milk for Santa and wrote him a letter.

This is what her letter said:

To Santa:

I love you and Santa's Daughter. I'm leaving you some milk and presents. Please leave some presents and toys for me and a reindeer for brother. I would really like a Cinderella dress please. And a barbie too. Brother wants books.

Travel safe!

Love,

Maisey Grimmett

and

Gage too!

Christmas Light Display

The Wednesday before Christmas, I took Maisey to see a Christmas Light Route in Keizer. Most people drive, but it wasn't raining, so we decided to bundle up and break out the wagon. My mom, my sister Kelsey, and my brother came with us. Dad volunteered to have Gage duty at home (maybe because there was a bowl game on!), and Uncle Brian decided to keep Shaun company. They really missed out! It was priceless to see Maisey's reactions to all of the lights! This will definitley be a tradition!

One of the several houses decked out in lights!

Go Beavs!

I thought this was funny. It totally looks like Santa and Rudolph are kissing!

Maisey and Mommy! She loved pointing out all of the reindeer, sleighs, Santas, Baby Jesus', snowmen, stars, penguins. . . pretty much anything we saw!

Santa stopped at our house!

It's an early night for Santa and Mrs. Claus at our house. The presents are out and we are all packed and ready to head to Sunriver tomorrow!

We had an AWESOME Christmas Eve. . . actually a really fun Christmas week!

Lots of posts to come. . .

But for now I'm going to enjoy Christmas morning. . .

And my vacay!

Merry Christmas!

8 months

Happy 8 months today brother man!

He is growing so much lately, and these last few weeks have been going so well!

EATING: He now eats 2 baby foods at each meal. Like I said, he is really GROWING! He likes everything he has tried, except for peas, which Maisey didn't like either (and neither do daddy and mommy, maybe it's genetic!) He eats 3 meals a day with a bottle at each meal and an extra bottle after his afternoon nap.

SLEEPING: He has been sleeping through the night for the past week and a half. We put him down around 7 pm and he usually wakes up sometime between 6 and 7 am, but we don't get him out of bed til 7 am, to encourage the later wake up time! Mom is getting lots of rest at night, which makes her happier! :) He takes 2 -3 naps a day, usually lasting anywhere from 1 - 1 1/2 hours. We just put him in his crib and he falls asleep on him own. Like I said, THINGS HAVE BEEN GOING WELL THE LAST FEW WEEKS!

PLAYING: He loves his toys! He likes to play with anything that has wheels. He just sits there and spins them. He likes to roll a ball back and forth with anyone who will do this with him. He likes to play with blocks and legos, books, stuffed animals, this boy's pretty much happy with any toy we give him! He loves to play with his sister! They are best buddies! He will just sit there forever watching her do whatever she's doing, but he mostly likes when she tickles him or reads him books.

OTHER INFO: No teeth, but I keep thinking he's teething! So maybe soon, but maybe not! No crawling, but once again, I see it on the horizon. If he is sitting up he can get into the crawling position, except for one leg. It looks pretty funny. If he's on his tummy, he can scoot himself around in a full circle and he can scoot backwards, but no forward progress yet!!! He has been a lot more content lately! And he's also made it through a whole sacrament meeting awake, with out having to be taken out!

Here are some pics from this morning!

B.F.F.

He sleeps with his feet crossed at the ankles. It is so dang cute! He loves his blankie to be snuggled up by his face, and he can't fall asleep with out it!

I hope this next month has been as good as this last month! We may be getting out of this rut we've been in!

Polar Express

The theme for our ward Christmas Party this year was the Polar Express. I spent all Friday afternoon at the church decorating! It was a lot of fun and our turn out was incredible. Almost double what we had last year!

People were assigned to decorate train cupcakes that also doubled as our centerpiece. These weren't the ones I decorated, but these were the ones on our table.

Here is Maisey eating her train. (She won't pick it up b/c she doesn't like her hands to get messy)

Every one, including Daddy and Gage, came in their P.J.s since it was The Polar Express

Santa came to visit and gave all of the kids bells with their treat bags. Gage was SO not scared of Santa. He would have sat there all night! He loved his beard.

Gage may need to teach Maisey that there is nothing to be afraid of. She was terrified! Look at her face! She would not even look at him. I put my camera down to go help her. I was holding her and I told her that if she didn't tell Santa what she wanted then he wouldn't bring any toys. I could feel her heart beating so fast and the poor girl was shaking, but she gathered all of the bravery that she had, whipped her head around to face Santa and yelled so fast, "A Cinderella dress PLEASE!!!!!!" Then whipped her head right back around. It was pretty funny. When we went back to our seats she calmly asked me, "Mommy, where is my Cinderella dress?" I told her that Santa will bring it to our house on Christmas morning. I'm pretty sure she still doesn't get the whole thing. . . maybe next year! But it's a good thing Santa really is bringing her a Cinderella dress, otherwise I'm pretty sure we would have a HUGE Christmas meltdown.

BTW, the whole you better pick up your toys or you will be on Santa's naughty list is totally working in our favor right now! Too bad Christmas is in a week, because I could be using that for a long time!

Zzzzzzz

Yes, I know it's only 8:40 pm.

Yes, I know that my 2 year old is still awake in her bed.

Yes, I know that my kids have summer clothes still hanging in their closets, my fridge needs to be wiped out, my carpet vacuumed, my craft closet organized, my own closet cleaned out, our hall closet organized, our garage cleaned, the list goes on.

But I am tired, so I'm going to bed!

A mom is entitled to an early night every once in a while!

My projects can wait. . .

Who Said Girls Can't Play Football?

Maisey challenged Peyton to a game of tackle football. Can you tell she's really in to that lately?

Get him Maisey, get him!

Childhood Bliss! Look at their faces!

She got him down!

Daddy joined in on the fun too!

Family Home Evening

Last week the kids and I went to the $ store and I told Maisey if she was good she could pick out one toy. When we were there she asked me if she could pick out a toy for her friend Porter. I told her yes. And she asked, "And Peyton too?" I said of course. And she asked, "And Hudson too?" So we came home with presents for 3 of her friends. So we invited them over for a fun-filled Christmas family home evening last night.



Shaun started the evening out by doing a short, kid version of the nativity. The kids got to act it out with pieces from Maisey's Little People Nativity set.



Then all of the kids exchanged gifts. Maisey gave Porter and Peyton monster trucks, and she gave Hudson a puzzle. She even helped me wrap the gifts. She was in charge of the tape and really enjoyed her job. Porter gave Maisey a Mickey Mouse Puzzle and Peyton gave Maisey a beautiful ring! :) These kids are so cute together!



After presents, we headed into the kitchen and each family got to make and decorate a gingerbread house. We all bought kits from different places and ours was definitely the worst. The frosting wasn't thick enough, our house kept falling apart, and the frosting kept coming out of the top of the frosting bag (Shaun was in charge of that part). So we made ours in to a Teepee. Maisey kept asking where the door was because everyone else had a door on theirs. We had a good time even though it didn't turn out perfect.

Everyone decorating

Porter eating the candies!

Our door-less Teepee

The 3 kiddos with their works of art!

Maisey was watching Porter lick his house and she was kind of grossed out. She was flipping out all night because she thought she was going to get sticky! What a girl!

After we were done decorating the houses we were all just talking in the family room and we thought the kids were off playing. . .

. . . But Shaun found the boys hiding under the kitchen table. Porter got into the cupcakes and it looks like he is trying to persuade Peyton in to one.

Peyton gives in!

We had such a fun night! We will definitely have to do it again next year, but I will buy my kit from Wal-Mart, but just remind me!

Gymnastics Show

On Saturday, Maisey's gymnastics class was part of the Dance, Dance, Dance, Christmas recital. Maisey was so excited to go to her gymnastics show.

Posing in front of the set.

Then she met up with her gymnastics friends, Porter and Peyton.

Hudson joined in on the fun!

This is Maisey's teacher, Anne. She is so good with the toddlers and Maisey loves her!

We had to watch 11 dances before it was Maisey's class' turn. Maisey is absolutely captivated by the dances.

Maisey is getting ready for her big debut!

She just got done doing a summersault down the mat.

So happy!

I was so proud of her! She wasn't shy at all and did everything that Teacher Anne told her to do! She is going to be my little performer!