30 Day Cleaning Challenge - Day 3

Cleaned for: 15 min

Living Cleaner Rule of the Day: Rinse your dishes and put them in the dishwasher!!! This should be a no brainer...

Normally I wouldn't have done any cleaning today. I spent the day at my moms house and was not in the mood to clean this morning, I got up late today and was tired and just in a poor mood. So I left the house and figured I would worry about cleaning later. So when I got home tonight, I knew that if I didn't clean tonight, I would have to tell you all about it and give you a poor excuse for not doing it. This motivated me to do at least 15 min of cleaning. But once I got started I was able to clean for a longer amount of time. I even enjoyed it... Tonight I picked up a little in my bedroom and then went to the kitchen and emptied the dishwasher, loaded it, forgot to start it :) better go do that now. And then decided to clean my stove because I just got a new stove cleaner and stove scrubbers. I have an electric stove, which I didn't know how to clean, so I've just been wiping them down and over this past year, it's gotten food and grease just burnt onto, so it will take a while to get all that off. But the cleaner seemed to work okay, if anybody has any experience with this.. please let me know.

My Stove, after I cleaned it....

30 Day Cleaning Challenge - Day 2

Cleaned for: 15 min

Living Cleaner rule of the day: Take Care of Paperwork as it's brought into the house. If I need to keep a coupon for some reason, I should either stick it in my file cabinet or purse. I also have tons of Papers that I carry around with me: Menu's, Calendars, Craft instructions, etc. I need to either stick them in the file cabinet or hole punch them and stick them in a notebook.

So, I only cleaned for 15 min today, and I focused on the area that you were going to see in the picture. :) How's that for motivation...hehe... It still looks messy to me, but it's livable, and that is important. See you all tomorrow... 2 days down, 28 more to go....

I love bright spring colors!!

I know it's fall, and I'm starting to enjoy fall more, but I love spring!! I love bright cheerful colors, they just make me happy. I saw this couch today at PB Teen, not even sure how I ended up there, but I love it!!! I Don't like the yellow walls, but I love the pretty blue couch. I then went to look at the rugs, because I would love to have a rug for my hard wood floors, so Anthony can enjoy tummy time in my living room. Take a look at these, I like almost all of them. Tell me which one you like the best: Pottery Barn Teen Rugs

Aren't sleeping babies adorable?

I love taking pictures of Anthony sleeping, but it doesn't do justice to how cute they are when they are sleeping. I just love his chunky cheeks, his chubby rolls, the way his is sprawled out, and the sound of his breathing/snoring.

And in case anybody was wondering, don't try washing your baby with bubble bath, it will drip down his head and leave red marks. He didn't mind, but we felt really bad looking at the red streaks he had on his face. I guess bubble bath is not the same as baby wash... who knew...

My Handmade Diaper Bag

Here is my diaper bag, I used a how to make your own diaper bag pattern that I found online. I had to do some calculations... and I also got some tips from: sewchristine. I used batting in between the outer layer and the liner, but if I did it again, I'd probably use interfacing to make it stiffer. I also forgot to sew the straps while I was sewing the layers together, so I had to do those afterwards (as you can see in the bottom picture)

Here is the inside of the bag, I made a pocket for my IPhone, keys, and a bottle or sippy cup. You can barely see that pocket on the right side of the bag. I put that on the inside, so that it wouldn't look like a diaper bag, but more like a purse. Pretty cool, huh? I really enjoyed making this and was able to do it in about 3 evenings...

30 Day Cleaning Challenge - Day 1

Cleaned for: 45 min

Living Cleaner rule of the day: Clean off the entire table before each meal (and that doesn't mean move the items to another counter)

I didn't clean for as long as I felt like I should've, but I did spend time picking up. I completed the bathroom and the hallway and made progress in the living room, dining room, and kitchen. Here is my messy living room at the end of the day. Hopefully I'll be able to show you a much cleaner living room tomorrow. I felt like I was fighting an uphill battle because Alissa wouldn't let me put away any of her toys. She would gasp in shock anytime I tried to put her purses in her toy drawer.

These are the toys that she's been playing with and leaving all over the place.

30 day Cleaning Challenge

Ok, so I'm going to start my cleaning challenge today. My house isn't quite spotless, but if I clean daily, it will get cleaner everyday. Each day I will post a new cleaning rule and tell you a little about my cleaning adventures. I was going to post pictures about my cleaning out stuff first, but my camera died, so I have to recharge the battery before I can put the pictures on my computer, so you'll have to wait for that. Here I go for Day 1 - as soon as I'm finished I will write the post for Day 1

Just an update - more coming soon

So, you may think I've dropped the ball and am hiding out now, but I didn't I'm just trying to get on a better schedule and haven't found a good time to blog. I finished going through my clothes, Alissa's toys, and Dishes. I have pictures that I will post, I promise :) My house is looking good, I've been working on getting it clean and organized. We've decided to hire a maid to do the heavy cleaning so I don't have to worry about it for a while and that will help me to keep the house clean. If somebody knows of a good, but also cheap house cleaner or cleaning service, please let me know. I still have some stuff to go through, but wanted to get the house clean first and then go through all the random areas that need to be organized. Here is a list to get me started:

Closet bookshelf - getting rid of 1/2
Linen/Game closet - getting rid of 1/2
Laundry Room - just cleaning and organizing
Food - just cleaning and organizing
Paperwork - getting rid of 1/2
Desk - just cleaning and organizing

That's all I can think of so far, I'll probably do more later. I'm going to start my 30 day cleaning challenge on Monday. I should be able to get everything cleaned and ready by then.

1/2 the Mass to 1/2 the Mess - Day 2 - Toys

So today I had the pleasure of going through all of Alissa's toys. She is a very generous girl and was willing to give a lot of her toys away, if she was going to give them to Alexis, her little cousin. I hope Alexis wants toys, because we have plenty for her. I'm falling a little behind and was not able to finish the toys or the clothes today, but I will not have a car tomorrow, so unless somebody comes and rescues me, I will be home all day and will be able to finish going through and organizing clothes, toys, and the complete my next section: dishes. Tomorrow I will post some pictures of my finished work.

1/2 the Mass to 1/2 the Mess - Day 1 - Clothes

Ok, So I went through millions (or so it seemed) of clothes yesterday, I had to go through Alissa's, Anthony's, & My clothes, and set Eric's aside so that he can go through those. I didn't finish completely but I had to go to bed, so I wanted to at least post what I've done so far and what I will do today.

I started in the closet:

Before:	After:

I still have a few things in there to get rid of in there, but I need help from my fashion consultant (Eric)

Next I went through my dresser:

Before:	After:

I know that it looks bare in there now, but most of the clothes that I prefer to wear are in the dirty clothes pile. Which is what I did next, I gathered all the dirty clothes and sorted those only putting back the clothes that I want to keep.

My Beginning Pile:	My Giving Away Pile:

Next I went into Alissa's Room and went through and organized her clothes, I did this about a month ago, so there wasn't a lot to get rid of.

Before:	After:

I then went through all of Anthony's clothes and had to get rid of all of his 3-6 months clothes because he's grown out of them.

His Clothes organized:	Clothes going to storage:

I didn't finish going through our linens, and these are the clothes that I still need to go through:


Here are Eric's clothes that he needs to go through:


The Clothes I'm giving away:


And Finally, Alissa and Anthony keeping busy while I sort clothes. I later found Alissa dumping all of our Chocolate milk mix on the floor, luckily Eric walked through the door a minute later and cleaned up the mess.

Clean House Challenge

Ok, I'm going to start a new challenge, and am going to need you to keep me accountable. I'm going to start out with:

1/2 the Mass to 1/2 the Mess Challenge - I'm going to get rid of 1/2 of our:

• Clothes
• Toys
• Dishes
• Garage
• Random Areas, such as paperwork, books, etc...

I'm going to take one day for each area, so by saturday I will be done with this part of the challenge. The goal of this is to get rid of stuff, so it will be easier to keep the house clean. Then I will take 1 or 2 days to get the house completely clean.

Next part of the challenge will be to start a habit. It takes 30 days to create or break a habit, so I will take 30 days to create a habit of picking up the house daily at the same time. This is the part I struggle with, so every day I will blog about it and also create a new rule for living cleaner, such as put trash straight into the trash can.

After I complete the challenge I'm going to decorate my house, that will be my reward for living cleaner.

Felt Food - My Newest Hobby

I've started a new hobby, that I really enjoy! I'm making Felt Food Toys. I know Alissa will love them and they are cute and easy to make and the supplies are cheap!! This is my first try, It was fun, I did these ones by hand using the blanket stitch, which I just learned and have gotten much better at. Next I'm going to make a donut using my sewing machine, It will go much quicker, but I like the way the blanket stitch looks, so we'll see how it looks on the sewing machine.

Workout

I did my first workout today, It was not bad, I did pushups, squats, situps (crunchs). I'm a little sore from my test yesterday and probably should've waited a day to let my muscles rest, but I was too excited to get started. I'll probably do it again on sunday or monday.

Pee-Pee in the Pottay!! Pee-Pee in the Pottay!!

So Alissa has been potty training her dolls lately... so I figured it was time to start potty training her. Not that I haven't been trying, I've tried everything, till the other day I told her if she went in the potty, I'd buy her whatever she wanted. Then I remembered she wanted skates, so I told her we would go buy skates if she went. Then I made her sit on the potty for a long time, eventually she went and was so excited. We went out and got her skates, and she just loved them. Then she went back into her pull ups for a week and a half... Until today, I printed out a potty chart for her, and explained it to her, I told her if she went she'd get a sticker and candy, and then we do a potty dance, Plenty of rewards... She's gone five times today, and just loves it. She hasn't gone poo poo in the potty yet, or told me she needs to go. Of course, I haven't given her the chance, I just make her go a lot, and she pretty much just goes on command, if she can, she'll go. So the next step will be poo poo in the potty.

Here she is with her chart, She has Nemo stickers that she loves to use, she's very proud of her chart. I got it from this website: Potty Training Concepts

Here she is on her potty! And below is the potty dance:

Sit up and squats challenge TOO!!

So we decided to do the sit up and squat challenge at the same time as the push up challenge. I did my initial tests and could do 25 sit ups, and 50 squats. I guess my legs are the strongest, even though they often feel weak. can't wait to start the challenges tomorrow.

100 Push Up Challenge

So, I'm going to try to do the one hundred push up challenge with my friend Nicole I took the initial test and was able to do 3 almost good form pushups, so I will be starting at the lowest level. I'm starting the challenge tomorrow. I'm supposed to do it 3 days a week. If anybody else wants to join us, it will be very fun.

Anthony's Smiling

Anthony started smiling about 2 weeks ago. Isn't he cute? I decided to go off of dairy, per my sisters advice, so that maybe Anthony won't be so fussy. It seems to have helped a lot. He's been happier and awake more. He's starting to be interested in toys too. He just stares at his mobile on his swing and will smile and laugh at it.

Here is alissa sleeping with a cat at my friend Michelle's house. She love's nando and tshelle. They really like kids too, so we like to hang out with them. We were at their house for a bbq. Alissa is great when we go to parties. She just charms everybody there. She really likes our friends and will talk about them at home.

Coming back from my trip has been hard, I have a lot of stuff to do, but the trip has thrown me off my groove. I need to get back on track. I'm trying to start with getting the house picked up, but it is the thing that I dislike the most. The day that they invent a robot that can pick stuff up and know where it goes, I will be a happy girl. Never again will I have to waste time picking up, I can just go out and enjoy my life.

Alissa and Anthony

Here are some pictures I thought I would share with you, I took these on May 1, 2009 Anthony is 1 month old. 

My Favorite Sister

Christmas 2008

 As I work on being responsible, getting things done, and trying to do what God has called me to do, I can't help but think about my sister, Julee. If there is one person that I wish I could be like, it would be her. She is who I want to someday be. The things that she is able to handle, the way that God uses her, and even the things that people tell me about her is inspirational. People are always sharing with me how wonderful and sweet my sister is and how she helped them in some way, all I can do is agree with them. I am always trying to learn from her wisdom and strength. And usually the thing that amazes me the most is that fact that she enjoys spending time with me. I don't know why, I don't have much to offer her, but I'm grateful that she does. Maybe this is what it's like to have a big sister, always admiring and looking up to her, but I think that God has blessed me in a big way, by giving me a sister that is always honoring and following Him with everything that is in her. I have seen God do amazing things in her, because she is always consistent and diligent. I'm sure much of this reflecting has to do with the fact that I miss her and her 5 precious kids, since I haven't seen them in over a week. Anyways, I love you, Julee 

Toddler Menu for Alissa

Here are my menu's for Alissa for the next two days. I didn't include dinners, because I have those already prepared and in the freezer, I will just make sure to get all the components of the Pyramid Plan. This is only for two days, because I will be preparing the next few days after I've tried these, so I can make adjustments and so I can order from the vegetable lady. I'll try to prepare as much of the food ahead of time, in case, I want to go somewhere, I'll have all the food ready to take with me.

New Beginnings

Anthony Eric Jacobs

As we welcome the arrival of our newest family member, Anthony Eric Jacobs, I've decided to take this as an opportunity to start over. I'm going to start taking on my responsibilities with a new sense of pride and joy. I've started a new schedule for Alissa, putting her to bed at 9pm with a nap at 2pm. Today she went down for a nap at exactly 2pm. That is why I have a chance to blog, both kids are sleeping, Yeah! 

I've also started disciplining her, and it has been great to see her decide to make good decisions instead of disobeying. Today we were going to the car and running a bit late, so I told her to go get in her carseat, and I could tell she was thinking about wanting to drive the car (she really likes to play like she's driving the car with eric). She was about to start throwing a fit and I gave her a warning and immediately she went and got in her carseat, it was amazing. 

I'm also about to start working on feeding her more healthy foods, and making sure she's getting the proper servings of the 5 food groups. I will be using the MyPyramid for toddlers site as a guide. 

And, last but not least, Anthony, is doing well, He's finally on a better eating schedule, eating every 2 hours instead of every hour. He also sleeps great at night, he sleeps with me and eric and nurses throughout the night, but I'm able to get good sleep.

Here for your viewing pleasure, Alissa at the zoo, our christmas gift from the Huy Family, zoo passes:

Blog Burglar

Hi Everyone, I just wanted to warn you that somebody is going around on blogs, and posting blogs on other peoples blog sites. The previous blog was not posted by me!!! Although I don't mind taking the credit for it, I just wanted to warn you that she might do the same to you... Just watch out for a mother of 5 that seems sweet & innocent, she may even be married to a pastor, but really she's a blog swiper.

Besides having my blog broken into, All is well with me, I just had a baby shower today, that was very fun, My friends in my new bible study threw it for me at Julee's house. It was very sweet of them and blessed me a lot. I'm currently 33 weeks along, only 7 more weeks to go. I'm trying to clean out some stuff in my house and make room to set up the crib and changing table and stuff. That's going ok, it just seems like I always have more stuff than I know what to do with. I've been trying to get rid of stuff that I don't need, or haven't used in a long time, but sometimes I think I need more than I actually do.

Alissa is doing well, she's talking a lot, and even says some sentences. We haven't been potty training too much, I've decided to take a more relaxed stance, and wait till she's ready, She still enjoys the process of sitting on the potty and stuff, but doesn't actually go. She knows exactly who to ask for what, She asks Grandpa for candy, Grandma for mints, Auntie for cookies, and Daddy for Ice Cream. And she asks with the sweetest most angelic face possible, she says, "Pleeese I Cweem, Pleeese" and if you don't give it to her quick enough, she'll give you kisses, hoping that's what will win you over.