Just in case . . .

you are running out of storage room like we are and you hadn't seen this on TV . . .

These four (more expensive) clothes bins

condensed to these two space saver bags.

The pictures don't do it justice, but the bags take up half the space the bins did, they're way, way cheaper and you just use your regular old home vacuum to suck all the air out and condense all the enclosed clothes into this little (really heavy though) bag. 

Please Note:  Leaving the full bags in the family room and "letting" your kids jump on them (or even walk on them) is NOT a good idea.  It will create holes in your bags and make them not work properly. 

BUT duct tape will do the trick. You will just have to remove all the clothes, duct tape the hole on a flat surface and reload all the clothes, but it will work again.

However, your husband may give you a lecture about how stupid it is to leave things laying around when you know you have kids and how he would have put it away immediately after filling the bag.  

But you can think to yourself that of course he would not have left it laying around because he would have never actually filled it.  But keep that to yourself and just try to let it slide. 

Thanks Jenny for the idea!  I had to pass it on.

Drink Dates

I went to a funeral last Fall for this great guy and adopted a new idea I heard there . . .

DRINK DATES

Sometimes 15 minutes alone as two functioning, rational, relaxed adults is all it takes.   So, now we leave the kids and drive to the gas station we can see from our house, grab a drink and then spend a few extra minutes in the driveway (not the garage because the kids can hear the garage door open and it's all over) talking. 

It cost $2, it can even be done on a school night and it is just enough to re-charge. 

The trick is driving together though.  If Ansen gets the drinks and we agree to enjoy them on the couch together, then the drink date goes way too long and we don't get our work done.

The TV is for looks . . .

Last October we were looking to save some money and I was looking for a detox from TV. 

So naturally we got rid of Dish. 

Since we don't get any TV without cable we were left without TV. 

When I say "naturally" I'm being facetious since Ansen lives for Sports (and the News), I enjoy some TV while I work and the kids, needless to say, pretty much love the TV too.  Olivia was devastated to say good-bye to Max and Ruby mornings.

But all of that was EXACTLY why it was time to say good-bye.

I was hesitant and braced for the worst, but it was so EASY! 

The goal was to stop after October Conference weekend and then start again April Conference weekend.  But guess what?!  We are still without and managing just fine.

Now, we'll get TV again one day, but the detox has been good. 

The detox has been really good!

(P.S. We still watch movies, but it's completely controlled content, with a time limit and very, very little of it is pushing my girls to grow up too fast!)

I Love You!

Almost 2 years ago, Olivia and I were getting gas and I tried to tell her, "I love you" through the window, but she kept yelling, "what?!"

So, right there we came up with our secret family sign for "I love you!"

It's easy, so any little hand can do it.

I love it because it's our family secret (until I say it on this blog). 

Yes, we can say it out loud and yes, we do say it out loud lots!

But it's fun to share a secret.

It's fun to be able to say it from the back of the school auditorium.

It's fun to make sure Olivia knows it when she standing in front of the whole church congregation being the reference child.

I love when Addison slams the car door, her head pops in front of the passenger window and she flashes it one last time before she runs into school.

I love when Olivia stands on the door step at her friends' house and turns around one last time with the biggest smile and tells me she loves me . . . she does it everytime.

I love making sure Addison sees it one last time after I finish working in her classroom.

It's just for a second, but for that second, we feel that immediate connection!

Family Frames

A couple of years ago, Lisa came up with this brilliant idea to make a family frame after our vacations and holidays together.  We get to preserve all the fun family moments, jokes and memories since they're so easily forgotten.  They're nothing too fancy or too hard, but boy, do they mean a lot.

Every time we look at these frames, we are usually crying from laughing so hard.  And to think it would have all been forgotten and lost without  these frames. 

And even though these won't mean a thing to you, they mean the world to us. 

Here's a few of the frames with and a few of the memories:

OREGON 2008

Breakfast at Burger King with ALL 6 of us

"Diet Coke is the Bomb" Dad

Tri-Angula and Hearst

"that's the problem with moving parties . . . some people

come to move and some people come to party"  Grandpa Sharp

Ryan's Feet

Lisa's beloved Marie Lou's (and the foot stomping) at Safeway

"I'll bit my own fingers off before I eat there again" Ryan

Gummy Bears

EUROPE 2008

"get a little closer to the right . . . I PROMISE you have room" Jeff

"I hate you Betty" Mom

Mom making peace with Betty

"I'll have a go at it . . . "

Jeff falling on the mattress

Segway tour

"I only eat miso soup" Lisa

Eastenders on the bbe network

(I wasn't even there, but these still make me laugh just from the stories)

ARUBA 2009

the "broken" lap bar on the bus

Dad's 18 point turn

Lisa working for Delta

Ryan's T-wolf pride shirt

Mom's new boyfriend in the lazy river

Olivia's new mannequin friend at the Hard Rock

Jeff thinking a cat peed on his leg

Dad not willing to "pussyfoot" around

Driving home from church with 15 people in our bus

A little gratitude goes a long way!

Right before Thanksgiving, Ansen got laid off from his job.   It didn't feel like the end of the world right then, but it was definitely a very unpleasant feeling.  Luckily, the painful experience was short lived since Ansen got 2 job offers within a month and was happily employed and back to work the Monday after Christmas.  We still learned a lot, we were able to see how generous and caring people are and survived our first "lay off" experience.  Not an experience I hope to repeat for sure and looking back I wish we'd enjoyed our "vacation" but we just didn't know how it would turn out so we had to keep our noses to the grind stone.

After Ansen lost his job we had to make a whole bunch of plans.  Plans to survive, plans to make the finances last, plans to find a job, plans to make it through everyday, all day . . . together, and

plans to look at the bright side. 

So we started the thankful poster and girls took right to it.  Everyone had to write a new entry every day.  I was anticipating posters and posters of entries before we found a job, but gratefully, that was not the case.

Some of my favorites were . . .

Medications . . . Addison was sick that day.

Duffins' lights  . . . our neighbors do a light show to music and the girls (especially Olivia) LOVE it.

and Kebin (or Kevin) . . . the elf that watched us all December and left us Christmas surprises every other day or so.

Drew's Happy Birthday song . . . Drew doesn't say much , but he started singing the beginnings of the Happy Birthday song and we were all in love.

I Cam Walk . . . It took a couple of days for the girls to start looking outside the regular thankfuls you're suppose to say (but of course we're still thankful for) and Olivia started with I Cam Walk and Teeth.

and A New Job! . . just little at the top, but so exciting!

"Cell" Phones . . . I just thought it was funny that quotes seemed necessary. 

I love that Olivia started it out right with a nice, huge Jesus in her little 4 year old writing and I loved Drew's little scribbles at the bottom where he could barely reach to. 

Neighborhood Gifts

I've had this idea that I have wanted to do this for a couple of years, but I was never sure if there would a good response . . . but turns out there was. 

I don't particularly love neighborhood gifts, but I've never been able to just throw in the towel and quit doing them.  Every year I spend the first 1/2 of the year swearing I'm not going to do neighborhood gifts this year, and then I spend the last 1/2 of the year thinking of a nifty/cute/inexpensive idea, waiting in the longs lines on Black Friday to buy the inexpensive idea, hours making tags and bows for all of them and then a hour running around in the freezing cold trying not to fall on ice handing out those little gifts to to our neighbors and friends because I just so desperately want them to know that I value their friendship.

It just seems like a whole lot of hoopla  . . . and did the gift really prove the point of how much I enjoy their friendship?  No, not really.

So this year, I finally did it!  I talked 2 of my neighborhood friends into throwing a neighborhood get togther and gathering donations for a shelter in lieu of neighborhood gifts and . . .

 it was a smashing success if I do say so myself. 

We gave everyone plenty of warning (in October) of our plans, then a little reminder right before Thanksgiving (Black Friday) and then one more warning the week of.   We supplied a snow plowed cold -de-sac, 3 roaring fire pits, hot chocolate, some treats and Santa!   We had our 3 cars open and ready for donations and invited people to more bring treats to share. 

People came prepared for the weather and we had a great time!  Even a little rain didn't deter people. They all stayed much longer than we ever anticipated and I think we genuinely enjoyed some fun time together as a neighborhood

 PLUS we collected nice assortment of needed items to donate.

Christmas Traditions

My mom started this for the girls the year we lived with them for Christmas and we just kept right on with it.  I get all our Christmas books, wrap them up and set then under the tree.  Then starting in December, each night, the girls take turn picking one and we read it. 

I always wonder if I'm more excited about the traditions then they are and if they ever even remember any of them after a long, whole year.  But a couple of weeks ago Addison mentioned she was excited to read all the Christmas books and Olivia has been trying to remember all the ones we have since then.  We opened our first one and I'm pretty sure she's going to be disappointed every night until they finally pick Fancy Nancy.  I kind of wish I remembered which one it was . . .  

Kids' Projects

My girls (like every other child alive) love their art materpieces, their doodles, their primary colorings, their school projects, their preschool art,  . . . the piece of scratch paper they wrote their name on, the page they ripped out of the coloring book and it's only half colored, the treat bag with princesses on it they got from a birthday party, the paper umbrella they got in a sandwhich on our last vacation . . . you know - all those little "special" things. 

I try to remember that to them, these pieces of paper are like my wallet, my good make-up brushes, and my cell phone are to me.  Important, precious, and valuable.  However, even with that being said we still cannot keep it all.   

I have a system though, that helps us cope with the loss of such dear items and my girls get to make the decisions on what stays (for now) and what goes. 

Each girl has their own magnet board in their room.  If it's important then they can hang it up on the magnet board.  If it doesn't make the cut for the magnet board, then we all take one last admiring look and it's gone.  If it somehow doesn't make it all the way to their magnet board, then I take one last admiring look and it's gone. 

As the magnet boards get full, then it's one thing up and one old thing down.  Some projects have lasted over a year because they're still very, very cherished.  Others only last a week.  When they come down, we take a picture of the project, take one last long look and it's gone. 

Each girl has their own project picture book.  So I print the picture, we slip it in their book and then are able to preserve the memory of our beloved projects forever. 

I think Addison gets the sytem and realizes we just can't keep everything.  Olivia still needs a little coaxing, but it's only a matter of time now.  And since the magnet boards are hung at just the perfect height, Drew has been helping my cause along.  He makes his way in, pulls everything off and initates an immediate paper evaluation which ends with a few pictures and a cleaner magnet board.  

Brillance . . .

A couple f years ago, I went to a class on how to organize life . . . well some tips on how to organize some parts of your life.  One of the suggestions was that you should reward yourself after you organize a closet or something like that. 

I have decided that my reward is that several times a day as I walk past that now perfect closet or drawer I get to just take a little peek at my beautiful organization and that, that is reward enough for me. 

I came up with idea for drawers during tax season and then it was a couple of weeks before I had to chance to implement the brilliance. 

Ansen was kind of annoyed the night I finally put the idea in action because I kept talking and talking about how nice it was, made him leave Sports Center to comes look at one drawer,  went on and on about how it was going to revolutionize the bathroom and then waited for his praises of how I just changed our lives. 

So, cheapo baskets from Walmart that are by the dish drainers and
the brilliant part  . . . some blue sticky tack. 
Baskets to divide your "valuables" and blue sticky to keep the baskets in place. 

 Oh, it's so pretty! 

I went crazy for like $8!

(I hate that I can hear Ansen chanting "nerd, nerd, nerd" in that back of my head.)

TV Tokens

Just thought I would share this idea for parenting. 

I can't remember where I got it, it wasn't mine, but it works for me!

On Sunday each child gets a "refill" of their TV Tokens for the upcoming week.  Each token is worth 30 minutes of TV.  (Admittedly I'm thinking of uping it to 1 hour for summer or making more tokens . . . I just need a break every once in awhile, you know?!). I give them 6 tokens per week. 

They can earn more tokens if they need them, but to earn them it's 30 minutes of reading. 

I pay out $.50 per unused token at the end of the week. 

This has made life so much easier because:

1) it helps limit or control the amount of TV watched

2) makes them accountable for managing their time

3) gives them a sense of control

4) I never have to say "no" because they know not to ask if they don't have any tokens left

W don't have any gaming systems, but that counts as TV time in my book.

(To make mine - I used those clear pepples that are about an inch in diameter and then used modpog to glue fun paper on the back.  My tip: If you have girls . . . make sure you have an equal number of pink tokens!)

Summer Bucket List 2010

Last year was kind of a flop of a summer so this year we've pledged to have fun

(and get some things done too!).

We all added to the list.  Some play, some work, some hard, some fun - we'll see where we get!

Here's the list . . .

1.  See Toy Story 3 in the theaters
2.  Have a backyard camp out
3.  Teach Addison 3 new jobs for the school year
4.  Go to an outdoor movie
5.  Read Harry Potter 7 with Addison (in preparation for the movie)
6.  Go to the Rodeo
7.  Teach Olivia 3 new jobs for the school year
8.  Organize the garage
9.  Play croquet
10.  Go on a walk and get a snow cone
11.  Teach Addison to make cookies all by herself
12.  Have a water slide/pool party
13.  Clean out Mom and Dad's closet
14.  Re-build the back deck stairs
15.  Go to a Bee's baseball game
16.  Go 4-wheeling
17.  Make a 1-year blog book
18.  Go swimming at Scera Pool
19.  Finish the girls' room
20.  Go to Logan
21.  Fishing with Dad
22.  Treats to new neighbors
23.  Go to 7-Peaks
24.  Go boating with Banna and Branda
25.  Go to Coldstone to see Jeff
26.  Sew a quilt top
27.  Paint the dollhouse sitting in the garage
28.  Go to the zoo