Housekeeping...

Oh, the adjustment. I knew that adding another child to the mix would take some adjusting when it came to getting back in to the swing of things...and I finally feel like I'm at a point where I'm regaining control of the house. Hallelujah!

We are finding our daily rhythm and I'm finding some comfort in that and being able to make the house look better. It can be so challenging when they are so little and on two different routines. Thankfully, Avi-Kate is now in a more predictable daily schedule...the perks of being on solids now. The biggest thing I'm trying to map out at the moment is a weekly cleaning schedule. I already have certain tendencies like changing the sheets. I prefer to do this task on Friday, so that we have clean sheets heading in to the weekend. Growing up my mom changed our sheets every two weeks, however, due to my allergies, that I developed in college, I now change my sheets once a week. Or vacuuming...I vacuum the floors almost every day. Now, keep in mind, we have a ranch so I don't have to mess with stairs, we have a large inside dog, and due to the fact that almost all of our rooms are hardwoods/tiles vacuuming is much faster than sweeping. So, I'm trying to see what else I want to do and where it fits in with what I'm already doing.

I'm hoping to get things in place and have my improved routine in place in the next week or so. I'd love to have a few weeks under my belt before we leave town and head to Disney at the first of March. I'll post my plans once I finalize them. :) 

Daybook January 17th

Outside my window: An overcast afternoon. It rained this morning and we are suppose to get another wave later this evening. Unusual for this time of year is how mild the temps have been over all. We have a random cold day here or there but nothing like what it normally is. This time last year we were snowed in I believe...

I'm thinking:  I need to do some stuff around the house tonight, work on some housekeeping organization, and make a final to do list for AG's birthday party this weekend. 

I'm wondering: Oh, so many things at the moment. Ideas for the house, cleaning/organizing, getting TOT School up and going for AG, etc.

I'm praying: That AG would decide to be fully potty trained tomorrow on his birthday. (Sigh) One can hope right? :) But really...I'm at the end of my rope on this one and really don't know what else there is to do that we haven't tried. Why he can pee on the potty without problems but can't poop I have no idea. I keep reminding myself that this isn't a big deal it's more of just frustration because I know he's capable. So, I focus and pray that God would give me the strength to see that glorious day when he finally decides to be big boy all the time. 


And of course I'm always praying for The Needham Crew. Pray for them as Piper is in the middle of engrafting. She had a bone marrow transplant a few short weeks ago and her body is in the process of trying to recover/begin to produce new bone marrow.

I'm thankful: For the safe arrivals of Avi-Kate's best friends. Annie arrived on Thursday and Amelia arrived on Sunday. Avi-Kate has about 7 months  and a good 11-13lbs on them at the moment. However, before we know it they'll be racing after each other and chasing their older siblings. So now the pairings are: Briggs and Amelia, Emma and Annie, and then AG and Avi-Kate. I'm so blessed that Ginny, Julie, and I have been able to experience this together twice. 

I'm hearing: A quiet house and the whir of the fan in the kitchen. Something to relish because there are many a day when I don't get moments to blog mid-day these days. 

From the Kitchen: I've joined the world of freezer cooking since having kids and being even more serious about it after the arrival of Avi-Kate. This week we are living off stuff we already had purchased last week and or freezer meals. We've run out for a few random items but nothing big. It's kind of nice to not have to cook every single day. I don't do mega freezer days where I spend several days cooking an entire month's worth of food. Rather, I cook in bulk when I can and when things are on sale. Most weeks I stock one item in the freezer. Meat isn't on sale this week so that's why I'm living off what we've got stockpiled. 

I'm reading: Nothing at the moment. I realized last night that I have yet to borrow anything for January on my Kindle for free...I need to do that. Just need time to find something. I love that with Amazon Prime you can borrow a book a month for free. 

One of my favorite things: Finalizing last minute details for Disney. Yippee! I need to do some work in my notebook now that I have all of our Dining Reservations finalized. 

I'm creating: I need to do some TOT School prep. I honestly just need to spend half a weekend getting everything the way I want it and doing some planning. I've got lots of ideas it is now just a matter of making them happen. 

Around the house: I have been busy, busy cleaning out and reorganizing. I finally feel like I can breathe and make headway on reclaiming my house after having a second baby. Life is just hard with small kids and adjusting to two is hard. (Not that my children are difficult, rather, it's just been hard to adjust to two very different schedules and they have different needs.) I've had to re-examine time management, the way I do things, etc. Plus, Avi-Kate is finally (knock on wood) in a consistent day to day routine and napping at the same times daily. Hallelujah! So, needless to say, I'm happy to be getting things back on track. 

A few plans for the week: Finishing up stuff around the house in preparation for AG's birthday party this weekend. I need to finish Avi-Kate's 7 month pics. I started them yesterday and she was not having it and so I'll finish them later this week. I also am going to do some cousin pictures this weekend when Ronnie and Delia come up. Should be fun. Tomorrow is AG's birthday and we are going to take him out to eat...I think he has requested Chick-fil-A. :o) I'm thinking maybe we'll go pick up a sweet treat from Honeymoon or Jandy's on our way home. We'll see. 


In other news: I decided this fall that I wanted to start running and train for a race. My big goal is to train for a half marathon at Disney. (My sister-in-law, Caroline, also has this goal...we are reclaiming bodies post-baby #2. And we've given serious thought to running together and enjoying Disney a few days solo just the two of us! We'll see what end up doing.) So, right now I'm working on a 5K and I'm hoping in a month to run my first race at Berry. Part of my Christmas present was to be fitted for running shoes and they have made all the difference in the world! Anyways, I'm a few weeks in and really loving it. I'll keep you posted...Happy Tuesday.

What a crew...

We hosted this crowd for dinner on Wednesday night...and it was marvelous. It's crazy to think that when we started this back in 2009 we would have four to six students show up. It's amazing to see how the Lord has blessed this and used this group in big and small ways to minister to us and to each other. They are such a blessing to us. We are humbled that we get to love them daily.

Looking forward to lots of fun and many memories this semester. Andy and the boys, excuse me--I mean men, are starting a Man Night twice a month. The girls and I will keep up with our weekly Grey's Anatomy/dessert/gab fest that we love so much.

I always put quotes on the chalkboards in the kitchen that relate to Family Dinner. This month I stumbled upon the following:

"And thank you for a house full of people I love. Amen." ~ Terri Guillments

"The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never even introduced yourself to, had life not done it for you." ~Kendall Hailey

I feel like those two pretty much sum things up rather nicely...

Well, hot dog...

...Andy found my camera battery charger moments ago. Pictures and updates coming very, very soon. Once my battery is charged. :)

Flowers, lots of flowers...

...are in our future. 

This last March we escaped for a few days down to Disney and while we were there we were impressed by all of the gorgeous flowers for the annual Flower and Garden Festival. The whole time we were there we kept saying:

-How much Andy's mom would LOVE to see these flowers. (She's an avid gardner and loves to putter in her yard.)
-How much we LOVED the weather in March. Andy said after experiencing March weather he had no desire for us to ever do a summer Disney trip because he didn't want to fight with the heat and crowds. It really was perfect...High 70s to low 80s during the day and slightly cooler at night. Low crowd levels.

Well, we returned, had a baby, and began to talk to Andy's mom about how much she would love it. :) Long story short there was a week of her timeshare that we need to use ASAP. So, we decided to investigate what a week long Disney trip might look like with the entire Edwards clan for March 2012. We put in our request and waited to see if it would be met. This fall, Nanny got the phone call telling her that they were able to meet it and that our week would be the first full week in March.

So, we are headed to Disney in less than fifty days to see the kick-off of EPCOT's Flower and Garden Festival. I'm beyond excited. I can't wait! I've been working with Andy's sister, Caroline, for months now as we map out everything and plan it. I've discovered that in order to save money and make your trip as enjoyable as possible you have to plan, plan, plan. The prep work you do beforehand goes a LONG way in making your trip wonderful. (To be honest, I love planning Disney trips. I enjoy it.) Now, I will say that there are people that map everything out down to what rides they ride each minute of the day. I am not one of those people. I prefer to have a basic plan for the day and then fill it in as we go. This works really, really well for where we are at in life with small children. It gives us the freedom to change it up and be flexible. Plus, half of the fun of going to Disney with children is to experience it from your child's eyes. So, it makes sense to tailor our trip to the things that they love.

In the coming weeks I'll share our plans, what a basic day plan looks like for us, some of the tricks of the trade, etc. In the mean time, I've been trying to reorganize a bunch of stuff for the start of the new year and I have somehow misplaced my camera battery charger. I'm hoping I come across it this weekend. I have lots of pictures to upload and share. Plus, I need to take Avi-Kate's 7 month pictures. And in other news I meant to post several things during the second half of this week but time got away from me. My two dear friends from college, who live here in town, were/are over due. Avi-Kate's playmates will both be here by the end of the weekend. Anne Grace was born yesterday and Amelia Louise should not be too far behind her. I'm so blessed that we've all been pregnant together not once but twice. I love that our kids are close in ages. It's pretty amazing. All right. This post is long enough...I'll share more soon.

Tot School...

...coming to our dining room!

Well, my original plan was thrown out the window...AG was suppose to start preschool last week at the Child Development Center at Berry. (CDC) The biggest requirement for enrollment that they be 100% potty trained and they be at least 3 years old. Well, we toured last spring, signed the papers, and paid the deposit. In late August we began potty training hardcore so that we'd have it down pat by January. Well my friends, that did not happen. AG is completely potty trained when it comes to peeing but pooping on the potty just isn't happening on a daily basis. (It's not that he can't or hasn't...it's that he just flat out doesn't want to.) This is when Andy likes to remind me that I wanted a redhead child and thus, implying, the stubborn streak that comes with being redheaded! Ha. You name it and we've tried it.

So, where does that leave us? Since Plan A is on hold we are moving to Plan B. The new plan is that AG will, Lord willing, enroll in August. (I might be bald if August comes and he's not off to school!) In the mean time AG and I are going to begin Tot School. AKA a special time two or three days a week for us to sit down together and work together. I'm thinking we'll do it in the morning when Avi-Kate takes her nap...we'll see once we get started if I need to tweak it. This won't necessarily be 'school' but rather time during the week for us to casually explore numbers, patterns, colors, shapes, themes, books, letters, etc. Most of this will be geared towards whatever is going on/he's interested in. (For all my fellow teachers...maybe I'm more Reggio Emilia than I thought I'd be! My preschool professor in college spent an entire semester on Reggio instead of teaching us all the different theories of preschool instruction...which makes me laugh that I'm even writing about this eight years after the fact...) Exploration and simple instruction. Nothing heavy, in depth, or involved.

The name Tot School comes from this little gem of a website I stumbled upon two years ago...you can take a look here. I'm in the process right now of some cleaning and organizing. Once we get past AG's birthday next week we'll get started on Tot School. (This should give us several weeks at it before we head to Disney for a week...spring break?!? Ha.) I'll post our simple plans and what we are doing once we begin. Be on the lookout...

This and that...

Goodness gracious I feel like I've been playing catch-up for months and trying to keep my head above water. We finally seem to be finding a rhythm with two children and Avi-Kate is on a much more predictable schedule thanks to eating solids.

Anyways, the blog seems to have suffered in all the chaos that was this fall/holiday season and I've been constantly going back and post-dating stuff. In the middle of all of that I've been brainstorming ideas and things that I'm going to add to the blog on a weekly/monthly basis. Funny, right? Can't seem to keep up with the bare bones updates let's just throw in something else to keep up with! It gets even funnier...I'm in the process of creating a second blog with Andy's help. We've been working on it since the fall but had to take a break during the holidays. I was hoping to have it up and going by now but that's life...so it should be up and going in the very near future. :)

In the mean time the kids are growing like weeds and changing every day. Life is never dull with the two of them...I know I say that all the time but it's true. AG will be 3 in two weeks and I can't believe it. I'll blink and he'll be in high school getting ready for college. (Where does the time go?!?)

In the next few days be on the look out for:

-Goals for the year
-Disney update
-Daybook Entry (haven't done one of those in who knows how long...)
-New Years Eve Post with pics
-A belated Christmas house tour (because I normally do this before Christmas but again the chaos that was got the best of me...)
-Avi-Kate's 7 month pics (once I take them)
-52 Recipes Update...I've gone over my goal but dropped the ball in blogging them!

And a few other things that are currently swirling around in my head...but you'll have to stay tuned. This week is shaping up to be a busy week but full of happy moments. AG has his first Kindermusik class of the semester and our college students return tomorrow. They'll be over several times this week and for that we are all excited...it's been quiet without them these last few weeks. I'm off to fold some laundry and do some planning for the week ahead...