Extra! Extra!

I know it has been FOR-E-VER and a day since I wrote.  A lot has happened . . . and yet, nothing at all.  Don't you love it when life is like that?  Anyway, this post is to let you all know and hope you will spread the word that we are selling our beautiful condo!!!  It's sad, sad, sad because I love this place so much!!!  But when you decide to open a door, sometimes you have to close a window.  Or something like that.  :-)

Anyway, here are some pics Dave took just this afternoon -- hot off the press, so to speak.  So, if you or someone you know is looking for a condo to buy in the Moscow area, HERE IT IS!!! ;-D  Sorry, folks, furniture not included. :-)

Some things of note:
* The condo is a three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,050 square foot home on the bottom floor, away from heavy pedestrian or other traffic.  And we have the CLOSEST parking space, minus the handicap space right next to us.  That's BIG, especially if you have children!
* We replaced all of the appliances with new or lightly-used ones -- and, yes, all are included.
* The laminate flooring has a water-resistant core, is a high-grade flooring, and is throughout the entire condo, minus the bathrooms.

* We replaced the flooring and one of the toilets in the bathrooms.

* We put shelves in the master closet, a HUGE walk-in closet with lots of storage space now!

* We converted the closet in the living room to a storage closet, with floor to ceiling shelving that is perfect for towels, linens, blankets, boxes, food storage, etc.

* We are just one block from the Chipman Trail and the Silos - a little further from Safeway, the Dollar Store, etc. - and have easy access to campus, parks, and pretty much everything.  It's a great location for runners and bikers - and easy to become a runner or biker because of the location!

* We re-painted every room, and the kitchen and dining room are sponge-painted and just beautiful. 

* The chair-rail molding is in every room but the bathrooms and closets.

Crafty Crafty

I know I already have a laundry list going for things I want to do in the very near future, but I found a few other things this morning.

#1 -- Christmas Tree ornaments, focusing on our family this last year and Dave's family (since they are coming here for Christmas) for the last . . . . forever.  I found an idea to take six inch blocks of wood, paint them black, trim a picture, paste the picture on the block with Modge Podge (not sure what this is, but I am sure I can find it at Michaels on Black Friday and probably get a good deal), and staple a ribbon on the back to hang them with
. . . . EXCEPT . . . .
I am going to put scrapbooking paper behind the picture and buy a stamp pad to fudge up the edges around the picture a bit.  I think this will make a really personal, really fun tree with ornaments I don't have to worry about my kiddos breaking!  Need I say more? ;-D  I'm thinking I'll print all the pics off in black and white or an antique-looking brown and buy a brown or magenta ink pad, and then I will send a lot of the ones from Dave's family home with -- well, his family! ;0)

#2 -- A family values canvas.  Check it out here.  I really love this idea -- and if you have a cricuit-type machine (or know someone who does), you can make one a year with goals/absolutes for your family for that year and make a tradition of evaluating/changing it each New Year's Eve.  I just thought of that, actually, and I think it is a FABULOUS idea! :-D

More to come, I am SURE!!!!

Frames, Chalk, Magnets, Oh MY!

So I have been spending some time in the Idea Room as of late, and I am drawn to this weekly menu board.  I love the vintage look/functionality of it!

Problem: As I've been searching the internet for a metal frame I can use to create it myself, I am having a hard time knowing either a) what to call it to bring it up on a search or b) just plain finding something like this.  I think it's more problem a than b, in all honesty, but THAT'S OKAY . . . .

BECAUSE I found some instructions on how to turn any frame into a magnetic chalkboard (or on how to turn a space on a wall into a magnetic chalkboard).  Check out some other application ideas here. I also followed the Idea Room's link to a tutorial on making glass magnets.  So, what, you ask? Oh, friends, the possibilities are endless: job charts, message boards, family home evening charts, to-do lists, gratitude boards, a fun toy for my kids to play with (once they get out of the eating everything in their hands stage, of course), schedules, etc. And it can all have a classy, vintage look (instead of a cluttered list look) that will add to my home!  SO GREAT!  Now to start shopping for inexpensive wood frames.  First stop: Goodwill!

Okay - cute moment number . . . I forget: Dave just walked in the door and Abby started talking from her crib.  He went in and got her and was playing with her for a few minutes when Isaac woke up.  Her face lit up, and she looked down the hall and started talking.  So I asked her, "Do you hear Isaac down the hall?  Do you want to go get him?  Go tell him Peek-A-Boo."  She got the biggest grin on her face, got down off Dave's lap, and started crawling as fast as she could down the hall to our bedroom, giggling all the way.  Dave ran down in front of her and turned the door knob so she could push the door open.  She got there, giggled with glee, pushed the door open, and started talking to Isaac in her high-pitched, happy jibberish.  Somewhere in there she said, "Baaooo!" (Her way of saying BOO!).  Isaac, of course, also started to laugh.  We have a lot of laughter in our house.  It's so great!

Cleaning 101 -- REAL SIMPLE Style

My friend Katelyn posted a link on her blog to a cleaning chart created by Real Simple.  My mom used to tell us about Homemaking Meetings when she was young-er that centered around making files that detailed what you should do, when, etc. to break down your cleaning.  This isn't exactly a file, but it's a simplified version that I think I can really get into.  Enjoy!

Laundry

Thanks EVERYONE for your great ideas!  My friend Amanda just introduced me to this GREAT new site, and they happen to have ideas about doing laundry.  The comments that follow give great tips as well.  Now to just incorporate your ideas with some of theirs, applied to my current situation, and get it all in place . . . . am I excited or WHAT?!?!?!?!  I LOVE to be organized!  Makes life SOOOOO much simpler.

P.S. - I made decisions on the quilts and ALMOST have all of the fabric.  The fabric I already bought is just NOW finishing the pre-wash, pre-dry-and-shrink, and iron-with-starch process.  So now . . . to the Christmas applique.  Buying material tomorrow before the fabric store's big sale ends. (FYI - if you live in Moscow, Quilt Something! is having a 40% off ALL of their fabric sale . . . plus an EXTRA 50% off their Clearance Room fabric, which ends up being 75% off -- $2.50 a yard instead of $10 a yard for the fabric there.  Basically FANTASTIC!!!! I bought the backing for both quilts for under $30.  BUT, it ends tomorrow; they close at 5:00 p.m.)

So much to DO, SO MUCH to do . . .

Do you ever feel like you spend every day, week after week, month after month, just trying to get on top of it all?  Cuz I feel like that is the only message I get out of each and every Sunday meeting: I have REALLY got to get a grip and get ON TOP of my LIFE!!!!  Oh, dear -- I sound like my mother!

But seriously, folks -- I'm having a hard time getting on top of everything.

It's like every night is such a combination wrestling match/marathon that when I get the kids to bed AT LAST, I have to just sit for at least an hour to catch my breath!  And then I wait up for Dave to get home so that we can see each other, read our scriptures, and pray together and have such a hard time sleeping at night when I finally GET to sleep that the morning starts on a sprint . . . . every morning . . . and I am doing good to remember to get food ont their trays or throw a morning/breakfast prayer into the mix with my starving little monkeys before they start screaming their heads off and/or developing lasting feelings of "mommy neglect."

And don't even get me started on discipline, because I know there are people out there who have babies that don't throw their food on the floor to either get attention or to signal that they don't LIKE it (when spitting it acoss the tray/room doesn't get the message out there loud and clear); and I know there are 16-month-olds that kneel and fold their arms and sit quietly for EVERY single prayer and whose parents have nipped any objections to do so in the bud the first time they hit.  But me?  Well - I'm just glad if I remember to say a morning/meal-time prayer or to feel the spirit at night when we pray over their cries and squirms and tired eyes.  For some reason, though, they usually stay quiet during our nightly primary song -- or just sing along.  Is there something wrong with this picture?

And the laundry?  It seems that once every two months I get on top of ALL of the laundry in the house -- it is all in its place in drawers, on hangers, in storage bins and boxes, etc. And I am DETERMINED to stay on top of it and make sure I get one load done every day (or two or three days as demand warrants) and don't have HUGE, DAUNTING piles sitting in various corners of my house just waiting for my attention when I finally get around to them (and being mixed with dirty clothes that got thrown here or there before that happens -- leaving me wondering what is clean and what is dirty and basically feeling like I am starting ALL OVER AGAIN).  Did I mention Isaac's favorite game is "throw the laundry"?  Cuz he LOVES to throw all the laundry over his head into a nice, neat pile behind him and then turn around and throw it all back into another neat pile behind him and then turn around and throw it back . . . . and Abby is quickly catching on, though she prefers endless rounds of peek-a-boo to the make-a-new-pile version of the game.  Yes, it is REALLY cute, until it is the FOLDED laundry they get to throwing!

Basically, I know I just need to get a grip.  I know it should be so easy to go bed at 9:00 at night, laundry and dishes done, toys picked up, and the house in order to start the next day.  I know it should be so easy to wake up at 5:00 in the morning, go running, come home, shower, read my scriptures, write in my journal, check on my calling, make breakfast for Dave, get him off to school, check my e-mail, write in my journal, and make breakfast for the babies so that I get them up with a morning prayer before they even get out of their beds and then have breakfast ready so that they can eat and play until they go down for that perfect morning nap that lasts an hour and a half so that I can work on making their quilts or other Christmas presents/projects while they sleep and get lunch ready so that they can eat when they wake up and we can go on an afternoon walk and play at the park and then go home and let them take another one and a half-hour nap while I work on other home projects I'm trying to get done (or write in their journals so they have an account of what they were like as kids), and then get dinner started so that they can wake up and play for a while and we can hopefully get Daddy home for dinner and sit and eat together as an ENTIRE family and play together and read scriptures together and pray together and get babies in bed together and get Daddy back to doing homework while I clean the kitchen, finish that one load of laundry, and get ready for the next day before reading our scriptures and praying together and going to bed promptly by 9:00 at night to start all over again.

It should be so easy.

Dream and it Might Come TRUE!

This is my latest venture at accomplishing a beautiful Christmas project for my home this Christmas. Though I think I significantly underestimated the work involved and the time I would have to do it, I am working feverishly to put things in order so that I CAN do it and SUCCEED to have my first Christmas in my home with my new little family. Anyone want to hop on board? It's been my experience that support groups are amazing things when it comes to getting things DONE!!!!

Energizer Bunny Defeated . . .

De-Cluttering Project keeps going and going and going and going . . . . .
*sigh*
Does it ever end so I can just stop thinking about cleaning and start doing something FUN . . . . like applique or quilts or seasonal wall hangings or . . . . .

Bathroom Battlefront

Okay, so in June when we moved into this condo, it was basically disgusting!!!! Emphasis on the DIS-GUS-TING. Seriously, folks! So we (my mom and I) went to the store and dug out every combination of cleaning products possible. I must have spent at least $100 on just products to try to clean this place up. Anyway, my sister had told me to use Lysol Toilet Bowl Cleaner with Bleach to clean the toilet. Said to leave it on overnight and then - Viola!!!! - scrub clean for a perfectly white toilet bowl. Well, that was the one thing we got and tried that actually worked.

Then, with our heavy-in-iron Moscow water, I was noticing that the toilet bowls were getting yellow again. So, I bought more cleaner. I had noticed, however, that the cleaner just got to the water line and then disappeared in the water instead of cleaning the actual bowl. So I asked Dave -- casually, mind you -- this morning if he could turn off the water for me and get the water level down.

He cheakily said that it wasn't dirty enough to warrant that DEEP of a cleaning, but that I just needed to put it on it, let it sit for a few minutes, and scrub it off. I felt like he was wrong, however - long story short - he was right before in the cleaning marathon when I was freaking out about the tub being clean enough to bath babies in and spent days scrubbing it with my mom, and then he just went in and scrubbed for like fifteen minutes and had it sparkling!!!! Grrrrr. . . .

So, I told him that I hated it when he treated me like I hadn't worked on cleaning everything for days and didn't know anything.

Without me knowing what he was doing, he went in, got the cleaner, sprinkled it on the toilet, came out and ate breakfast, and then went back in and pretended to go to the bathroom while scrubbing the toilet bowl for like two minutes - TOPS. Know what -- he was right!!!! Again!!!! Not that I'm complaining about him scrubbing the bowl or anything, but sometimes it just kills me that he is so dang smart and so often right about everything.

Then again, perhaps I've found a new technique for getting out of cleaning the bathroom! ;-D