The Junk Cupboards

So, in addition to my junk drawer we also have some cupboards above the desk and microwave that collect clutter. There was a little bit of organization in that I knew where stuff was supposed to go, but it was way too full and stuff was just getting shoved in. It actually took me a few minutes to find my camera in the mess to take these pictures.

Before:
I took a bunch of stuff down to the storage room and office where they needed to be. Office supplies went into the newly organized junk drawer. Tools and stuff out to the garage. Then I had plenty of room to put everything back all organized.

After:

There's a basket for batteries, a basket for card games, a spot for gadgets like our external hard drive and camera and ipad accessories if we had one, and areas for our church papers and scriptures. Then there's the shelf that houses the kids stuff that I hate (play doh, markers, bubbles) so the kids don't get to it without permission, and I took medications upstairs to the medicine cabinet where they belonged and left vitamins and a few meds that are used often like Nathan's eczema cream. And of course we have our collection of souvenir cups on a top shelf lol. Not sure where else to put them.

It took a few hours to tackle the cupboards and junk drawer, but it was so worth it to be able to find what I need without sifting through junk or worrying about something falling on me. I even found a place for everything that was on top of the microwave. So nice to have an organized space!

The Junk Drawer

So, I know everyone has one. That one (or 2) drawer in the house where random stuff collects. The Junk Drawer. It gets filled up with everything from old birthday cards to teflon hose to pens that don't work anymore. Why do we hold onto pens that don't work anyway?! It's not like they are going to suddenly start working again when we are on the phone scrambling for something, anything, to leave a message with, clicking through the pens trying to find one that works.

Anyway, so yesterday I did it. I tackled my junk drawer. I've been meaning to for a while but it's one of those things that just always fell to the bottom of my to do list. Instead of everything else on my to do list yesterday I decided to bump it up to the top.

I started by taking everything out and putting them in piles. Useless junk went straight to the garbage can. There were probably 20 pens in there, and amazingly about 15 of them still worked! I took a bunch of craft stuff down to the storage room and a bunch of random nails, screws, and hardware out to the workbench in the garage. Then I reorganized the drawer with a bunch of boxes to sort stuff and put stuff away.

Before:
After:

Isn't that so much better?! I can actually find stuff in there! And I moved a bunch of stuff from the cupboard above to the drawer where it's easier to access.

Worth it

Pregnancy sure messes with a person's body. Even once it's over you have to deal with your hormones getting back to normal. I have a waist again and the acne is clearing up so I don't have to worry about how to get rid of blackheads on nose, but my joints are still loose and making my knees hurt, the night sweats are luckily ending, and I've started into the major hair loss. And I completely forgot where I was going with this because I was hit by a wave of exhaustion lol.

I Heart Them

All together now: Aaaaaw!

Blessed

Today we had our babies blessed. In our church we bless newborn babies, giving them their name and a blessing specifically for them. It was fun to do it with the twins and have to pass one off for the other lol. We had tons of family and friends come for it which was wonderful. After the meeting we came home and had a luncheon for everyone. There were around 40 people here and we had just enough food. So great to get to visit with everyone. It does get a little warm inside when so many people are here, though it wasn't hot enough to need monte carlo fans or anything. I think enough people were going in and out that the cold air from outside kept it cool enough. Everyone has left now (except my little sis who's spending the night) and it's so quiet. I'll get some pics posted of the babies in their cute little blessing suits, they are adorable.

Point and shoot

I'm definitely not a professional photographer, but I love taking pics of my babies. Sometimes I look at professional baby pictures and try to recreate the type of setups and stuff. Not really the best without all the right equipment but it's fun. These were from a photo shoot I did with them this week.

"OK, mom, what are you up to?"


"This is pretty comfy"

"I will NOT curl up all cute!"

"All right, laying here isn't so bad."


"He's touching me!"

"No more pictures!"

The pictures might not look too professional, but the babies are still adorable!

March

One thing I love about this time of year is that we don't have any birthdays or present holidays for a while. I am not good at picking out gifts. I'm always reading those articles about the best fathers day gift ideas and stuff to hopefully give me an idea. Kids are easy, just get them any toy or art supply and they are good. Adults are much harder. At least for me. Hubby always seems to be able to pick out gifts for me easily.

Blank mind

Holy cow, I keep meaning to post and then other things get in the way. Like nursing, preschool, nursing, cooking, nursing, cleaning, nursing... I don't mind the nursing, but as soon as I'm about to do something one of the babies gets hungry and by the time I'm done nursing I forget whatever it was lol. Of course I've never had the greatest memory as it is, and having kids and the sleep deprivation that comes with it has made it worse. My brain just stops functioning when I'm tired. The other day Nate was telling me something and I was looking right at him and he could have been saying he bought padron cigars online and I wouldn't have known. I didn't register a single word he'd said, just smiled and nodded and then told him I hadn't heard a thing he said. I wasn't even thinking of anything else. My mind just was blank and I think I may have took a split-second nap with my eyes open lol.

Old school GPS

This is my GPS. Sticky note with a scribbled map and address. Our van isn't new and cool enough to have stuff like built in DVD players, GPS and power sliding doors (a girl can dream) and I don't see the point in getting portables DVD, GPS, etc when it would probably just distract me. Of course having my sticky note fall off and land under my feet is kind of distracting too so...yeah.

Little artists

I usually don't let the boys cover the table with art stuff because they leave it all over and getting them to clean up the mess is as fun as fenphedrine reviews but some days it's worth it. The boys got some new Crayola color wonder and glow coloring stuff and the actually spent about 2 hours peacefully coloring with it. No TV wasting their brains, no fighting, no messing up the playroom. Just cute little boys sitting nicely and coloring.

Brain too full, stuff getting lost

I feel bad that I don't take a lot of pictures of my older boys these days. I have a bunch of the babies but only a couple of my other boys. This cute pic was taken this week when I was dropping Jakey off at school. Besides his adorable brown eyes what do you notice? Messy hair. Evidently I have too much going through my mind (diapers, feeding kids, remembering to feed myself, fore factor reviews to get in shape, laundry, dishes, etc) that I forget important stuff like that. Good thing he's so cute so he can get away with a little messy hair. At least I didn't forget to make sure he had shoes on like one day last week. (And, yes, I sent him in without his shoes, wasn't going to take 20mins to go home and back for them.)

Bundled up

I love taking pictures of the babies together. They are just so sweet. This is how they are bundled up when we walk across the street to pick up Jason from school. I put a nice warm blanket in the reclined back seat of the stroller, wrap up the babies and put warm hats on them (my mom's good friend made them), and put them in the seat with the warm blanket tucked around them, then another blanket over the top to block the cold and wind. They usually sleep the whole time and often stay asleep when I bring them in after we get home.

Fading memory

It's amazing how quickly I forget how uncomfortable and miserable I was just 6 weeks ago. I know I could barely move, was exhausted from lack of sleep, complained about my adult acne, and my back and pelvis ached constantly, but it's hard to really remember how bad I felt when I feel so much better now. Crazy how time seemed to go so slowly when I felt awful but is going by so fast now that I've been feeling so happy and healthy.

Good genes

I'm a member of a few twin parenting messageboards and there are frequently the same questions asked over and over. Some of the most common are advice on which stroller to get, how to get twins to sleep well, and if their belly will ever get back to normal after a twin pregnancy. Luckily for me I was given a double stroller so I didn't bother asking which kind to get, my twins naturally sleep pretty well, and my belly is looking surprisingly well. I think I just have good skin. I only have a handful of stretchmarks above my c-section scars and they aren't even noticeable. I never used any special creams or lotions for reducing stretchmarks, though I thought about it. I still have a few inches I want to lose around my belly, but I should be able to take care of that with exercise. I need to get out my Slim in 6 DVDs and start exercising with those until the weather warms up and I can get out to run.

Switched to Netflix

A few weeks ago we decided to cut off our cable tv service. We only watched a few of the hundreds of channels plus our cable provider was raising their rates by almost double what we had been paying. So no more cable tv for us. We still get digital broadcast tv though. We decided to get Netflix and so far we love it. There are tons of tv shows and movies that we can watch anytime on the computer or streamed through our Wii. Plus we get 1 DVD at a time so we've been getting movies that we didn't get a chance to see in theaters. The best part though is no commercials! It's weird not to hear about new tv shows, the most popular diet pills, and fast food restaurants. Now we can just watch a whole show uninterrupted. The boys really love it and have learned how to connect on our Wii and find the kid shows. We just watched Iron Man 2 and right now we are watching Scooby Doo before bed.