Christmas Weekend - Friday, December 23rd

We had a very busy Christmas Weekend.  Our festivities began on Friday with my husband's family.  There was a surprise on Friday; my husband was sent out "West" (Wisconsin) on Thursday and was gone overnight.  Due to that, when he got into the shop at 7:30 AM, they had no work for him so he got to come home Friday morning and had an extra day at home!  The down side was that he was not home on Nate's actual birthday, the 22nd.  The boys and I had a fun day but we didn't actually celebrate Nate's birthday until lunch on the 23rd so Darryl could be home too!

 The birthday boy when I went in to get him on the 22nd - he always wakes up so happy! 

 We had been out shopping/running errands that afternoon so I let the boys pick what they wanted to bring home for dinner.  They picked "'dilla's" from Taco Bell. 

One of the things we did on Nate's birthday was get Josh a haircut.  Now, that might not seem like a big deal but the boy has bad hair.  He has about 5 differant cowlicks that make cutting it difficult.  We have taken him to a barber, a stylist, and to Great Cuts . . all to no avail.  Well, I finally called the lady who cuts my hair and said "HELP!"  She stepped up to the task and did a fantastic job with his hair AND she even put green gel in it for him and spiked it.  Josh loved it :-)

 I learned recently that Nate doesn't really care for frosting so I picked up some mini-muffins - the boys enjoyed them.

Opening gifts!  You'll have to excuse the hair - they had not had baths yet :-) 



We got Nate a Pirate Ship that he can ride around.  He loves it.  (And so does Josh!) and a Match Box Car Carrier.  He is always hauling Josh's around so now he has his own for his own cars! 

Later that afternoon, we headed out to Darryl's family Christmas.  I've mentioned before that his Grandma, who is 91, lives in a nursing home so we have the family Christmas in the Nursing Home so she can participate.  Honestly, it is not our favorite place to gather but we make the best of it!  This  year, my mother-in-law reserved the activity room since it is bigger and right next to a little kitchen.  It seemed like a great idea but no one took into account that the residents wouldn't appreciate being "kicked out" HA!  One whole side of the room had windows facing the hallway so the whole time we were like animals in a zoo - the residents stood and watched us.  This year we decided to do appetizers but none of us communicated what we were bringing so we ended up with Meatballs and BBQed mini hotdogs.  Oops!  It was still fun, very hot, but fun (It's a nursing home - what do you expect? LOL)

 Darryl's Grandma and his mom's husband.

 Our niece Rachel.

 Josh and Nate playing with a new gift - if you look close you can see how red Nate's face is - he was soooo hot!  We rolled up his sleeves and unbuttoned his shirt to try and help him out!

 Rache's Fiance, Rob and Darryl's Sister.

The family - Darryl's mom is in the White Sweater - her husband was taking the photo.

The boys were so tired that they fell fast asleep on the way home.  Darryl and I stopped on the way home to pick up one gift and we treated ourselves to a shake from Steak-and-Shake.  It was a great way to end the day!

I'll share the rest of our weekend in another post or this will get WAY to long :-)



14 Days, 31 things, and 40 Bags

Wow, that is one huge "button" HA!    Guess what time of year it is?  It is time to start thinking about cleaning - January is a great month to get things organized and cleaned for the rest of the year.  Right now there are two cleaning challenges I'm going to be doing plus 1 homeade idea that will carry on all year.

The first one, in case you missed the button above, comes from Ask Anna.  I love that it is only 14 days - because she doesn't do weekends!!   As with any challenge, I'm sure there will be days where I either don't have the item/location she is cleaning or I've already done it (i.e. my Christmas decorations will be down before the first day of the challenge!)  I look forward to finding out what other challenges she brings though!

The second idea came from Pinterest and it originated from Little Lucy Lu.  The simple concept is to make a list of 40 places to clean out and throw out 40 bags of stuff.  ("Throw Out" is a relative term - it good be just giving stuff to Good Will or, God Forbid, save it for a garage sale HA)  This is really just another way to go through all of the little places and clean stuff out.  There is not a "right" size of a bag - basically you just go through each area and clean out anything you don't need, love, or use OR that is broken or outdated.  Here's my list of 40:

1) Laundry room including shelf and freezer
2) Utensil drawers in kitchen. all of them.
3) "Junk" drawer and recipe shelf in kitchen
4) pantry shelves
5) under the kitchen sink
6) launch pad
7) Refrigerator
8) Spices and Coffee Cupboard
9) Kids cupboards (cups, plates etc)
10) Desk drawers
11) DS3 Closet
12) DS2 Closet
13) My Closet
14) My dresser drawers
15) Boy's Dressers
16) Night stands
17) Tv cabinet
18) Scrapbooking Shelf in Bedroom
19) Bathroom Sink Cabinet
20) Coat Closet
21) Top Bathroom Cabinet
22) Bottom Bathroom Cabinet
23) Towel Cart
24) The Truck
25)Dining Room Bookshelf
26) Toy Cabinet in LR
27) Toys in boys rooms
28) Triangle Cabinet drawers
29) Loveseat room in basement
30) Bookshelves
31) Basement - drafting table.
32) basement - Filing Cabinet
33) basement - pantry/shelves
34) basement - other areas
35) garage - kids toys
36) garage - camping shelves
37) garage - lawn shelves
38) Garage - work bench
39) Cabinets in the kitchen
40) Filing Cabinet by desk

The last idea is one I want to carry on with all year and it is the concept of "Do One Thing".  I created this all on my own!  The idea is to do one thing a day and in 31 days (or 28 . .29. . .or 30 HA) the house is always deep cleaned.  This list includes everything from washing windows, to steam cleaning the carpet to cleaning baseboards.  Some of the tasks are 5 minutes items and some are 30 minute items.  I'm not going to post the huge list right now - I may after I've worked it for one month and made changes.  I started this process back in about September but it fell on the wayside during November and December with all of the other stuff going on :-) 


I think, that at least by the end of January, my house will be clean.  Now the rest of the year, well, it is questionable :-) hahaha