TTFN- ta ta for now

I have so many things that I want to share on here, but I will not be posting for a while. I dont know how long, but it will be a while. Blogging has become a chore and that is not what I want this to be. I love the acceptance that you all have made me feel and enthusiasm for the things that I have posted. My enthusiasm for posting has waned lately and that has been reflected in the lesser comments that I've gotten. I have tried and tried to cut down what I put on here and how much time I spend looking at other's blogs, but it's just not enough. My focus needs to be in other places that need attention. I've found my brain is in overdrive all day thinking about what I can post about next and what activities I can do that would appeal to people. I'm just way too stressed out! This blog has served it's purpose in helping M&M and I during the transition from the two of us being at home alone all day, to three of us at home when Bubba was born.

I started this blog to share ideas with other mothers out there, but I've found that the things I am sharing are things that can be found elsewhere. I'm not going to delete my blog so you can still find lots of wonderful links to other bloggers who are defintely a lot more interesting than me! haha!

Well, goodbye for now and thank you all for the kind comments and for sharing the things that you know to help those struggling mothers out there like me. :)

Back to Basics

I've been thinking a lot lately about this blog. I started this blog almost a year ago, and most of the focus has been on the learning activities I do with M&M, my almost 4 year old. At that time she was almost 3 and I felt the need to spend more time with her during the day on a one-on-one basis. Especially since I just had our second child a few months before, M&M was feeling a little left out and having a hard time adjusting to our new life with a baby. Doing these things with her have made awesome improvements in her development. She surprises me everyday with what she knows. Just in the past few weeks I have seen major changes in her behaviorally. Ever since she was a baby she would just scream....a lot! It has been difficult to know the best way to handle situations and what discipline would work best for her. She is a VERY stubborn child. While I would see other kids her age have a tantrum for a few minutes and get over it she is the one that would hang onto it for hours it seemed like. For three and a half years I've struggled with this and still do, but lately M&M is becoming more and more independent in a positive way. She is listening to what we ask her to do and doing it without tantrums. I've been surprised many times when I ask her to do something and then brace myself for the screaming. All I heard is "Ok, mommy." What?! That's it!? Wow!

It's funny because my baby, who is 14 months old now, used to be the "easy" child. Now him and M&M have almost done a role reversal. It's like they got together one day and made a pact where M&M told Bubba that she has been challenging enough for us, her parents, in her youngest years. She has taught us all we needed to learn in the past 4 years. Now it's his turn to challenge us in another way so that we can learn something else that will help us grow as parents. Now, he's the one screaming. And running away from us. M&M was always attached to us and she would stay near us at church, the park, whereever we went. Bubba just runs...far...away as fast as he can. Maybe what he's trying to teach us is that we need to get into shape so that we can run after him for the next 4 years!

With all of that said, my point is that I don't see the need for doing Tot School and Tot School posts on a weekly basis. This is not to say that I won't be doing learning activities with M&M, because I will, but I'm not going to really plan anything, but rather follow her lead in what she wants to do. She's really into writing and drawing anything right now. I will definitely be doing arts and crafts with her, and as it warms up we will be playing outside,  A LOT! I'll post about some of the things we do, but not all of them.

Back in April of last year I wrote this post. The last paragraph says, "My major in college was Home and Family Living. One of the main things that stood out to me in my classes was how to turn everyday, monotonous activities of taking care of the home and family into joyful experiences that we can treasure and remember forever. I want to take the activities of feeding, clothing, cleaning, etc. to the next level. I am at the point in my life where I am just starting to learn and begin to understand how to effectively run a home. This blog will follow me on my journey step-by-step as I try to better my own home through experimenting with new ideas from teaching my children to trying out new recipes."  

This is what I want to get back to. Writing short posts about things that I learn that have made my life easier or helped me learn something new in regards to my home. I will also be dabbling into my interests of sewing, crafts, blog design, photography and organization to name a few. I know, I am interested in way too many things! Along with this you will see that I will probably never do a giveaway or a review. Not that I don't like these things, but I started this blog solely to share and learn ideas., and to meet different people with these same interests. I'm also hoping that my sister/sisters will want to add some of the things that they know because they are much more crafty and organized than I am. ;) hint hint

I am in the process of creating my own blog background and header, but it's taking a while because I am learning everything new and having to read all of these tutorials to understand how to do anything. I'm really excited about learning this though! 

So if you made it through this, I hope you're as excited about these changes as I am!

This is my year!

At the beginning of this year I have the same things on my list that I want to do better at that I have had the past 3 years. The difference is I have a plan this year instead of just saying this is what I want to do.

One, I still have about 10 pounds of baby weight that I would like to lose. My baby is now 1 so I think I've procrastinated long enough. My goal though is not necessarily to lose weight, but to live a healthier life. I've gotten away all of my life eating whatever I want whenever I want without the ill effects of gaining weight. That is now different after having two kids. I am not fond of vegetables, but there are some pretty healthy ones that I will eat, problem is I just don't make myself do it. I like fruit, but don't eat enough of it. I like carbs. Bread, pasta, cake, cookies, etc. Not so good for the losing weight side of things. I'm not going to do anything drastic like go on a no-carb diet, but rather just eating the right things and doing portion control for the other things. I will go through a whole day sometimes and realize I've only eaten cereal and a sandwich because I'm so busy getting my kids breakfast and lunch among everything else that needs to get done during the day. Then at dinnertime I binge, eating until I am stuffed. Then eating something again before I go to bed so I can go to sleep without feeling like I'm starving. That is all going to change this year.

This past week I've made a conscious effort to eat fruits and veggies. I also made myself sit down with my kids to eat lunch instead of trying to get stuff done while they are occupied eating. After a small healthy lunch I got a small glimpse of how much energy I could have during the day because I wasn't dragging by late afternoon before my husband gets home.  (BTW I hate the last hour before my hubby gets home, it drags on forever! Does anyone else ever feel that way?)  

Two, exercise. Obviously this goes along with eating healthy. I'm not one to go to the gym to workout. I almost feel like I have to get in shape before I go workout at the gym so I feel like I fit in and don't pass out in front of everybody. I've found my solution for this as well. Wii Active. This "game" is your personal trainer and has preset workouts with the option of making your own custom workouts. I've never been athletic or into sports or anything so I don't know how to exercise. This tells me what to do and how many reps I should be doing it. And I can do it in the comfort of my own home where my only audience is a 3 1/2 year old who looks even sillier than me doing the exercises. M&M likes to watch and sometimes participate in what I am doing. I also like this because if she sees me exercising everyday she will know that it is an important part of our lives. Caution: Do not do this around children who do not know how to keep out of your way! I thought it was great when both of my kids would just watch me workout so I didn't have to worry about what time of day to workout. There was an incident and I could have seriously hurt my little boy. Don't ask, I already feel like a horrible mother.

Third, coming closer to Christ. I never got into the habit of reading my scriptures everyday growing up, thinking that I could make it a habit later in life when I'm older and have a family of my own. Ha! Little did I know as a teenager that I would be busier now than I was then. As soon as I put Bubba down for his nap the first thing I do is read my scriptures and/or an article in the the Ensign. M&M will sit with me and look at pictures in the Friend  or another magazine. This has been especially good because she will ask questions about what is happening in the pictures and that will lead to more questions because she is a 3 year old and that's what they do. I end up spending a lot of my time telling her stories about the gospel. It's been a special time for us as I realize she's getting older and eager to learn all she can. As I come closer to Christ I know that it will help me be better in all other areas of my life, whether it be being a mother, wife, Young Women leader, friend, etc.

Every once in a while I will post updates for my own sake.

A little R&R

So it´s been awhile since I last posted, but I have good reason...a vacation with my hubby to Mexico for a little rest and relaxation and rejuvenation. I will be back to the blogging world next week sometime to start blogging about the quiet book my mom and I will be making. Also M&M has had a lot of fun making a dollhouse with grandpa this past week. I haven´t seen it yet, but I´m really excited! Be back soon!

Big Changes

So you might notice some changes on my blog. Jennifer over at My Two Happy Homeschoolers did this new look for me and I love it! I love the simplicity of it and the new features like the navigation bar and especially the new header. She came up with this idea. All I told her was that I wanted "something" to change from ordinary into extraordinary. I would have never thought of this. There isn't anything under the craft section yet, but there will be! I'm already planning a ton of craft projects for Hallowen, Autumn, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have to plan now or I'd spend all my time planning and never getting anything done when it gets to close to the actual holiday. There will be crafts for kids and for me to do. Yay! It seems like it takes me months to do something that would just take me a couple of days because of all of the other wife and mother responsibilities that come first. I'm learning how to get and keep organized though which is very helpful in all aspects of my life.

My thoughts on school

It seemed as if I was the only one in the bloggy world that I knew of that was deciding NOT to homeschool my children. I have since found those that aren't as well. Ever since starting this blog and reading others, I have given homeschool more thought. Even after doing this though it does not feel right for me to homeschool. The thing is I still have 2 years until M&M is old enough to go to Kindergarten. But I do have her in two preschools right now for a total of 3 mornings a week. One of them is at a local church 1 day a week where she knows no one. The other is at somebody's home that I go to church with where she is with kids that she knows from nursery class on Sunday.

With this decision in mind I am still going to evaluate our situation again and again to make sure I am doing the right thing. It is nice to know that I have an alternative if things go really sour in school. (or I don't like the school schedule in the district we are in like where we are now. They have elementary kids starting school at 8:00 a.m. and high school kids starting at 9. The high school kids don't get out until like 4:00 in the afternoon. I think this is ludicris. Is this normal for across the country now or is it just where we live? Where I grew up elementary started at 9 and high school started at 8. In high school we got out at 2:30 p.m. Enough time to do extracurricular activities and still be home to help make dinner or whatever.) Sorry a little tangent there, I could go on with that, but I won't.

I know the reasons that some people homeschool or don't have to do with religious, social and even personal reasons. I know of some people that really like to have their kids home. But I don't believe I love my child any less because I am sending her off to school. I do worry sometimes about the things my children will encounter and learn about in school, but I know that if I teach them correct princples at home that they will be a shining light in the midst of darkness and evil that surrounds them in the world.

I used to be one of those that thought people that were homeschooled were socially awkward, and all of that stigma. But that's what happens when we are young and we don't have all the information for both sides of a situation. I will say though that two of my best friends (sisters) were homeschooled and they are A LOT more social then me, during school years and in college. I am a very reserved person.

I do have to mention some of the things that intrigue me about homeschooling. I like the flexibility that goes along with it. I learned somewhere and I think it's true in most cases that you can get more done in a shorter amount of time because of the one-on-one attention that children get. You don't have to worry about kids missing school if there is a family emergency or you want to take a trip during off-peak seasons.

I think I have found a new hobby in looking for and implementing new activities for M&M and I to do together in Tot School. I've learned SO much. I'm in the process of putting together a binder of all the activities that I've found so that I can use these ideas for future children like Bubba and any more that come along in later years. I look forward to being home when my kids get home, having a snack ready for them and helping them with their homework or doing an art project with them. This time will be dedicated to them because I will have hopefully had enough time during the day to do anything I need to do for myself or around the house.

So as with everything I write it this is just my opinion and I love that we can all write our own opinions and learn from one another through these blogs.

Our potty-training journey

Well, back in June I did this post and mentioned that we were in the middle of potty-training M&M. Well it's been about two months now and M&M is doing AWESOME!! I am so excited with her progress. As of the last three days she has been in underwear 24/7, even at night, and no accidents!

I first started thinking about potty-training last summer when I was pregnant with Bubba. I had three goals for M&M being: 1)getting her totally off of her binky/pacifier (at 18 months she only got it at night and for naps) 2) get her in a big-girl bed, and 3) potty-train. Even though I wanted to do all of them right then, I knew that wasn't feasible so I started with the binky. Surprisingly one day I told her she was a big girl and didn't need it anymore, she agreed and threw it away herself. Whew! That was easy. Then I waited for a while to get her into a bed because I was enoying being able to put her in her crib for naps so that I could take a nap during the day being very pregnant and tired. We had a twin bed that we put into her room and let her choose where she wanted to sleep. After one night on the bed she chose the crib. I think it made her feel safe. My mom suggested getting a toddler bed so we did. This worked. My mom really helped in this transition while she was here prior to my having the baby in December.

Sorry, got side-tracked, onto potty-training. People had told me to wait until after the baby came to potty-train M&M because even if she made progress she would probably regress. I think they would have been right because she DID NOT take the change with Bubba being born very well. It was a horrendous transition, actually, but that's another story. I was also breast-feeding and I didn't want to be potty-training at the same time because there would have been those times that I was feeding Bubba and M&M would need my help to go to the bathroom. So I waited until I had weaned Bubba and she turned 3. That was in June.

I started out just telling her to try throughout the day and eventually had to set a timer for every hour to remind myself because I would forget. I gave her M&M's for a reward and would put a sticker on a chart. When she got a certain amount of stickers on the chart she would get a prize from the prize bag, which I just filled with $1 toys, etc. that I got from Michaels, Target and Walmart. We went to see my family for a week last month and again my mom worked with her a ton and she made a lot of progress. We got to the point where she was pooping in the potty every time so she was just in pull-ups for a few weeks. I don't really know how we got from that point to now because I really didn't have to do much. She just took charge and said she wanted to wear big girl underwear. Of course we had accidents and messes, luckily no poopy messes though! I think that's all part of it because she needed to realize what would happen if she didn't go on the potty. In the last week or so she has been going all by herself without even telling me. For a while public bathrooms were a problem, but she got over that too.

All I can say now is, HURRAY!!! All of these things that I thought were going to be horrible turned out not to be that bad. I'm glad we waited until she was 3 to do the potty-training because after only two months, it's done! She didn't seem ready before anyways because she is VERY stubborn (she gets that from her dad, hehe) and with Bubba being born it would have been too much for her to handle all at once.

So, there's our journey. I figured if I said something about M&M being potty-trained I might have some questions about how I did it, so I decided to just do a whole post about it.

As for the memes that I posted about earlier, they won't be happening this week because I came down with the flu this past weekend and didn't do squat for three days. We started the letter P for Tot school last week, didn't get everything done so we will continue on this week. I have a lot of fun things planned!

My plans

So this is my 50th post. Not a real big milestone, but it has me thinking about where I want this blog to go. Most of my blog thus far has centered on Tot School, recipes and Picnic table talk. So far this has kept me pretty busy. I have had a lot of goals in mind as I look at other amazing blogs. Some of these being:

• Learn how to design my own layout or have someone make it for me
  
• Learn how to make a button or have someone make it for me
  
• Host a meme/carnival (are those the same things? I'm still learning a lot)
• Host a Giveaway
• Win a giveaway
• Someone will want me to review their products and get my expert motherly opinion. haha.

These are on the back burner right now though as I have more important things in mind. And I realize that some of these are out of my control. These are things that might take years to accomplish, but it's always good to have goals.

There are things that I hope to achieve in the near future. I'm trying to add more things to this blog without adding more work on myself, per se. There are things that I need to add to my life to help my days/life go more smoothly anyway. I want to incorporate these things into my blog in order to motivate myself in doing them. I've just recently added weekly menu planning to my repertoire so I am thinking about doing Menu Plan Monday at orgjunkie.com.



Another meme I want to join up with is Tackle It Tuesday.

I have so many areas of my house and life that need attention and I have the organizing bug biting me. We moved into a newly built home a year ago and even though we were able to spread out from a 900 sq. ft. apartment to a 2400 sq. ft. house things don't all have their own place. I need more containers, shelves, and time to deal with it. I also need to set aside a certain time to do it. Tuesday works out great for me because at the end of the month M&M starts back up with the Mother's Day Out program. I have 5 hours to get things done. Hopefully I will use that time at home and not just out shopping like I have been doing the past few Tuesdays. I can't help myself when a new Target just opened up right down the street! hehe.

Anywho, I also want to start with Muffin Tin Monday.
This I will hopefully use as a tool to get M&M, and myself for that matter, to eat better lunches and to entice her to eat new things by putting them in a muffin tin!

I think it would be fun to come up with my own meme/carnival, but it seems like anything I could think of has already been done. These are my thoughts for now. I may come up with some new ones as well, but for now these will do.

One other thing that I would like to incorporate into my blog is another one of my loves....photography and photo editing. I would love to showcase some of my favorite pictures that I have taken over the years because I just have them stored up on my computer doing nothing. Mmmm.....maybe that would make a good meme....

My First.....and second award.

Mouse Learns, Mouse Grows has given me my first and second awards. The first one is the Lovely Blog Award where I have to pass it on to 15 newly discovered blogs that I enjoy reading.

The second award comes from Mouse Learns, Mouse Grows as well. This blog requires me to tell ten things about me that readers might not know. Since I don't divulge much information about myself on here this should be pretty easy. Then I have to send it on to 10 other blogs. I am going to simplify matters like the blog I got this from and send it on to the same blogs.


So here's ten things about me:

1. My name is Sheena. My mom got the name from the singer, Sheena Easton.

2. I do not like hot humid weather, but that is what I am stuck in right now!

3. I am 25 years old.

4. I LOVE to travel.

5. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, i.e. a Mormon.

6. I was born and raised in Utah, but my husband brought me back to his home state because of a great job opportunity. (I miss my family, sniff sniff.) But I love it here as well.

7. I got my associates degree, started on my bachelor's at a different school and then met my husband. Got married, got pregnant, dropped out of school because of sickness and I only have 9 more classes to take to graduate. I wish I could have finished, but I might still do it.

8. I feel like I am a creative/crafty person, but just lack the time and energy to sew, paint, or make anything. I hope to soon change that because I have found it is a great outlet for me and I love all of the fun things I am finding on blogs to make.

9. I played the piano when I was a kid, stopped playing it as a teenager and now I wish we had a piano so I could play again. I'm hoping we will get one here pretty soon so that I can bring more music into our home.

10. My newfound favorite color is red.

There ya go. Now you know a little bit more about me than you did before if you even bothered to read this far down. :)

I am passing these awards along to:

Izzie, Mac, and Me

My Two Happy Homeschoolers

Taking Off My Shoes

Spinners End Nursery School

Tot School

Teach Mama

The Work of Childhood

Teaching Heart Mom

Live Learn Love

Frugal Family Fun Blog

Funny Days with Mommy and Maddie

Life of a Dairy Queen

Chocolate on my Cranium

One Crafty Mumma

Bubba's new trick

Bubba (my six month old) is army crawling already! I did not think it was going to happen so soon. We have to totally baby proof our house again. M&M didn't start crawling this soon so it kind of just snuck up on me. He's even trying to get up on his knees. He's bound and determined to keep up with his sister. We have tile in most of the house so I don't know if he's gonna want to crawl on that though. He did this just in time to show grandma this weekend.

It's so different with him. With M&M I wanted her to grow up fast so that we could do fun stuff together. With Bubba I want him to stay my sweet, smiley baby forever! I'm excited and sad at the same time because he's growing up too fast.

Any babyproofing advice? It's been a while and we are in a different house than when M&M was a baby.

Picnic Table Talk - Dads

This weeks picnic table talk is all about dads and what we did for Father's Day. Well I'm ashamed to admit that we didn't do much for M&M's dad. M&M made him a card with markers and stickers which he loved because she wrote her name on it and that's the first he's seen her writing.

The Friday before Father's Day my hubby decided he wanted to take M&M golfing for the first time. He took her out on search of a real small golf club. He went to one store and didn't have any luck and he was ready to give up. M&M persisted and said, "Let's go to another store." They went to a specialty store for golf and found one. It was only $5 so he wanted to get her another one. He found a putter, but it was too big so they told him they could cut it down and put a new grip on it so that's what they did. They went to the driving range and had a fun time spending quality time together.

Sundays are nap days for us and if the kids wake up early my husband is the one that usually gets up with them and lets me sleep some more. On Father's Day I let him sleep and I think he appreciated that more than any gift I could have given him. He asked me not to give him any gifts and I know that when he says stuff like that he means it. So even though it was some pretty simple stuff that is how we honored our daddy/hubby on Father's Day.

The times we live in...

Before starting this blog I knew I didn't want to put my children's names on here or any other identifying information. I also try not to take pictures of their faces. Because of what I read here I have gone through and taken out several photos that still reveal too much of M&M's face. This blog and another blog had pictures taken from them and posted on another website without their knowledge. As much as I like showing off my adorable children I will resist and only take pictures of M&M's hands doing her activities. That will be hard as she will put her face near anything I am taking a picture of. For those of you who don't know me personally: If you have noticed anything that I have revealed about where I live or anything of that sort please inform me of it so that I can delete it. I don't have near as many followers or readers as the blogs that had photos taken from them, but I am going to be overly cautious about this. Our family had a family reunion a couple of years ago at a certain vacation cabin. Just recently one of our family members has found pictures of our reunion at the cabin on this cabin's blog. They were taken from their personal blog. They had no idea and are trying to get them removed.

While we are on this subject I would like to address the issue of copyrights as well. I've made it a priority to make sure I give credit to those that I have gotten ideas from. I try to link back to their blogs and websites as much as possible. If there is anything that anyone has noticed on my blog that would violate any copyright laws please let me know.

I would ask a few favors of my readers. Would you please leave a comment on this post so that my mind can be put at ease about who is reading my blog? Anything will do, even a simple hello. (There is an exception for those of you that I know personally. Please do not leave a comment as that leaves a link to your own blog, etc.)

And lastly if you get an idea from my blog and post it on your blog please leave a link back to my post as a courtesy that I would really appreciate.

I really hate to write all this, but find it necessary if I am going to continue this blog the way it is. I hate that we have to worry about those out there that do stupid things to hurt others.

Thank you to those that read and follow this blog. It means a lot that people would want to read my ramblings about my everyday life. I'm just your average mother trying to improve the life of her children so that they can somehow make a difference to the world or someone else's life for the better when they grow up.

Hopefully this is the first and last of this kind of post.

Why is it.....

....that we can buy all sorts of toys and games for our children like these:

and they won't play with them but one minute?


But give them two cups, water and ice and they will stay busy for quite a while?
It's the simple things in life I guess. This also kept her cool with the 95+ degrees we've been having around here. Summer came with a bang! You'll have to excuse the no pants in this picture. We are in the middle of potty training right now. (It's going pretty well, I'm really excited about the thought of not having two kids in diapers!)

Perfectionism

As I was commenting on another person's blog I thought about something that I wanted to write about on here. Growing up I was a perfectionist. If I did something it had to be done right. Schoolwork and painting were some of the few things I really took seriously. This perfectionistic attitude still lingers although I have become more lenient to keep my sanity. My confession is that I have such a hard time watching M&M doing a craft or coloring and especially painting. I have to physically keep my hands behind my back so that I don't interfere with her learning process. We still clash with this sometimes because I don't want a big mess in my house, although my house is always messy anyway. *sigh*

When M&M tries to do something and she is unsuccessful she gets very frustrated and wants to quit. I can see myself in her; if I can't do something right then don't do it at all. I'm trying to teach her that she just needs to keep trying and she will eventually do it. As I've introduced the potty to her she has gotten frustrated that she can't do it every time she sits down on it. I can sense that she might have some perfectionism in her personality, I only hope that I can help her see that everything doesn't have to be perfect earlier in life then when I figured it out.

By the way, I am cracking down on potty training on Monday. I'll finally have a slow and relaxed week so that we can buckle down at home to get this thing done. She's been doing great actually and has even told us she needs to go a few times and will run to the bathroom. Her problem is that she doesn't want to stop what she's doing to go to the bathroom. I'll update about this later on when we have some progress to report.

For those of you who read this post I want to report that I have Bubba totally weaned. I just decided to do it cold turkey. He took it like a champ because he is so easy-going. There was a lot of pain on my part, but that is over now. I know that breastmilk is best for babies, but for the sake of my health at this time I needed to wean him.

Also, M&M went to her first day of "school" as she calls it. I call it FREEDOM! Although the technical term would be "Mother's Day Out" program. It was so wonderful to just have a few hours to get some stuff done at home that I usually can't do during the day with M&M around or at least I got it done a lot faster than I could have. She had a great time and the teacher said she was fabulous. When I dropped her off I stayed in the room for a few minutes, but then I gave her a hug and kiss and said I'm going now and she said okay. I'm excited for her to have this experience because she wants to be like her older cousins so bad. When we got home she wanted to do "mommy's school" as well. Her little Dora backpack is her constant companion now and it is always filled with all sorts of things that M&M thinks she will need for school.

Life + Little ones = Chaos

This will be the first of what I will call ramblings or confessions. I just need to be able to write some things down so that I don't go insane. This one will definitely fall under confession.

Right now my house is a disaster, my 3 year old is watching Caillou and my 5 month old is sitting quietly in his swing for the most part. Every once in a while he will make some noise, like, "I'm still here, remember me?" He is my angel baby, and one of the things that is keeping me sane right now.

So I felt bad for Bubba and decided to go put him in bed for a nap.

As I was saying, my house is a disaster. I can't seem to keep up with it. I asked my husband to help me clean last week saying, once I get it all clean I just need to maintain it. HA! The weekend happened and it is a mess again. We went to the lake yesterday so all of that junk (i.e. towels, swimsuits, beach toys, half eaten snacks) is strewn everywhere.

My 3 year old is attention-starved so she has to be everywhere I am and most definitely won't go play by herself for at least 15 minutes. I believe this has stemmed from the time that Bubba was born and M&M has realized that he's here to stay and she won't get all of my attention all of the time anymore. I have been trying to give her all the attention I can though. That is why I started Tot School; to give her one-on-one time with just me, doing fun projects and enjoying time together. So far I haven't seen any difference.

Two weeks from now she will start a Mother's Day Out program once a week and I'm concerned about what is going to happen when I have to leave her somewhere that she is not familiar with. I'm doing this because I think that this will ultimately prove helpful for both of us, but it's going to be very hard to begin. In the fall she will do preschool two days a week, but that will be with people she is more familiar with. The thing is, I don't plan on homeschooling M&M. I think mother's that do are AMAZING, but it's just not in my plans. Putting her in a MDO program is just the first step to transitioning her into a school atmosphere.

Don't get me wrong about M&M. She is the sweetest, cutest, most animated little girl that I know and I wouldn't change anything about her. She is very active and has lots of energy. I just need to figure out how to channel that energy into something good.

My problem is that I can't seem to do anything else until my house is clean, but I can't get my house clean because I have two kids to take care of and that need my constant attention. (I know, some of you that read this have more than two and can handle it just fine.) It's a constant cycle. I need to learn to dismiss the dirty house for a while so that I can enjoy doing the other stuff. *Sigh*

On top of all of this I REALLY need to potty train M&M because she's ready now. Also I need to wean Bubba because it's affecting my diet and I can't take the allergy medication that I need.

Well, I hesitate in posting this because it is so personal and real to me, but I know I like reading the blogs where I can identify with the person and what they are going through. Hopefully I'm not the only one going through these same problems. The whole premise of this blog is to learn how to be a better wife, mother and person. The first step to becoming better is identifying what needs to be changed, right? There you have it.

Haha. As I reread this I realized it is very random and sporadic. But I guess that is just who I am and the way my thoughts are going right now as I try to make sense of life as I know it.

Blog redesign

I've had a lot of fun "decorating" my blog. I went through a lot of sites that offer free templates/backgrounds and found one I really like on The Cutest Blog on the Block. I had also seen all of those 3 column blogs out there and thought that would be great for organizing all of the things that I wanted to put on the sidebars without having one big long strip on just one side. I had gone through thinking about having someone I know do a custom site for me, but I knew that if I looked hard enough I could find a way to do it by myself. I found a great tutorial on how to do it on a certain website, but I can't find it now. I feel really bad because I can't give credit where credit is due. I did find the exact same instructions on The Cutest Blog on the Block though for those that are interested. It's really pretty simple. If I can do it, then anybody can do it. I'm going to look into how to change fonts as well.

I got my "Lead me, guide me, walk beside me" and "I belong" buttons from One Cute Blog and "My Families are Forever" blinkie from The Cutest Blog on the Block as well. I didn't use anything from Simply Fabulous Blogger, but it has some really cute backgrounds as well. If you are looking for a change or want to upgrade your blog check these sites out.

I feel empowered that I can do some of this stuff on the computer and find that it is very fun and rewarding. I think that if I could do school over again I would have enjoyed taking some classes on graphic design. Even though I am done with school I can still continue my education through the internet, books, community classes, etc. I am grateful for all of those out there that are willing to share what they know.

The Concept

The concept for this blog came while I was searching online for ideas of how to keep my three year old busy and having fun during the day while teaching her the basics, like the alphabet, numbers, shapes and colors. While she knows these things pretty well now, I still need to keep her busy. I came across blogs that other women have done about how they teach their children and the fun ways they do it. Even though I've wanted to do this since October of last year, being pregnant and then having a baby has really fouled up my plans. I feel like I am in a position where I can really begin to do what I want in a more structured and organized way. I have been gathering ideas and supplies since January and have been trying to get them all organized. Although I don't have everything exactly how I want it, I feel like I just need to start to do something.

What I envision for this blog is my documenting of the things that I do with my daughter on a daily basis during our Tot School. More than that though, is how I will accomplish the title of this blog...Turning ordinary into extraordinary.

My major in college was Home and Family Living. One of the main things that stood out to me in my classes was how to turn everyday, monotonous activities of taking care of the home and family into joyful experiences that we can treasure and remember forever. I want to take the activities of feeding, clothing, cleaning, etc. to the next level. I am at the point in my life where I am just starting to learn and begin to understand how to effectively run a home. This blog will follow me on my journey step-by-step as I try to better my own home through experimenting with new ideas from teaching my children to trying out new recipes.