Ali Grace (aka Punky)

My sweet Ali.....

Where have the last 8 1/2 months gone....you are the sweetest little thing there ever was. I could smell your crazy addictive smell all day long, and squeeze your chubby little body constantly. There is no way I can get enough of you. You have completely and totally captured your entire family's hearts. Your big brothers are absolutely in love with you. They love to make you giggle and squeal. Your eyes light up and a huge grin covers your face when you spot one of them. It's absolutely precious.

I used to say you were a total momma's girl but you've really got a thing for your daddy now too. You love to 'wrestle' and cuddle with daddy and you just canNOT control yourself when he beat boxes for you. You loooooove to dance and shake your head to daddy's silly songs. Lately:

- you've started to crawl. The funniest part is you never army crawled, never scooted, barely even rolled and one day you just went from a sitting position to all fours and started crawling around the room. You are one of a kind!

- you have one little tooth but can eat like a big girl! You never even ate baby food. I mushed things up for a couple weeks and then switched straight to table food. Some of your favorites are: spaghetti, toast with butter, green beans, and grilled chicken breast. Crazy baby!!

- you are very quiet...hmm, wonder how long that will last? You have daddy's laid back/chill personality. You only talk when YOU feel like talking. Most days you're very quiet and content. But, if you're in a mood, watch out cuz you can yell and chat with the best of 'em.

- you sleep through the night like a champ. It took some crying and working with you but you are SUCH a good little sleeper.

We are having so much fun watching you change every day. God knew what he was doing when he brought a little Miss into this family full of boys. They're all head over heals for you. And I? Well, I can't imagine life without you.....



leaving the hospital



3 weeks old





8 months old

My Job

So lately I've really been struggling with my "job". My job as homemaker/mom/family manager/wife..whatever-you-wanna-call-it. Basically, I think I haven't really ever realized how much I need structure and how much I thrive on the feeling of accomplishment. When I worked outside the home I was very good at my job (not tootin' my own horn here, just being honest). I was "that" girl at work. The one who always had my ducks in a row, always got everything accomplished during my day, was very organized. People relied on me every day and I kinda liked that. I was a manager before I left my job and I had lots of "power" when it came to decision-making and I enjoyed managing my people.

Now, don't get me wrong. I HATED my job...hated it with a capitol H...I dreamed every.single.day about being home with my kids and leaving the corporate world behind. Far, far behind. Leaving my job and deciding to be a full-time mom was THE best decision I've ever made. But, sometimes I feel like in the last 3 years since I've been home full-time I just don't know what to do with myself. I wander around the house trying to figure out what to do next and never feel like I'm even making a dent in all of the gazillion things that need to get done every single day. I want to spend quality time with all 3 kids, I want to play WITH my kids, not just ignore them while they play. I want to take them on fun outings, have play dates with their friends. But, I also want a clean, warm, welcoming home.

I need to do the laundry, keep up with the household chores, clean the bathrooms, cook healthy meals, pay the bills and about a million other things. So, lately I've been trying to figure out a better, more efficient way to get things done and not feel totally and completely overwhelmed all the time. I think this momma is craving some order and structure.

I've decided that if this was a "real" job, ya know...one where I had a boss and got a paycheck and a quarterly review....um, ya...I think I woulda gotten fired about 2 years ago. Now, let me be really clear here. I am NOT for one second saying that there is any way possible to be the perfect stay at home mom. I will never feel like I'm doing enough, I know that. As moms, I think the guilt thing is just innate. I know my house will not always be the cleanest, most orderly on the block and my kids won't be the perfect children. I'll probably always have something that gets left undone at the end of each day (actually probably more than 1 thing, try maybe 10 things), and that's ok. But, I DO want to feel like there is some order to this chaos. I think there's a happy medium.

So, just like lots of us give our kids routines, rules, and chores, I've decided to do something similar for myself. Kind of a guideline for my days. Something that will give me some structure and help me see on paper where I'm going during the day. I have literally broken down my day by 1/2 hour increments and scheduled it out. Obviously, I won't always stick to that by the minute, and that's not the point. It's just a guideline. Then, I came up with Daily, Weekly, and Monthly tasks. Things that absolutely have to be done daily (like wiping down kitchen counters, vacuuming kitchen floor, run dishwasher, sort mail, one load of laundry, workout, etc), then things that can be done weekly (vacuum, dust, clean bathrooms, etc), and things that can be done monthly (dust ceiling fans, clean coffee pot, vacuum blinds, etc) and put it all together and came up with something I could live with.

I've been working with it the last few days and I LOVE IT! Yes, it's kind of anal-retentive and really, that's so not me. But, for some reason this is working for me. I no longer have a day FULL of 10 loads of laundry spilling out of my laundry room making me want run screaming from my house. I've been cleaning the kitchen up after each meal and running the dishwasher when it NEEDS to run instead of having a counter full of dishes with food caked all over them because I was tending to the 10 loads of laundry (that was spilling out of my laundry room). I have been sitting and reading and playing with the boys more because I'm not vacuuming and dusting and changing bed sheets and paying bills and scrubbing toilets and running around in circles all day long. There is order to the chaos and it feels good.

I never thought I would need a black and white piece of paper posted to the side of my fridge to tell me when to put a load of laundry in, and when to wipe down my kitchen counter in order to make me feel like I was doing a better job at this stay-at-home-mom thing. But, it's working for me....for now.

PS - Scott looked at my 'scedule' the other day and goes "holy crap woman, I would NEVER be able to do all that stuff in one day".....PSHHHH....that's right buddy, you wouldn't. That's why I'm the mom!! =)

And we finally have snow! The boys are very excited yet very, very bummed that they can't really go outside and play in it since the high is 12 degrees. Just a bit cold. They certainly don't think so, but I beg to differ.

We had a very fun weekend! Friday night we got together with our Small Group and had our annual Christmas party! It was lots of fun. We always do a White Elephant gift exchange and every year people never cease to amaze me at what they can come up with. Hilarious stuff!

Then Saturday Scott spent the morning in the freezing (but very pretty) falling snow, cutting wood for our fireplace with some friends from work. When he got home we rested for awhile and then got ready for our 2nd Christmas party of the weekend. Saturday night we spent the evening with some more great friends at a super fun Wine and Cheese party. It was filled with tons of laughing, good wine and really super yummy food! Doesn't get much more relaxing than that! The weather was terrible but we braved it anyway! We hardly EVER get out without our kids and it was well, well worth the treacherous drive!!! (for those grandmas who are reading - we were totally fine. we took Scott's truck and never had a problem! ;))

And then yesterday was the boys' Christmas Program at church. It was very cute! I'll upload some pictures soon. Reed never even looked up, he messed with a "Silly Band" the entire time his class was supposed to be singing. I mean seriously, he acted like he had no clue where he was and no idea that there were 100 people watching him. It was quite funny. Drew did good but wasn't exactly thrilled about the whole thing. He quietly sang the songs and sort-of-kind-of did some of the actions. Oh my boys, they're funny!!

I'll leave you with a recent picture of all 3 of them. I think they're pretty cute! ;)
Or NOT! Have I ever told you how much I hate this computer? UGH! Can't a picture to upload. I'll try again later!

Chores

I don't know about you guys but we go back and forth with "chores" in this house just a little too much! We assign the boys chores and then we forget they have chores....we tell them they're going to get a quarter at the end of the week for doing their chores and then realize a month has gone by and we all (even them) have completely forgotten about them, meanwhile mommy has done everyone's chores FOR them! Well, i think we're finally ready to put a stop to THAT nonsense and start getting more serious about teaching the boys some responsibility while also teaching them some basic concepts about money and how money works!

We just recently started taking the Financial Peace University class by Dave Ramsey. We love it, it's so informative and really, really makes you think totally differently about money, what money means to you, how you treat it, what you do with your money and what you want your future to look like! We've completely changed the way we think about our money and we're really enjoying the classes. So, last night at class he talked a bit about money and children. He talked about how silly giving your child an "allowance" really is. If you're just giving your kid money every week just "because", are they really learning the value of a dollar? how money is earned? that work = money? If you do the work, you get paid....if you don't do the work, you don't get paid...simple as that. That's how our world works and kids might as well learn it as soon as possible! He gave different examples of how he did things with his children and what he believes works well. He calls it "commission" not allowance. They earn a commission based on what work they do. So, we're going to get serious about this. It's nothing fancy or creative, it certainly isn't cute looking, it's very black and white. But, we have a list of chores for Drew (haven't decided if Reed is ready yet) and next to each chore is a dollar amount of how much that chore is worth. If he does the chore, he gets the money (each chore is worth a nickel), he gets a total of $.50 at the end of the week. yes, we're SUPER cheap! haha =) There are also some chores that just don't make that list!! There ARE chores that he is required to do "just because". He won't get paid for them, they are expected of him because he's a part of this family and he loves his mom and dad and should want to help out around the house!!

We'll also have 3 envelopes for Drew. One will say "save", one will say "give", and the last will say "spend". Every once in awhile, once he's earned some money, we'll make him split money up into those 3 envelopes. He'll have his own money to put in the plate at church (or give to a charity), his money to save, and money to go buy TOYS with!! =) He's every excited so far about this new plan....we'll see how long that lasts! We're hoping to really help them understand how money works, what happens when you save your money, how it feels to give your money away to others, and also how to "treat" yourself when you've worked hard for your money!!

We had a pretty packed weekend. A wedding Friday night, a Murder Mystery party Saturday night (which was super fun), and then a bum-around Sunday. Poor Ali is miserable! Her nose is so stuffy she can barely eat or breathe! I think she's just got a bad cold but the poor thing is so congested. Reed has had a cold for a week, I haven't felt the greatest, and Drew did something weird to his neck! He woke up Sunday morning with a stiff neck from sleeping and laid around all day icing and watching tv. Our family is clearly falling apart....=)

I'm pretty sure that by the time I get to the end of these posts, nothing I've said makes much sense.....ah well! ;)