A day of work and fun

Monday I made bread AND dinner (lasagna and homemade breadsticks) and yes I was pretty impressed with myself, but I also left the kitchen a mess.  I love tackling a good cleaning job.  I cleaned that kitchen Tuesday excluding the cupboard doors and mopping the floor, those two jobs are left to Jon and Eme to do when they get home from school, and what a fun little kitchen it becomes.  After it was all done it was time to build towers with Sam.

Where's the kitchen sink?

There's the kitchen sink!

Snow Days

It just keeps snowing and snowing and snowing.

What I'm Loving Now

I must have bad luck or I just have this curse of finding amazing products that I love and then they suddenly disappear off the store shelves and they no longer carry that product and the only way to get them is over the internet and I hate paying for shipping.  So then I get to spend time researching new products to see if they come close to the ones I was using before.

Here are the products I am loving now.  Coconut Oil:  I love this for cooking and for my skin and a lot goes a long way.  It is really dry here in the winter and in the summer and since I have started using this my skin doesn't get dry and itchy anymore and I do put just a little in my hair at night.  This is a keeper and I am pretty darn sure that stores will keep this on their shelves.

Next thing is Yes to Carrots brand facial cream.  I was using a facial cream that had mangos and carrots in it and I loved it, but the Walgreens around here does not carry it anymore and I couldn't find any more discounted ones at Ross.  I had to make the switch to this product and so far so good.  It even has sunblock in it.

Next thing, I found by accident in Winco, which is the Oxyclean Dishwasher Booster.  It works really great for getting and keeping the glasses and other dishes from getting that icky white film in the dishwasher.  Instead of regular dishwashing detergent which costs a fortune I use one teaspoon of Oxygen cleaner with just a little bit of Dawn Dishsoap and put a squirt or two of the Oxyclean booster in the bottom of the dishwasher and the dishes come out really clean.  Which makes me a happy housewife.

The only thing I am not loving at the moment is Carrot Juice.  I know it's good for me but,  I can only take a sip or two before I can't stand it anymore.  I believe this bottle is going to last a long time.  I'm just going to stick to eating real carrots after I'm done with this huge bottle.

Accountability

I've been slowly working on my New Year's resolutions, I just have 2 more lessons to complete for my online class that I have been taking from the free courses section of the BYU website.  It has been on Strengthening Marriage and Family: Practices and principals inspired by the The Family: a Proclamation to the World.  I have loved it.  I can do it at my own pace and it's just a lot of reading with some fun tests mixed in.  I might just start another class after I finish this one.  I have not yet been to bed on time this year and I blame that on Downton Abby.  We had only seen season 1 and now we have been watching season 2 so we will actually know what is going on when we eventually see season 3.  It's a good thing to watch when it is too cold and dark outside and warm and comfortable inside.   I still have not tackled the basement, but that I am waiting on the weather to turn.  On another note, exercise has always been a part of my life.  There have been times where I didn't do anything for awhile because of babies and time constraints, but mostly because I didn't feel like doing any exercise.  But I have started up again and being more consistent.  We have a little CrossFit gym in our garage, and my oh my is it cold in the winter time, but we bundle up and brave the cold for a short workout.  It's a love and hate relationship with the workouts, but I do feel stronger and healthier.  And that's what it's all about, right?

This was taken BEFORE all of the snow fell

Like ice that melts away

It's January and quite cold and quite long, it seems as if January will never be over.  In the next couple of months we should be hearing back from some of the universities that Mr. Jewels has applied to.  I am anxious, curious, and nervous.  The one good thing about January and having to wait for this month to be over is that the sun is shining and the snow is fluffy.  Like the ice that will eventually melt away, I want January to melt away, and soon.
The icicles are really amazing on our home this year, I have never seen them so long and thick. We can barely see out of our kitchen window, it's a wall of ice.  The lower right hand picture is the view from our kitchen window.  Amazing.

36 is where it's at

I am so happy to say Happy Birthday to my sweet, kind and handsome Mr. Jewels.  He really is a wonderful husband to me and a wonderful father to our children.  I love working side by side with him in life, in marriage, and in family.  There is nothing better in life than getting to spend everyday with your best friend.

Less is Best

I've been thinking about my resolutions for this year for a few weeks now and I've decided that my "theme" for 2013 is going to be "Less is Best".  So in my resolve for less, I only have a few resolutions and here they are:

1.  Do the opposite of "less" and get more sleep
2. Finish my online class from BYU
3. conquer a pull-up
4. schedule time to study the gospel.

Now to go right along with my less is best year I have taken a few first steps by getting rid of some Christmas decorations, I now can fit my stuff in the 5 boxes I have labeled for Christmas. Yay.  I took a next step by going through my closet and getting rid of clothes I don't love and have taken the hanger challenge which is to turn all the hangers the opposite way on the rod and whatever hasn't been turned the right way after the season is over gets donated.
I'm actually kind of excited to see the results on this one.  I don't spend a lot of money on clothes, in fact I think my entire closet is full of thrift store finds, hand-me-downs or Old Navy clearance rack items.  So, I don't imagine that having to donate what I don't wear within a few months is going to be that hard and I will enjoy a little extra closet space.
I'm dragging my feet a little on the next step and that is cleaning out the basement. yikes. I might just wait till it gets a little warmer down there.  I can only stand it now just long enough to change a load of laundry.
So here's to a new year, may it be awesome, and filled with the best of less.