fridays letters & March Goals

Dear Febuary,  I can't believe you are over ALREADY!  Those 2 extra days at the end of the rest of the months make a huge difference
Dear Chris, I'm glad you got home safely from South Carolina last night and I'm glad Baby Bowen didn't decide to make a scene while you were away.
Dear Baby Bowen, You gave me a bit of a "scare" earlier this week.  I was having uncomfortable contractions and wondering if I was going to meet you soon.  I got a bit nervous, you see, because we have no place to put you.  The car seat and cradle were still in the attic.  Those are down now and I have the car seat cover washed and put together.  The cradle sheets are washed, but we do still need to put the cradle together.  I even found some the newborn diapers.  We went ahead and packed a hospital bag too, so I'm feeling a little bit more prepared now.  That being said, as much as I am ready to not be pregnant anymore, your daddy and I would really appreciate you waiting another week.  There are just a few more things we would like to get done.  Thank you.
Dear Aubra, Thank you so much for watching Phoebe yesterday while I went to the doctor!  I can't tell you how amazing it was not to have to entertain a toddler in the waiting room for an hour and then try to keep her from touching everything in the exam room (yuck!).  And I even got to have a conversation with the doctor! (This normally doesn't happen because I have a screaming toddler by the time the doctor actually comes in to see me.
Dear Phoebe, Please stop coughing and feel better soon.
Dear Ambien, You were amazing last night.  It was the first full night of sleep I've had in awhile.  I only have a few of you so I will have to ration you out, but man oh man I feel good today :)
Dear new readers, You make me very happy!  Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you stay awhile.  I really do love all your comments.
Dear Meghan,
I realize that y'all are not doing this "go for the goal" link up anymore.  I promise I will make my own button/logo for next month.  But for now I am going to use yours again.  Thanks.



February Goals
1.  Complete 2011/2012 family photo book AND pre-kids photo book.   Done!  Well I did the 2011/2012 book with My Publisher! And it looks amazing!  We love it!! I was also really impressed with the company!  It was really easy to use (easier than Shutterfly) and in my opinion gave me a superior product.  I have a 50% off coupon that expires March 7th so I might try to finish the pre-kids book in the next week to use that, but we'll see.

2.  I want to try for another DIY project.   I'm thinking liquid hand soap to fill up my mason jar soap dispensers I did it!

3. Get a pregnancy massage Chris gave me a gift certificate groupon/living social deal for a massage for Christmas.  I think it is getting time to redeem that :) I have it scheduled for Saturday, March 9th.  So again, Baby Bowen I need one more week.  I wanted to schedule it on a Saturday so Chris could watch Phoebe and this was the first Saturday that he was in town and I wasn't working!
4. Exercise- walk, walk, walk!   I'm certainly past the point of hard-sweat exercising, but I really do need to get outside and walk or get on the treadmill at the gym and walk at least three times/week. I did well with this goal for the first two weeks and then I had no more extra energy.  I started having trouble sleeping and walking sounded awful.  And then this past week I started contracting more, so I'm trying to take it easy now.
5. Slow down and enjoy more "down-time"! I would say we kinda failed here...  Whoops.  We maybe slowed down a little bit, but because I'm not sleeping as well I'm just exhausted all the time!

March Goals (all pre-baby goals.  I have no goals post-baby)
1. Wash and vacuum cars and vacuum out all the cheerio and cracker crumbs from the car seats.
2. Re-sew the Velcro tabs to my size small cloth diapers for the new baby to use (The cloth diapers I recommend are the bumGenius 4.0 One Size with snaps.  We do have a few size smalls of of the Velcro 3.0s and those are the ones I need to replace)
3.  File taxes
4. Get new tires for my car


Have a great weekend!!  

high five for friday & february goals

1.  The tornado that touched down in Adairsville, GA on Wednesday.  Although this is about 40 miles north of us, it was still a little scary.  I was driving home from an OB appointment listening to the weather when within a span of 5 minutes: my phone started alerting me that I was in an area under a tornado warning and to "take shelter", my husband is texting me telling me to get home as soon as I can because the tornado sirens are going off in Kennesaw, and I then hear the tornado sirens in Marietta.  I just wanted to be home and not on the road.  It was the first time I've ever gone down to the basement during a tornado warning.  We only stayed down there for about 15 or 20 minutes before the "dangerous" part of the storm moved out of our area and they changed it to a severe thunderstorm warning, but it still wasn't very much fun.

2. I made vegetable lasagna on Sunday night and I thought it was pretty good.  We've been eating off of it all week.  Do you like leftovers?  I love leftovers... It means I don't have to cook again.  You be the judge of whether this was healthy or not.  I'm sure all the cheese adds quite a bit of fat, but its more veggies than we would be getting otherwise.  Paired with a salad it is a pretty veggie-heavy meal, and let's be honest most of us don't eat enough vegetables.  This picture really doesn't do it justice.  I adapted the recipe from the Pioneer Woman.  Why do her pictures of food always look so much better than mine?  Anyone have any tips for taking pictures of food?  I've seen some great ones on some of your blogs and of course pinterest...

3.  We switched Knox's dog food back to PurinaOne this week and I am so thankful.  You see we had started giving him Iams and I kid you not he had the WORST gas on that stuff.  This might be more than you wanted to know, but honestly one of us was about to get kicked out of the house because there wasn't enough fresh air for both of us- and it wasn't going to be me...  I love my dog, but I had about had it.  What kind of dog food do you feed your dog?  I know PurinaOne isn't the best dog food out there and a lot of people do feed their dog premium dog food.  But quite frankly I can't afford all-organic food for myself, so why would I feed it to my dog?  My dog is not going to eat better than I do.  I love him, but he is a dog...

4. Speaking of OB appointments, I really don't like them.  Once I start to feel the baby move I find them to be a waste of time and more hassle than they are worth dragging a toddler with you.  Really, I pay $4 for parking (well I don't because I refuse to pay for parking so I park in the hospital parking deck that my badge gets me in and walk 10 minutes up the hill to the doctor's complex) and then wait at least an hour sometimes an hour and a half to see the doctor for 5 minutes.  It is AT LEAST a 2 hour ordeal.  All she really does is listen to the heartbeat, which quite frankly this baby moves enough that I'm pretty sure it still has a heartbeat.  Not that I'm ungrateful for the pregnancy or my doctor (who I really do like) I just dread going to appointments.

 5. Yesterday we met some friends at Catch Air for a play date.  Catch Air is an indoor kid's paradise.  Really.  The floor is completely padded, there are blow-up things to ride, obstacle courses, multiple moon bounces, ball pits, slides, a disco party floor, and more.  Its a blast.

To recap my January Goals- January Goals
1. Take a prenatal vitamin 5 times/week  Done 2. Clean out 2012 files and move into storage.  Shred 2009 files.  Done 3. Get all Christmas decorations cleaned up and put away by this Saturday Did it! 4. DO NOT LEAVE work early today!  It is a holiday and I am getting holiday pay.  I need to stick it out for the whole shift no matter how tempting it is to go home early! It was actually really busy at work so I didn't have the opportunity.   So we'll count this one as a yes! 5. Enjoy more "play-time" with my sweet baby girl and encourage her to play with her baby doll in preparation for the new baby Yes!
6. Do one DIY project this month Nope, didn't do it.  I posted about the DIY Mason Jar soap dispensers, but that was actually a December project...
7. Stick to our grocery budget.  (We'll try this one again) It was perfect!  Literally less than $1 leftover.  I didn't go over though!  And I bought a lot of "bulk" stock items this month that will last several months
8. Complete proof for 2011 family photo book.   Nope.  I'm working on it, but probably not half way done yet.  I actually decided to do a combined 2011/2012 book and then I'm going to do one "pre-kids" book of our adventures between marriage and children.  I figure it will be fun for our family to look back on someday.

February Goals 1.  Complete 2011/2012 family photo book AND pre-kids photo book.   (This is a lofty goal...)
2.  I want to try for another DIY project.   I'm thinking liquid hand soap to fill up my mason jar soap dispensers http://www.thefarmersnest.com/2011/11/liquid-hand-soap-diy.html 3. Get a pregnancy massage Chris gave me a gift certificate groupon/living social deal for a massage for Christmas.  I think it is getting time to redeem that :) 4. Exercise- walk, walk, walk!  I have been pretty good about exercising most of this pregnancy, until this past month!  I hardly did anything in January.  I could make excuse after excuse, but there's really no good one.  I'm certainly past the point of hard-sweat exercising, but I really do need to get outside and walk or get on the treadmill at the gym and walk at least three times/week 5. Slow down and enjoy more "down-time"! It has been a really busy month.  We've tried to pack a lot in- too much really.  I'm tired.  I need a break.  I can't keep up this pace much longer.

What are your goals this month?

Oh and today is my mother-in-law's birthday.  Happy Birthday Margaret!

January Goals

Happy New Year!
New year, new month, new goals! First of all, I will say that writing down monthly goals really has helped me this past month.  Because I wrote them down and knew I would be "held accountable" for my accomplishments (or lack thereof) I was more aware of my actions and working to meet my goals.  Really, these monthly goals are a fabulous idea!  Thanks ladies!

To re-cap my December Goals: 1. Stick to our grocery budget.   Done with money leftover!  Chris was out of town for 10 days and then we also spent 9 days in DE with my parents, so it is a bit of a "cheating" success, but I'll still take it! 2. Don't stress out over packing/traveling for Christmas!   Ok, so I did get really stressed out several days before we were scheduled to leave because of all I wanted to get done, but I did not stress at all about packing or the final couple days before we left.  This is good for me.  I will count it as a success. 3. Eat Sweets and Christmas Cookies in MODERATION.   Umm, didn't do as well as I would have liked, but I guess it could have been worse.  I admit I played the pregnancy card a little too often. 4. Take a prenatal vitamin everyday.   Fail.  But in my defense this was a poorly stated and probably unrealistic goal.  Any goal should be achievable and perfection is a bit much to expect.  I probably averaged about 3 or 4 per week, which is much better than I had been doing.... 5. Get my Christmas cards sent out by Tuesday Dec. 11th. Done!  We got them all addressed Monday night and I dropped them off at the post-office on the 11th! 6. Exercise three days/week Done! 

January Goals 1. Take a prenatal vitamin 5 times/week 2. Clean out 2012 files and move into storage.  Shred 2009 files. 3. Get all Christmas decorations cleaned up and put away by this Saturday 4. DO NOT LEAVE work early today!  It is a holiday and I am getting holiday pay.  I need to stick it out for the whole shift no matter how tempting it is to go home early! 5. Enjoy more "play-time" with my sweet baby girl and encourage her to play with her baby doll in preparation for the new baby 6. Do one DIY project this month 7. Stick to our grocery budget.  (We'll try this one again) 8. Complete proof for 2011 family photo book.   We have all these great pictures on my computer and decided this year that we would make yearly "photo albums" with the highlights of our year and collect them over the years as our family albums.  I need to choose which company and style we are going to go with and get started!  My hope is to finish the layout of the 2011 book this month and the 2012 book in February so I can order them before the new baby is born!
And for the record I do not make New Year's resolutions.   It may work for some people, but I find that  I tend to forget whatever they were after about a month.  I've seen some great ones, but I really don't have any long-term goals right now.  Monthly goals are much more realistic and achievable for me. What are your goals this month?  Or this year??

December Goals

I've been meaning to post and linkup monthly goals now for a couple months, but just haven't gotten around to it.  No good excuses.

So it has been a goal of mine to post December Goals.  Done!  Check!  I'm off to a successful start already!  Man, I feel so accomplished. 1. Stick to our grocery budget.  I don't know why this is so hard for me, but we've I've (I take full responsibility for this one) gone over just about every month this year.   2. Don't stress out over packing/traveling for Christmas!  I don't mind traveling, but I always get really stressed about packing!  So the couple days before we leave on any trip are miserable.  But hopefully not this time! 3. Eat Sweets and Christmas Cookies in MODERATION.  I have a pretty big sweet tooth and very little self-control.  Hence, we do not keep a lot of "goodies" in the house.  But over the holidays with cookie swaps and Christmas parties, it is hard to avoid the fact that sweets are EVERYWHERE.  So although I have no intention of avoidance, I would like to enjoy in healthy moderation. 4. Take a prenatal vitamin everyday.  When I was pregnant with Phoebe I took them religiously every morning.  This pregnancy, I maybe remember twice/week.  But now that I'll be hitting my third trimester this month I really want to make sure I'm getting the DHA in the vitamins for brain development because I know I'm not getting enough in my diet. 5. Get my Christmas cards sent out by Tuesday Dec. 11th.
6. Exercise three days/week What are your goals this month?   I'd love to hear from you!