Day 17: Go on a date and Day 18: Work on home management binder

I have a confession to make.  I still love spending time with my husband.  I hope that all of you who read this feel like that's not something worth confessing because you feel the same way.  And that's the way it should be.

I love spending time with Brad.  When he's at work, I miss him.  If we have several days in a row where we're so busy that we don't get much time just the two of us I start to get crabby.  When I have an opportunity to go away for a weekend with friends I always almost say no because I know I will miss Brad.  In a perfect world, Brad would not have to go to work ever.  I would much prefer he stay home with us every day.

But we don't live in a perfect world.  The world we live in is one in which our five-month-old son won't take a bottle.  And cries if Mommy's not putting him to bed.  In our world, we have an almost two-year-old who we love reading bedtime stories to.  In our world, Brad works every third weekend.  And anywhere from two to five nights a week.  It can be really hard to carve out time just the two of us.

But we know how important it is that we make time for just us.  Yes, we're Mommy and Daddy, but we're also Husband and Wife.  And we need to continue to nurture that relationship.  So we are firm believers in a regular date night.  But it's not something we've practiced very well since Judah was born.  So, we decided to get creative this month and go on a date that worked for us. 

We stayed in one night.  After the boys went to bed, we used a cheater from the Daniel Fast and ordered pizza.  Yep, at 9:00 at night.  We were going to get a movie, too, but we knew one of us (*cough, Brad, cough*) would fall asleep during it.  So, instead we watched a show on NetFlix and just hung out the two of us.  It was perfect.  And very much needed.  Sure, we'd love to be able to go out on a date and do something fun like we used to, but we're going to make the most of the situation we're in.  And this month that meant pizza and TV after bedtime!

Day 18 my task was to work on the home management binder.  Basically, I added more information to the papers I had already printed and I hole punched the papers to put them in the binder.  I already had page dividers so I just had to label them.  I also want to make a nice cover, but I haven't been able to do that yet.  There's still more to do, but it's coming along and I think it will be ready to use come November.  As we use it, we will discover more of what we need and how to make it really work for us.  I'm actually super excited about it!

Day 15: Clean out the closets and Day 16: Pick life verse for the boys and display

Day 15 the task was to clean out the closets.  This is something that has kind of been done along with other tasks.  But the focus this time was on the closets.  I cleaned out the coat closet downstairs and got rid of all our extra hats and gloves.  I have no idea how we got so many!  I also went through each of our bedroom closets.  The one thing that I got rid of that was really hard was my collection of Piglets.  I've been collecting Piglets since I was in high school.  I can't remember for sure who got me my first one, but I've gotten Piglets from Brad, friends, even people that I used to baby sit for.  When I was younger I thought I was going to have a Classic Pooh nursery for my baby and the Piglets would go in the nursery.  Now that we have children, I've chosen a less theme-y nursery and the Piglets have just been sitting in the closet.  I finally decided that it was time to get rid of them.  I'm not a big fan of stuffed animals so I figured it was time to stop holding on to them. 

Day 16 Brad and I chose Bible verses for each of our boys.  It was not hard because we had already chosen verses for the boys when we named them.  We chose verses to pray over the boys regularly.  Verses that reflect what we hope for them.  The plan is to display them in their rooms eventually, but I have yet to find exactly how I want to do that.  So, in the mean time, we are tracing their hands and writing the verse on them to keep in our Bibles.  Micah's verse is Micah 6:8 "And what does the Lord require of you?  To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."  Judah's verse is Genesis 29:35 "This time I will praise the Lord."  It is our prayer that the boys will always hold these verses close to their hearts and that their lives will reflect them.

Day 13: Go through scrapbook supplies and Day 14: Clean out bathroom supplies

It's been a busy week.  We have Micah's birthday party tomorrow and with limited time on the computer, I just haven't gotten around to blogging this week.  But I'm back and I will do my best to catch up in the next couple of days.

Day 13 our activity was to go through my scrapbook supplies.  It is so easy to acquire a lot of scrapbook paper and embellishments.  Any time I go to Archiver's I want to buy all kinds of things!  It's hard to resist the adorable paper and stickers to go along with it!  In the past, I had a habit of just buying what looked cute and figuring out how to use it later.  That has left me with a lot of adorable paper that I just don't know what to do with (but I WILL use it someday...honest).  Now, I do my scrapbooking at the store.  I only buy what I will use right then.  It has worked out great!  Sure, I miss out on a lot of cute paper and embellishments, but it also means that I'm not wasting money on things I won't actually use.  And, most of my stuff is girly, but I have boys so most of my scrapbooking time lately has been spent with boy stuff.  So, now that I've changed the way that I scrapbook it's really time that I go through what I have and get rid of the things that I know I just won't use.

But I have to be honest, I haven't actually done this yet.  I had every intention but Brad was working and Judah wasn't cooperating and then I just forgot about it.  So, it will get done, it just hasn't been done yet.

Day 14 was to clean out the bathroom supplies.  Brad and I are so lucky to have two full bathrooms.  And I try to coupon so when I find a good deal on toiletries I stock up.  Most of our extra bathroom supplies are stored in our downstairs bathroom.  As well as other "cosmetic" products, such as sunscreen, bug spray, etc.  Our basket of supplies was just getting ridiculous, so I went through it and got rid of a bunch of almost empty shampoo bottles (Brad doesn't use conditioner so he can finish off my shampoo bottles when my conditioner runs out first) and old lotion that I will never use.  I actually put together a little bag of items to give to GoodWill.  Perfectly good items that just aren't my taste but I was holding on to anyway (why?!).  And now the bathroom looks a lot less cluttered.  Love it!

Day 11: Update Debt/Review Budget and Day 12: Finish a Project

I've written about our financial plan before.  Part of our plan is to update our debt on a regular basis.  Brad and I both have several student loans and it's always encouraging to look at it again and see how much we've paid down.  We've made significant gains in the past two years and I'm super excited to see it continue to go down!

Today was our "finish a project" day.  Brad's project was to tighten the bathroom fixtures.  Several of the fixtures in our upstairs bathroom have come loose and Brad's needed to tighten them for some time.  So, he finally did! 

My project was to create cards for all different occasions.  I've wanted to make cards for a while.  It's nice to have cards on hand so that when the occasion arises I don't have to go to the store to buy one.  Plus, it's a good use of my scrapbook supplies. :) 

Day 10: Sort through CDs

I know, I know, I'm living in the stone age.  We still have CDs.  Honestly, we rarely listen to CDs, but I can't stand to get rid of them.  Besides, we have a CD player in the kitchen that we listen to, which is much easier than plugging in the iPod.

Our CDs are kept in the toy room closet and they've outgrown their holder.  So, the logical solution is to go through them and get rid of the CDs that we don't listen to and probably only bought for one song.  We're not getting rid of that many CDs, but every little bit helps.

And that's just a little bit less clutter.

So, what CDs won't you part with?  For me, I have almost every Steven Curtis Chapman CD.  He's my all-time favorite and I will not part with those CD!

Day 8 and 9: Clean out the kids' wardrobes

Cleaning out Micah and Judah's closets is so much more fun than cleaning out my own.  I love looking through their clothes.  I get rid of much less clothes, but that's because they're still in good condition and if we have another boy he most definitely will wear them (and since my boys are six months apart I have both summer and winter clothes in just about every size).  So, this was more about putting away the warm weather clothes and taking inventory of what cool weather clothes they have.

Judah has just moved out of size 3-6 month clothes and is moving into 6-9/6-12 month clothes.  So, I had to do a complete overhaul of his wardrobe.  I love when it's time to switch clothes (actually, I hate it because it means my little boy is getting bigger!) because it's like buying all kinds of new clothes without spending the money.  Surprisingly, there were a good amount of winter clothes for Judah.  And since I put my boys in short sleeves all year long (with long sleeves underneath when its' really cold) he has a lot of tops.  Plus, I kind of forgot that I had already bought him a few new things.  Just because he's the second born doesn't mean he shouldn't get any new clothes!  In the end, I am only donating a handful of his clothes.  Just a few items that I honestly don't care for that much and, thus, rarely put him in. 

Micah is currently between a size 18-24 month and 2T.  It's hard to say because he really fits both.  So, I mainly pulled out all of his shorts and obviously summer outfits.  Fortunately, Micah wears a lot of T-shirts that are good all year long.  However, I did discover that he is seriously lacking in the pants and pajamas department.  Guess that means Mama's gotta go shopping! 

I already explained why we're doing this task this month when we sorted through my and Brad's wardrobes.  I will be honest, my boys have more clothes than most.  It's hard for me to pass up a good deal.  And my boys are so cute that when I find a shirt that puts it perfectly (such as "Certified Hunk") I just have to buy it.  So, I guess this task has made me a little more aware of what my boys have.  And it serves as a good reminder that it's okay to pass on the adorable shirt at the store that lets the whole wold know "This is what handsome looks like."

I mean, they don't need a shirt to tell you that, right?

Day 6: Use Gift Cards and Day 7:Finish a Project

Am I the only one who has a pile of about 15 gift cards?  Some of them have only a couple dollars on them and others still their full amount.  I honestly don't know how I've accumulated so many gift cards.  I try to keep track of what I have and use them when I can, but seriously, I probably have a pile two inches thick in my walled of gift cards.

Not only are they taking up space but they're like wasted money.  I'm like most normal people from the 21st century and I love getting gift cards, but not using them is like throwing money down the toilet.  I'm sure the wonderful people who have given me these gift cards (don't worry, it wasn't any of you!) would not like to know that I still have them.  That's why we've decided that one of our goals is to use as many of our gift cards as possible.  We're trying to be intentional about using them.  So, on Saturday we went out to dinner with Brad's mom.  We picked a restaurant that we had a gift card for and even though she was treating we insisted on first using the gift card. 

Phew!  One down, 408 million to go. 

Now I'm looking forward to doing some shopping. :)

Yesterday's activity was to finish a project.  I know we all have unfinished projects to do around the house.  Or maybe it's a project that hasn't even been started, but you've been meaning to do for forever.  We have a pretty big list of projects like that.  So, we decided that each weekend in the month of October we were going to each complete a project.  Brad and I have totally different lists of projects to do so we thought it only fair that we each do one.

My project was to cut out cardboard letters for Micah.  I've been wanting to do a craft with Micah with the letters from his name for a while now, but I've been too lazy to cut them out.  So, I pulled out a box from the basement (saved just for this purpose) and finally cut out the letters.  While I was at it I cut a few rectangular pieces that I'm going to use to make tactile cards for Judah.  Even though that's not technically one of my projects I'm hoping to finish it this week.

Brad's project was to finish our linen closet.  He's still working on that.

When I was pregnant with Micah (yes, you read that right, Micah), we knew we needed some more storage space.  We had previously been keeping our sheets and towels and extra toiletries in the "guest room."  With the impending arrival of our firstborn we would no longer be able to do that--we now needed room for cute little baby clothes.  So, Brad asked his dad to help him build a linen closet.  And I loved him even more.

It's been great having somewhere to keep all of our linens.  Seriously, you never knew you could be so happy about a closet.  But Brad's dad left him with two steps left to finish the closet: 1)Spackle and 2)Paint. 

Doesn't seem hard, right?  Brad tells me it isn't.  Well, my firstborn is going to be two this month and Brad had yet to spackle or paint.  But yesterday he spackled.  And as I type he is upstairs painting.  He tells me it's going to need another coat...or something.  I'm not sure how long it will be until that actually happens, but at least after tonight when people see our closet they won't ask us if we just put it in. 

Progress, people.  Progress!