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Here We Go…

January 3, 2011 in Church Planting, Family, Home, Organization, Paseo with 3 Comments

It’s January 3rd.

We move in 21 days. My to-do list is my constant right now:

1. Sell Washer & Dryer
2. Sell VHS movies
3. Shred unnecessary documents
4. Take Christmas decorations down
5. Move Patio furniture into garage, clean and store
6. Clean outside fridge
7. Pack books into boxes
8. Pack up winter jackets (minus one)
9. Pack up Chance’s 4T clothes for storage
10. Organize garage for truck packing strategy.
11. Disassemble bookshelves & bundle for move
12. Pack up desk contents
13. Pack up Mac
14. Disassemble Jenni’s desk & bundle
15. Take down wall hangings, wrap and pack
16. Patch up walls & match paint.
17. Purchase moving paper & plastic protective wrap
18. Reserve moving truck & trailer for Durango
19. Inventory what gets packed into the Durango
20. Write two newsletter updates for January
21. Clean out closets for Goodwill
22. Organize scrapbooking stuff
23. Sort and pack up least used clothing
24. Pack Brian’s computer
25. Disassemble Brian’s desk & bundle
26. Pack up bathrooms
27. Pack up kid’s toys
28. Pack up linen closet
29. Pack up music
30. Pack up entertainment unit
31. Pack up kitchen
32. Pack a weeks worth of clothing and toiletries in suitcases
33. Recruit moving team to pack up truck
34. Pray while accomplishing every one of these tasks
35. Love on my family
36. Nail down housing in El Paso, Texas

Thank you all for praying. Here’s another list to pray through. I’m pretty good at getting the job done… I already have a good amount of the list crossed off so we’re ahead of the timeline so far.

Anyone in Portland wanna help me with #33?

Under The Sink

January 18, 2010 in Home, Organization with 16 Comments

In my house, the cabinet under the kitchen sink is the most opened and closed cabinet in my whole kitchen.

It’s not where I store my garbage can, but it’s where I keep my recycling, dish cleaning agents, clorox wipes and garbage bags. I have a use for most of these multiple times a day. My messes don’t usually happen overnight.

This morning, I finally realized it was time to re-organize this cabinet.

BEFORE:

I know! It was crazy looking. Over time, we just ended up tossing our bags in there after grocery shopping because we were in a hurry to put stuff away and tend to the kids. We keep the bags though. We reuse the plastic ones for those stinky diapers and reuse the paper ones for our recycling.

Anyway… I put some order to our chaos.

AFTER:

Everything in it’s place… just as I’m sure God intended from the beginning of time.

There’s so much more storage space behind this stuff now for my “not-so-toddler-friendly” household cleaners.

Ok… your turn.
What’s the cabinet under YOUR kitchen sink look like?

Re-Arranging

September 21, 2009 in Family, Home, Organization with 8 Comments

Brian and I had decided to re-arrange our living room and office a while back.

We finally got it done today in less than two hours.

Here’s the BEFORE:

And now… the AFTER:

We just swapped the rooms. Before, when you came in the house, the first thing you saw was our home office. Not all that welcoming. Now, the first thing you see when you come in is the living room… comfort. HOME.

It’s just a little change for us. A small change… but it was change we decided on together. Every little thing like this feels good now… because Brian and I are doing it TOGETHER.

Sometimes you just gotta re-arrange stuff to make it YOURS.

Chance’s 4th Birthday Party

August 31, 2009 in Chance, Family, Food and Drink, Friends, Motherhood, Organization with 6 Comments

We celebrated Chance’s 4th Birthday on Saturday.

Stephanie Baker helped me plan the WHOLE event. We thought up the Safari theme and ran with it. She even translated all the kids games into “Safari/Animal” games. She and Zena TOTALLY helped facilitate all the kid stuff so I could focus on the food, cake, photos, parents portion of it. They helped make it SO fun for the kids that they didn’t even notice the bi-polar weather (in the 2 hrs we were at the park, it was sunny, it rained, was sunny hot again, and then rainy again as we were cleaning up). Chance had a BLAST!!! I am SO thankful for these girls!

Here are some photos I took from that day.

These are the vegan cupcakes we (Crystal and I) made. A couple of Chance’s friends have some allergies so we thought we’d make it more friendly to everyone. Well… the frosting wasn’t vegan, but it didn’t have anything they were allergic to in it, so we were good. They were actually quite good!!!

We wanted to conserve a bit, so we got these cute cups they could use AT the party as well as hold all their party favors to take home. Of course, I had to write their names on the cups… swine flu and all, right?

The skies… threatening to rain on our safari… THEN actually raining on it for a few minutes.

The kids lining up in prep to attack Stephanie with their water balloons. This was Chance’s FAVORITE game.

Janet and Paxton… REAL FRIENDS come to 4 year old birthday parties… even if they don’t have 4 year olds. Man, I LOVE this woman! Isn’t she beautiful?

Blowing out the candle. I think I forgot to tell him to make a wish. I’ll make it up tomorrow… for his REAL birthday!

Chance has been waiting for this ALL year!

I’ve decided that kid’s parties are EXHAUSTING!!! But it was really fun being creative on how to make this event memorable for Chance, yet cost effective. We spent a fraction of what we spent last year… and I think it was more fun for the kids. That’s success!

Thank you to all the grown ups that hung in there with us during the sunny, now raining, now sunny, now STORMING weather! You really helped make Chance’s day.

What have YOU done for your kids’ parties?
OR
What was your favorite party memory as a kid?

I’m taking notes here!!!

—————————–

UPDATE: Cupcake Recipe as requested:

Fluffy White Cupcakes: makes 22 cupcakes

1 TB apple cider vinegar
1 ½ scant cups plain soymilk
2 1/8 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. kosher salt
1 1/8 cups sugar
½ cup oil
1 ¼ tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. coconut extract

Preheat the oven to 350º. Spray 22 muffin cups with nonstick spray or line with paper cupcake liners (I like to spray the inside of the muffin papers with nonstick spray to help the cupcakes release). Set aside.

Place the apple cider vinegar in the bottom of a liquid measuring cup and fill the cup with soymilk to equal 1 ½ cups. Stir well and set aside (the mixture will curdle).

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another mixing bowl whisk together the soymilk mixture, canola oil, vanilla, and coconut extract. Add the wet to the dry ingredients and beat until smooth using a hand-held mixer, stopping once to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Fill each muffin cup with ¼ cup of batter. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean.

Let cool in the pans for 5 minutes, then remove cupcakes from the pan and place on a wire rack. Let the cupcakes cool completely before frosting.

Our New Home

July 21, 2009 in Family, Home, Motherhood, Organization with 3 Comments

Finally… I took pictures of our new home. Here’s your virtual tour. Welcome to our home!

The house is at the end of a cul-de-sac. Perfect for our kiddos:

What you see when you first open the front door. We made the “dining room” into our home office. Paxton is a nice decoration in the photo… it’s like “Where’s Waldo”:

When you walk into the office and turn 180* to your right, you see the “formal living room”:

But if you walk straight back, you enter into our kitchen and family room:

Chance was jumping all over the couch when I took that last picture. Seriously… not only are you getting a tour of my home, but you’re seeing my family life too! Hahaha!

Ok… moving upstairs… Master Bedroom:

Chance’s room (with the new quilt I got from Laura just yesterday. You gotta love hand-me-downs):

Paxton’s room:

Guest room (it’s pretty much the flip-flop of Chance’s room, but we haven’t painted it yet) where all our AWESOME guests stay:

And there you have it.

Come visit us soon

Chance & Paxton’s Rooms

July 19, 2009 in Chance, Family, Home, Motherhood, Organization, Paxton with 6 Comments

I know I’m a bit behind. I’ve always been pretty quick at taking pictures of our new home and stuff.

What’s weird is we’ve been pretty settled for the last few weeks now. The garage was really the last thing we’ve worked on. I’ve taken pictures of the kids’ rooms, but I haven’t taken pictures of the rest of the house yet. Instead of waiting till I got around to all of that, I thought I’d post pictures of their rooms first… so here they are:

Chance’s Room:

Yeah… that’s the LARGEST humidifier I’ve ever seen too. It was a gift from my Mom a few years ago. The good news is you don’t have to refill it everyday. The bad news is we have no idea where to store it when our kiddos aren’t sick.

That comforter on Chance’s bed was the comforter I grew up with. The one I originally bought for Chance shrunk in the wash and I haven’t found the “perfect” new quilt for him yet. That’s why the walls don’t match with anything else. The paint was originally chosen to go with the old comforter. *sigh* Oh well… Chance really likes my comforter, so it works for now.

Oh, and Chance is pretty good at keeping his room looking like this pretty often. If it gets messy for too long, he says, “My room is a mess… I think it’s time to pick up.” Looks like I transferred over the good genes!

Paxton’s Room:

I LOVE Paxton’s room. I think the green on the walls is soothing. I finally got to nest. Better late than never, right?

By the way… for those of you who are questioning why in the world I would take pictures of every room in the house, I say this: it’s ALWAYS a good idea to take pictures of every room of your house. If not for memory sake, it’s good in case anything ever happens to your house (theft, fire, etc) and you need proof of what was actually in your house. That’s my $.02.

Go ahead and tell me how cute their rooms are!