What to blog? What to blog?

I have had so many blogging ideas running through my head and no time to blog so this morning I am not sure where to start. So I decided to blog them all, so be prepared - it's a little long! Here is our week:

Trevor Stories:

This little love bug . . .

is growing up so fast! I finally got him eating baby food this week. He just kept raspberry-ing it out all over me. Feeding him was very frustrating. But I think we finally mastered this week. Woo Hoo!

Funny story - Since we have had Trevor I feel like we should have another one. Even when we were still in the hospital. I know, crazy, but true. Now that doesn't mean that we will. It seems the more kids I have the harder time I have deciding to have another. Wow 5 kids - that would be a lot. So for now, no more but here is the funny story. After Christmas we went to UT to see Dad and Julie (blog about the trip to come, I promise!). Before we left, Trevor was not sleeping good at all. I think it is a teething thing because it comes and goes. Anyway, on the trip he was beyond horrible. I was up 10-12 times a night, not much sleeping going on. So I started telling people on the trip and when we got home that if Heavenly Father wanted me to have another one, He should have made this one a great sleeper because there is no way I could do this again. Well, on the 3rd night after we got home, Trevor started sleeping through the night. And he did for a full week - EVERY night. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. Just kind of funny.

A cute story - Trevor doesn't really dig his crib so when he wakes up from a nap and I go get him, I talk to him before I pick him up til he is happy and laughing. I want him to know that his crib is a happy place. I say "don't cry. Just call "ma ma" and I will come get you" and we talk or sing and he loves it. Sometimes when I am walking up the stairs to get him, I will call out to him "mom's on the way. Here I come" and he will stop crying and waits for me. So cute. Well, the last few nights he has been waking up once and I just give him his binky and he goes back to sleep but last night I decided that I was not going to get up and give him his binky and that he would just have to put himself back to sleep (which he does a good job of during nap and bed time, just not middle of the night time, of course). So at midnight he woke up and I laid in bed listening to him fuss. He would fuss, be quiet and then let out a wail that sounded like his little heart was just breaking. The second time he did it, I realized what was going on: He would fuss, then call out "Am, Am" and then be quiet and then wail so sadly. I realized that he was calling to me "Am, Am" and then waiting for me to come and when I didn't, his little heart broke with sadness and he would just sob. Then he would try again "Am, Am." It was so sad and broke my heart when I realized he was waiting for me and I wasn't show up. So I immediately got up and went to him, scooped him up and rocked him. The "Am" in me just couldn't resist. I cuddled him under my neck and we both were in heaven. And then he slept the rest of the night.

I always thought that the more kids you have, the more you learn from your mistakes (and not repeat them) and the more experience you have as to what works and doesn't. Turns out you are really just more aware of all the things you are doing wrong. Oh well, Trevor and "Am" slept contently the rest of the night.

* * * * *

So new year, new budget. Last year with the passing of my mom, being pregnant and having a baby, I just didn't pay much attention to the budget. We had one but that was nice. I didn't ever look at it but this year is "get back on budget year!" So it is back to meal planning and my Walmart / Sam's Club run at 7 am on Saturday morning. The first Saturday, Kurt had work he had to do so I took Trevor and Hailey with me. During the shopping trip, Trev got tired so this was our invention for shopping with sleepy baby:

It worked rather nicely. He was happy, warm and snuggly and we could shop. Win - win. Now if only I could shop like that!

* * * * *

Every Christmas we put a village above our tv on our mantle and this year was no different. On my cleaning rampage, I was taking down the village and putting all the Christmas stuff away under the stairs. While I was under the stairs, Evan decided to decorate the mantle "6 year old boy style":

Here is a closer shot:

Yes, that is a remote control monster truck, a remote control helicopter, a remote control police car, an empty candy tube and a partially deflated green balloon. Nice! We let it stay for about a day. Man, I love that boy!

* * * * *

Our first baby turned 11 last Tuesday! Can you believe it? We definitely can't!

Happy Birthday Kayla!

Sorry for the dark picture. I took it in the car before we left for school and it wasn't the best lighting, obviously.

She wanted money for her birthday but it just didn't seem right to just hand her a card of money so we made a scavenger hunt out of it. It turned out to be a lot of fun.

* * * * *

Update on the cleaning project:

So I hit a little slump in my cleaning rampage this week. There were several reasons: 1) had to do all the year end stuff for the business, 2)as mentioned before, budgeting and planning for the new year, 3) the next room was Evan's and I had a hard time "getting started." The boy wouldn't get rid of anything so I battled between being mean mom and just getting rid of stuff or nice mom and letting him keep stuff. Nice mom won but then had to figure out a way to organize it all, 4) maintaining the already cleaned areas and keeping them that was proved to be harder than I thought. The kids just don't appreciate cleanliness like I do, 5)with meal planning came shopping and with shopping came groceries and with groceries came a mess. My shelves in the garage have started bowing from the weight so I had asked Kurt to build new shelves but he had a lot of work and couldn't build them right away so I didn't have anywhere to put them. See:

They spread to the floor. Then came the whole "in order to make room in the garage for the shelves, the guest bed that was stored in there (from when Evan moved downstairs) needed to go back into Evan's room and Evan's bed needed to go back up into Trevor's room." So it became this whole ordeal just to put groceries away and I needed my "man power" to help me. So anyway, it has been quite the week of small progress waiting for my honey to have time to finish the shelves.

Almost there:

Getting closer:

(Notice all the stuff on the counter in the background and all the stuff on the floor. The whole garage was like this - stuff everywhere! But no more!)

And then Saturday came. Oh, lovely Saturday.

We spent the whole day in the garage working and cleaning and most of all THROWING STUFF AWAY!

It was awesome!

Here is our best idea EVER:

Why didn't we think of this years ago? Hang the life jackets up! Duh!

As you can see, we have a ton of life jackets and usually they are all over the boat and when the boat is out, the left behind jackets are all over the garage. There is no good way to stack or organize them . . . until we thought to hang them up. Awesome!

Got bikes all over the garage?

Not us, not anymore:

All cleaned up:

Notice no more food all over the floor - awesome!

My new cupboards / shelves:

That trash can is actually our new dog food holder. So much cleaner (and now the dog can't help himself to snacks).

Usually you literally cannot see this part of our garage floor. Between shoes, groceries, bikes, helmets, skateboards, skateboarding pads, etc. it was a hazardous zone but not anymore:

I love it! We seriously spent ALL day out there and weren't done until dinner time. Kurt and I kept going out and just enjoying our clean garage.

What did the kids do while we worked all day?

Well, they helped when we needed them to but mostly they did this:

Cardboard boxes from the new shelves. Hours of entertainment!

Pull it with a rope:

Ride on it on your skateboard down the driveway:

Make a human "hamster-wheel" contraption: