Gilmore Girls and a little more...

Its gotta be my 3rd or 4th time starting Gilmore Girls again.   Sometimes, I just don't want to find something else to watch and other times I just miss the cozy feeling of it.  PLUS did you know, it's coming back in November! They are making a few episodes on Netflix and I'm SO excited!




There's the preview!  I'll have to write reviews about it when it comes!


Things are still chugging along here at the Meadows.  The twins are 9 months old.  And WOW it's still a lot of work.  I remember asking a fellow twin mom when it's a little easier.  Her twins are 3 and she said "I don't know"!  In some ways, it is a bit easier.  I'm not nursing as often.  I'm able to leave the house with out them.  But in other ways it's just as hard as it was when they were newborns.  It's SO FUN, but man, it's hard.

yeah, those girls are CUTE

My older two kiddos are super kids.  They are like my heros sometimes... getting me water, helping watch the babies so I can spray out a poopy diaper.  It's pretty amazing.  I mean, we all have our moments... but overall.

I'm hoping to blog a little more now... I miss the community.  And I miss the documentation of my kids and life!!

Release

I've been using my oil called "release" in the shower. I just drop a couple drops in before the shower. Smells amazing.  What I thought it was for is just releasing stress. What I didn't know is that it can release all kinds of feelings. I can't make these up. The oils are powerful. 

I've been having a lot of big feelings this postpartum. Stuff I'm learning. Stuff from the past coming up. Just postpartum stress in general. There's good days and bad. There's a lot of ups and downs. I will say that the Febuary sun we've been having helps a lot. 

I had not taken my fish oil for a week and I was noticing my moods last week were not as great. My son had dental surgery and it didn't help. And I realized that I do feel down sometimes. I wouldn't say depressed. But that's a place I don't wanna get to. 

Being a mom is hard. Like really hard. One of the hardest things. Being a twin mom is really hard. I know things will change and it may not get easier but the challenges will be different. Instead of being stuck on the couch nursing I'll be chasing toddlers. 

Just musings for now :) 

Fake poop and 11 weeks!

My kids thought it would be funny to tell me that that dog pooped on the floor. They kept telling me to get up from nursing twins and clean it. So after several times of them asking I got up. They showed me what it was...... It was lint from the dryer. It was a ruse. 

Got up for nothing, those little stinkers. It was pretty funny though :) wonder where they learned pranks like that?

Twins are 11 weeks old today!! 

Burnt toast and the first few days alone

My parents have been staying with us since the babies have been born, minus a few days here and there. They left today to go home for the following week. My dad wanted to leave today to play poker with his friends tonight. So them leaving means I'm alone with 😱 4 kids all day. I've only done two half days alone so far. It's not bad. But I've only done mornings. The afternoons, I know, will be the challenging part. Babies are usually on and off napping with no GOOD nap. Kids are wearing down meaning more disagreements and cranky-ness . And the no sleep 2.5 months we've had really catch up with me.. Coffee wears off.  I'm dragging a little right now but kids are off in the other room doing who knows what and I'm on the couch nursing the babies. One has fallen asleep and the other is still nursing. 

Anyway this morning....

I got breakfast for kids and coffee and breakfast  for me. 

Babies started crying so I changed their diaper and went to my "nursing station" couch where I have my nursing pillow and pillows and water and everything set up. Half way through nursing the baby Luke has decided to make himself another piece of toast. He says from the kitchen...

There's smoke. 

What? I say

He says "well maybe it's steam but the toast is burned."

A little more concerned but not wanting to stop nursing and leave the couch I ask "is there a fire?"

"No". Oh thankgoodness. 

But then I smell smoke. So I better check on it. Sure enough. The toast was burnt and I have no idea how long he ran it in the microwave. I go back to my couch and finish nursing the babies. 

But I'm interrupted again. Dog sits up on the couch, gags, jumps down. Pukes all over the floor. Kids are grossed out. They leave and I have to get up, put the babies in their rock and plays. I grab paper towels and thieves cleaner... Clean it up. Come back to the rock and plays and the kids. 

I was gonna go sit back down to nurse but now Taryn has to poop and needs help. So I help her. Babies are next to us on the carpet in the diaper room. I figure might as well check diapers before I make it back to the couch and sure enough, Alex pooped her diaper. She knew I took the disposable diaper I had on her for the night, off and put on the cloth diaper. Clean her up, clean the diaper, then I finally get back to nursing couch. Whew. 

Out of the Box

(thanks for the name idea Mandy)

this was my second competition

I'm 34 weeks and 5 days pregnant with twins.  I'll post more about that later.  This is more about Crossfit.

I had been going pretty hard at my crossfit box for the last year before I got pregnant.  It was fun.  I've always been athletic and into sports.  I started crossfit when my daughter was about 1.5 years old.  Basically when she didn't need me to nurse her that much.  I had read about crossfit before when I was learning about the Paleo diet.  It seemed like something I would be interested in.  I always liked lifting, I lifted in high school.

Anyway, so after the first year or so I decided I wanted to try a competition.  I fell in love with doing them.  Then I decided to start working out more than my current 3 times a week.  I also met people who wanted to do more than the house WOD.... we would do more.  We started following various programming that would last more than the hour I usually spent at the gym.  My kids were older then, and I didn't nurse them anymore and my husband wanted me to go to crossfit to get out of the house. He was saying how much happier I seemed after working out.  And it's true, I enjoyed it,  I had made a ton of friends and it was nice to get out for an hour or two.

There was a few downfalls to it though.  I think, for me, 4-5 times a week of training like that wasn't exactly good for my body.  I could tell that it was wearing me out.  I had started to see a couple of people because I got a high thyroid test.   It's so easy looking back - I think I was working out too hard.  I think it was wearing me out.

It's so easy after the fact to see all this stuff.  Like last summer I did more crossfit, and didn't have the energy to do the things I had the previous summer.  I picked, canned and froze a bunch a fruit.  Before, I was into sewing.  I felt that I became obsessed with crossfit.  It's not like its a bad thing.  It was fun.  I really enjoyed it.  But now being pregnant and having to take a break from doing crossfit (my body is just not able to lift right now) I can see how that crossfit obsession kind of took over.  It's really nice to have the perspective.  I know once my babies come I won't be able to work out like that and I'm kinda glad.  I think I'm excited for more of a balance.  I just don't think training two hours a day, for me, in my life, is "balance".   I'm glad I know that now.  It's nice to have some out of box perspective.   It will be interesting to see how this year has changed things.

Homeschool Last Week

One of my new years goals was to plan the homeschool week ahead of time.  I found this sheet to write down what I hope to accomplish.  It's kinda cool to plan everything out so I can see what I'm going to do.  It makes it more organized so that I'm not fumbling around when I say 'it's time to start school'.
I started doing it two weeks ago and we got through all I wanted to do.  It was funny because I had my husband take over one of the days last week because he came home from work so I could go to the doctors.  He didn't understand exactly what was on my list so he just had Luke do all of the writing assignments for the whole week in one day haha.  So we just moved on the next day and did the math and reading we didn't do the days before.  We also finished reading Snow White (I was reading it to them).
Last week was more "field trip week".  We went to the fire station with a local homeschool group.

Luke in the fire truck

We have been to the fire station before.  But this time Luke wasn't afraid to get in the fire truck with out me and he was really interested in learning about everything this time.  Him and Taryn weren't shy about getting in a group photo either :)

Thursday we went to an art class where the kids learned to paint a butterfly on canvas.

art class

We also had a park playdate with our friends, made a trip to Portland and ran some errands.  Needless to say, we didn't get done with what we set out to accomplish this week.  But, I really think that is the beauty of homeschooling.  

Twenty fifteen... the year of self discipline (hopefully)

Goals

set goals and write down ways to achieve them

Be more organized at home school

• go over weekly plan each weekend

Earlier bed time

• start getting ready for bed around 9:30
• get dinner ready before I go to crossfit

Well... this one isn't going so well yet.  I don't know why we just aren't motivated to go to bed early.  We should be lol.  I just like staying up.

Keep up with budget and stick with it

• check in with budget at least 3x a week and before going shopping or spending money
• make a menu before shopping for groceries

We did better at budgeting in 2014 than we have in previous years... mostly just getting in the habit.  And also just figuring out what works best for us.  I think the key for us is keeping up with it.  If we do that we are usually very successful.  If we go a week or so with out updating we get caught saying 'oh i think we have enough money in this category' when really we don't or should be more frugal.

Making menus helps a lot for grocery shopping.  Even though I'm pretty good at shopping with out a menu.  Shopping with a menu helps me to focus and get what we need... and avoid extras.

organize the house

• clean the garage
• get a dumpster
• Organize closet for a place to set my oils
• Clean out linens closet
• clean shelf by dinning table
• make a homeschool station

I don't want to do these.  lol.  But they need to get done.

Get to Silver Rank for my oil business

• create oil box page on fb for support to existing clients
• start blogging
• do the Hustle 30 day challenge
• start a youtube channel to help new oil users

This is for my essential oils business.  You can see more on my new blog page later when I make it.

save for….

The nest egg

• stick to budget and budget goals
• save money in ROTH each month
• set amount
• save a little money from savings each month
• set amount

two twin bed mattresses 

bunk bed

disneyland trip

We are trying to really have a big nest egg right now so that way we have enough in case of an emergency.  We have some of it, but I want this year to be the year we finish doing that and move the focus on other things.

I also want to go to disneyland :)

And finally, the most important goals: 

Spiritual Life Goals

• Keep reading the daily readings and reflection
• pray at least a decade of the rosary with the family every day (and try to pray the rosary every day)
• read a book about a saint
• spend more time in silence
• find ways to make people happy
• Get more involved at my Parish
• help at community dinners with Luke

Well that's it for this year.  We'll see how it goes!