5 On Friday

Long time no see!  We’ve had quite the eventful past couple of weeks.  First the kids were hit with ear and sinus infections and then we all got hit with Norovirus. Worst thing EVER! If you get hit with it, Bleach and Lysol are the only things that will kill it. I've done a lot of research! 

I decided to ease my way back in and I’m linking up with Darci, April, Christina and Natasha for Five on Friday!

1.)  My new IPHONE.

Somehow, Jordan lost my Galaxy s3. We tore our house apart more than once looking for it and it still hasn't turned up anywhere.  After almost a week of no phone (which made me so nervous with Olivia's severe food allergies), I got a new one.   I really liked the Galaxy and I loved my phone plan.  I've had a T-Mobile employee line for over 5 years (My husband used to own 6 stores). We haven't owned one in a couple of years, but my line was still active.  You can't beat $26 a month for unlimited everything.  We couldn't afford another $600 cell phone and I didn't want to give instagram!  It was only a matter of time before they caught up with us, so I signed up with AT&T and got an Iphone5s.  I really like it so far!  I just miss my unlimited data and my $26 phone bill.  At least my husband still has his, for now. 


2.) Shin Splints are also the worst thing EVER!

I was doing C25k until we got sick and I took a 2.5 week hiatus from the gym.  I’ve been going every day since last Saturday and started up on Week 1 again.  It’s been going really great, but as I figured I have the wrong shoes.   I have extremely high arches and I underpronate (supinate), and my shoes do not make me feel great after a run!  I have shin splints like you wouldn’t believe and after my interval workout on the treadmill last night, it is killing me to walk .  Anyone have any suggestions for shin splints?  I bought some new sneakers that were highly recommended for my type of feet/gait, so I’m hoping they help! I want to keep running.

3.) Stitch Fix

I got my 3rd Stitch Fix this month.  I think they are getting better and better as time goes on. I liked everything out of this fix, except one item.  I only kept one thing though. This awesome Elephant blouse.  I love the cut of it and how it fits.  I also think that even if I lose weight, it will still look good a little loose.  I want more of them, but from what I’ve been reading Hawthorne 41 is their brand and you can’t find it in stores.

4.) Terrible Three’s

Not to scare any mom’s that haven’t hit three yet, but three is AWFUL! I thought Jordan was bad at two, he’s even worse at three.  The tantrums, the screaming are 10 million times worse than 2 was.  Yesterday, he spent 30 minutes straight screaming because I wanted to change his poopy pull up.  He screamed in the car because we passed the airport and I said it wasn’t time to pick up Grandma yet. He has also become the destroyer of all things.  I can’t even go to the bathroom without something getting ruined.  Our house constantly looks like a tornado went through!  The other day, I took eggs out to hard boil them.  I went to go keep Olivia from climbing something and turned back around to him smashing the eggs one by one on the floor.  He smashed 10 of them. I had just mopped. Ugh, I hope for my sanity that this goes away soon.

5.) Olivia is not a baby anymore!

She is officially 100% a toddler.  She talks up a storm, her baby laugh is gone, and she doesn’t look like a baby anymore.  Girlfriend loves the Gym childwatch!  We were waiting our turn yesterday and someone opened the door to the childwatch and she ran in and the other day when I went to pick her up, she saw me through the windows and said “No No No” while shaking her head and finger at me.   I guess she didn’t want to go home.

February Goals

I’m a list maker. If you look around my house there are a ton of lists everywhere! 
I thought that I would start sharing my monthly goals here on the blog to help hold myself accountable. So here are my February Goals and some sneak peaks of things that I’ve been working on.

• Gym 4 days a week – Pretty self explanatory.  I plan on trying to get into the gym 4 days a week and then working out at home 2 days a week and having an active rest day.
• Take at least 1 new class at the gym this month-  I’d like to take some classes, but don’t know which to pick so I thought that if I started taking a new classes every month, I might find one that I’ll fall in love with.
• Finish the kids room-  I want to get the kids room finished.  It’ll be nice to finally have one room in our house completed.
• Only use cloth diapers -  We’ve fallen into the trap that I think a lot of families do at one point or another in their cloth diapering journey.  We’ve been using disposables since before Christmas and it’s getting expensive especially when we have enough cloth here to diaper a small army of babies.
• Self Care- Do one thing for only me a week. Whether it’s finally using my massage I got for Christmas two years ago, or taking a bath or getting my nails done.  I’m hoping to get better at this self care thing.
• No Un-Necessary Spending – Self explanatory. This mama needs to stay out of Target and it’s dollar bins.
• Have a Girls Night-  I’m hoping to go out and have a girls night.  I think my sister in law and I might go to the Polar Bites benefiting our zoo in a couple of weeks.
• Be consistent with a “schedule”  for the kids- I oon’t mean a strict schedule, but my kids do so much better when they have a bit of a routine and I think it’ll help our life out a lot.  Plus it will be easier now that we’re really starting our home preschool with Jordan. He needs something to keep him mentally stimulated as he’s very bright for his age.

Those are my goals for the month.  Come back next month for my new goals and to see how I did with these ones!

Here’s some of the projects I’ve been working lately!

Do you set goals for yourself? Do you stick to them?

2014 Goals

I’m a little late on the blogger bandwagon of sharing my goals for the year. Better late than never.

I try not to overload myself too much but I always like having goals to strive towards.  I try and break them down into categories.  Here are my goals and a few cute picture of my kids.

Personal:

Be present more: In this day and age with all of the technology, I want to be more present with my kids and my husband and spend less time with technology when I am around them.

Faith: I want us to be more active in our church.  My son goes to Sunday School every week, but us actually making it to church is hit or miss.  I also want to start doing some bible studies. I’m a part of one right now that starts tomorrow. I’m pretty excited for it.

Self Care:  I’ve already touched on this subject last week.  I want to take care of myself better, so that I can be better equipped to take care of those around me.  So far this goal is working out well.  I have been trying to care out time for myself here and there.  I got my hair cut (for the first time in 9 months), I have taken a few bubble baths and put on my favorite masks. I also want to improve my health.

Run a Half Marathon:  This is pretty self explanatory.  My goal is to run one half marathon this year.  I wanted to try and run the Buffalo Half Marathon at the end of May, but if that one doesn’t pan out. I plan on running in the Mighty Niagara Half that’s up by Niagara Falls.

Blogging:

• I want to increase my followers to 100.
• I want to be consistent with posts 4-5 days a week..
• Plan ahead- I don’t want to be writing posts last minute.  I’d like to write them and stock pile them up to be published so I don’t feel so rushed and flustered.
• I would love to be in a place to accept sponsorships/ad space.

Professionally:

• Open Etsy Shop- This is been a goal of mine for a while now.  This year I am going to make it happen!
• Take Photography and editing classes.
• Open a Photography business- I would love to be able to do family pictures, events, newborns and maternity shots.  Not necessarily to make a ton of money, but to be able to do something I have a passion for and to be able to support my hobby.

 So what are some of your goals?  

#GetFitAndFab

Going along with my post from last week., I’ve been trying really hard to take care of myself and my body.

So far, this week has gone really well.  I made it to the gym 3x.  I planned to go everyday, except Sunday, but my kids got sick and I didn’t want to infect the entire daycare.  When I go to the gym, I’ve been trying to get my cardio in, which includes my C25k that I’ve started to prepare for my 1/2 marathon. I’ve also been doing some of the workouts from Tone It Up.  This week, I also plan on starting up some Barre workouts online from Barre3.

I’ve been doing much better on nutrition too! We’ve been juicing and I made up some quick and easy Burrito bowl lunches for us to just grab and go.

The juice I made had apples, pears, kiwi, celery, carrots and a couple of strawberries.  It was delicious.

I also took some time to myself.  I did an at home micro dermabrasion kit and put on one of my favorite Lush face masks (Mask of Magnaminty) while I took a long bubble bath.

This coming week, I plan on taking  new yoga class, working on my cardio and getting 100+ ounces of water daily. If I complete all my goals this week, I’m going to treat myself to a new piece of workout clothes.

I’m linking up with Brittany from Happy is A Choice and Sam from Life Style Love.

Guilty.

Before kids, 9 times out of 10, your #1 focus is on yourself.  You make time to stay in shape.  You make time to get massages or facials.  You put yourself first.

Then it happens, you give birth and see your child for the first time, that you love more than anything. Something changes, instead of focusing on yourself, your entire life begins to revolve around that little human being.  You stay up late with diaper changes and feedings, you’re typically covered in spit-up, you can’t remember the last time you showered or brushed your teeth. The next thing you know, you’re looking at yourself in a mirror and you don’t recognize yourself. It wasn’t as bad after baby #1, but once Olivia came around, I was 100% guilty of this.  I still am and Olivia is 18 months old.  

I was reading reading one of my favorite blogs, The Naptime Diaries, and came across a blog post that she wrote titled 5 reasons mamas don't take care of themselves. Something clicked in me after reading that post, that in order to take care of my family, my friends and others around me, I need to take  care of myself first.  Self care is much more important that you realize.  One of my goals for this year was to start taking care of myself.  When  you take care of yourself, you are more confident and happier. I want to be happier, I want to take care of myself and to be a good role model for my daughter as she grows up. 

For the rest of January, I am going to really focus on getting in some me time.  I want to start going to bed at a reasonable time, so I can start waking up early. I want to be able to have some un-interrupted time to be able to have some time with God, to focus on my bible studies.  I want to go to the gym and eat to fuel my body. Not necessarily with the goal of losing weight (but that would be a great bonus!), but to become healthier and to help relieve some of my most recent symptoms (I’m allergic to something and have “attacks” weekly. but we can’t pinpoint what it is).   I want my children to have a role model in being healthy and in being in touch with their faith.  

This is my year.

November Goals

We had a FABULOUS weekend with our family celebrating our niece’s baptism.  It was great to have my husband’s parents and siblings with us for the weekend.  I’m not looking forward to the grandparent withdrawl that my kids are going to go through on Wednesday morning when my mother in law will no longer be here.
I’m a list maker.  If I don’t have a list or have something written down, I forget it.  I blame it on the two little children who have given me “mommy brain”.    What better way to hold you accountable than to post it on the internet for all to see.

1. Keep up with the laundry!- Boring, I know.  We have the luxury and curse of having a house with a built in laundry chute.  Only problem is that it dumps our laundry out in the basement and if I don’t see it, I don’t remember it until mama is out of clean underwear and Olivia is wearing mismatched socks.
2. Do more crafts with the kids-   I don’t spend enough time with Jordan doing arts and crafts.   He has gotten to the age where he loves anything paint or stickers and I think it would be some great bonding time while little sister is napping.
3. Take new House Tour photos-  Self explanatory and I really want to show off the kid’s new room and my hallway that I spent hours hanging wallpaper.
4. Get to the Gym 3x a week
5. Take the kids to the pool at least once a week
6. Start and finish Christmas shopping- This one is going to be tough! We have so many immediate family members to shop for.
7. Finally list all my items on Etsy- They’ve only been sitting in my sewing room for months.
8. More dates with my hubby
9. More mommy time
10. Schedule my first massage!

I’m hoping that next month that I will have had all of these things done! We’ll see if it actually happens though.