Fitting it all in . . .

Sometimes there seems like more things to be done than there is day to do them in, and lately, I've felt stretched a lot and frustrated trying to do it all. Of particular concern for me has been fitting in time to exercise and watching what I eat better. We got a treadmill for Christmas, and I'm determined to get back to my ideal weight before August, when I'll probably quit nursing and become pregnant again (at least that's been the pattern!). So far, it's been working, and I've slowly but surely lost 4 pounds the last two and a half weeks. However, it's been at great cost to my calm, organized days. Finding time to exercise and resisting the urge to snack at my most exhausted moments has taken a ton of effort, and it's cost me a lot of sleep.

Finding the right time to exercise has been one the hardest challenges. Our family wakes up at 6:45 for scriptures, and I just plain don't have the willpower to wake up any earlier than that, especially when I've already been forced into wakefulness several times during the night to feed a baby.

At this point in my life, I need all the sleep I can get. Up until the beginning of December, I was blessed to get a nap many weekdays. Eliza and Harmony would go down for naps at the same time in the afternoon and I'd have quiet time for the twins, where I'd turn on a video for them (their only TV during the day) and lie down in the next room. It was heaven. I hadn't felt so rested during the early baby stages since my first baby!

I'm not sure what's changed, but now it seems that every day something interferes with my nap. If I've exercised in the morning, my body is usually too keyed up at naptime to rest. Other days, Eliza will go down wonderfully, but Harmony will sleep a mere forty minutes, and by the time I get lunch cleaned up and the twins settled, she'll wake up. I'm an incredibly light sleeper, so other days it's been the twins opening a door to let a kitty in or sneaking into the pantry for a snack that's woken me (they've yet to remember I have superhearing!).

In any case, my final exercise time only compounded my sleeplessness. I would hop on the treadmill at 8:00 after the kids were settled in bed. It worked great, except then I was too keyed up to fall asleep before 11:00 or midnight, making that 6:45 a.m. wake-up time seem like the hardest thing in the world.

But the last two days, I've discovered a great new time for exercise -- 2:00 in the afternoon. Sure, I have to change and shower in the middle of the day, but so far, the kids have been rested and have played happily nearby while I worked out. By then, I've gotten a nap if I'm going to get one, and I've found that the extra adrenaline boost at that time has gotten me through the tough after school and dinner hour.

In fact, today I pretty nearly had a perfect day. I was able to talk to my mom on the phone, plan visiting teaching, play with my kids, clean my kitchen, run to the store, take the twins to preschool, take Eliza to storytime at the library, get a nap (hooray!), exercise for forty minutes, take four kids to gymnastics at two different times, plan two service projects for tomorrow, and all with (almost) perfect patience. I LIVE for days like today, when everything goes smoothly and I feel like I'm fitting it all in. Of course, tomorrow may not go so well and life wouldn't be life if there weren't challenges and problems, but days like today fill me with joy and excitement. I just want to pause and savor it and say, "What a great day."

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Feeding the One

Since the last title was feeding the five thousand, what better title for this post? We started Harmony on solids yesterday, and it was so fun. I know all too soon this spoon-feeding every bite will become a bit of a chore, but let me, just for today, relish this adorable little girl. She's growing up way too fast.

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Feeding the Five Thousand

Lately I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the tasks that rest squarely on my shoulders -- important things like setting the tone for kindness in our home, preparing healthy meals, and teaching our children to become responsible with their chores, as well as small things like reminding my four-year-olds to use the potty before they have an accident, cleaning up after said accidents, making sure we don't run out of diapers or fruit, re-organizing every room in this house, picking up after all but one of my kids (we have one child who is just naturally neat. Weird, I know), hounding my kids to pick up after themselves, finding time to exercise daily, remembering not to bark at my husband when he doesn't appreciate me enough, and so on.

I've been reading a book called Celebration. I was touched last night by this story:

"My daughter Julia, who is expecting her tenth child, makes seven school lunches every morning. It is a job she has disliked so much it was hard for her to get out of bed, because the chore of making sack lunches is the first chore she faces every day. . . .

"Lunches were a chore for Julia that made every morning less than joyful until the Sunday that her eight-year-old son came home from church and had the following conversation with his mother.

"'What was your Primary lesson about today?' his mother asked.

"'Oh, you know,' young Weston said in an offhand way. 'It was that story that everybody knows. You know. The one about the time Jesus was walking around the Sea of Galilee and all these thousands of people came walking after him, and they listened to him for most of the day, and then it got hot and late and they were all tired and hungry and there wasn't any food at all.

"'Except, you know, for this one little boy, and his mother had remembered to pack his lunch, and so he had some loaves and fishes, and Jesus took them and fed all those people.'

"My daughter told me this incident, and there were tears in our eyes. 'His mother had packed his lunch.'

"'So you see, Mother,'Julia said, 'I have learned to like making lunches now, because I realize that when I'm feeding my children, I am feeding the five thousand—-and more. It makes me think of all the hundreds of people my children's lives will touch through the years, and I am making that possible by nourishing them as they grow up.'

"'Lunches are a whole new experience since I have thought of that unknown mother in Galilee who made a lunch for her little boy, and her son gave it to the Savior, and the Savior fed five thousand people with it.'"

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Any good family movies out there?

We don't have television at our house. Oh, we have a TV and a DVD player and even one of those things, oh, what are they called, VCRs? But we don't get any channels. Every other year, we get television service for the month of the Olympics, and we gorge ourselves on shows.

We do watch movies around here, and it seems like lately, the kids are watching the same ones and are tired of them. We got a few new ones for Christmas, like Kung-Fu Panda and Alvin & the Chipmunks, but neither has the staying power of, say, Enchanted or The Incredibles.

So I'm looking around for some good family shows for my kids. Seen anything good lately?

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Time for a new menu plan

(Note: this is also posted over at Full House)



It's the first of the year, and for me, that means making goals, revising chore charts, cleaning out junk, organizing, and in general, hoping that somehow, this year I can keep the chaos to a minimum. This is the year I plan on being the perfect wife, homemaker, mother, and friend. I'm going to exercise, stick to my own cleaning schedule, lose weight, serve healthy meals, keep a clean house, read scriptures daily, serve others, speak kindly, read with my kids more, and bring about world peace.



Of course, I won't actually be perfect at any of those things, but one can always try, right? My first plan of attack is revising my basic menu plan. I've used a system for several years now that I was introduced to by Marie Ricks. I've tried regular scheduled menus in the past, but her system was simpler and easier. As she put it at the beginning of the class, "Today I'm going to teach you how to know what to cook every day for the rest of your life." It was what I needed. Cooking is my least-favorite chore, but there's just no avoiding it when you're the mom of a big family -- unless, of course, you have a husband who likes to cook. Mine does, so he cooks on the weekends, leaving me just four or five days a week. He used to cook during the week more, way back when he had a low-stress job and we just had a couple of kids. But his job now is pretty intense and so it's best for me to do the weekly cooking.



My hardest problem used to be the panicked, crazy dinner hour, when I'd lean on the cupboard door wondering what in the world I should cook. Inevitably, I'd go back to one of my old stand-bys, something I'd made way too often. So this concept of knowing in advance and sticking to my plan worked wonders for me.



Marie's Menu Plan introduces a rotating four-week menu of meals. I'd done that before, but I found the key to success was that Marie suggests you have a one-week rotation of side dishes and that you have a consistent theme for each weekday. She does Mexican on Tuesdays, Quick Meals on Mondays, and then she suggests a fruit and a veggie for Tuesdays that goes with Mexican food, etc. I took that idea and ran with it, though I don't have a nightly theme for my menus. Mine, instead, are divided by how much time it takes to cook. In my old menu plan, I had 40-60 minute (from start to finish, including cooking time) meals on Mondays, 20-30 minute meals on Tuesdays, crockpot meals on Wednesdays, and so on. I chose the fruits and vegetables my family eats the most, though we do substitute other things now and then. It has been wonderful to have the side dishes planned, particularly as the two older kids (ages 9 and 8) are now old enough to help with meals. It's easy when you're working so hard on the main dish to forget about fruits and vegetables, but this introduces the concept to the kids that the meal isn't complete without a fruit and a vegetable. We also have a type of bread on the menu, but we usually only put that out once or twice a week (another thing to work on this year, right?).



I don't stick to the schedule rigorously -- if I know we'll be out all afternoon on Tuesday, for example, I might switch the Wednesday crockpot meal with the Tuesday meal. And every so often, I'll go to make the scheduled dinner and realize that we're out of sour cream or peppers and I need to make another change. Usually, I choose another meal from the four meals for that day.



I've used basically the same menu plan for the last two years, with some minor modifications. I'm finding lately, though, that several of the meals are just not getting made, whether because I get to that day and don't feel like making it, the ingredients are too expensive to keep on hand, or too many members of my family dislike it. So a few days ago, I tackled the menu plan, dropping some meals and adding some others, and changing crockpot day to Tuesdays.



Another thing that's made this system work for me is my recipe card file. I find there's no better way to keep my recipes organized. I have all the regular categories (Cookies, Cakes, Playdough, etc.), but I added 7 dividers at the beginning of the card file, one for each day of the week. In Monday's, I put the four cards for my Monday meals, Tuesdays hold my four Tuesday meals, and so on. When it's time to make dinner, I can either consult my calendar posted in the pantry or I can just grab the first card for that day's meals. When I'm done making the meal, I put the card to the back so the next week's meal is first in rotation.



So here's my new schedule. I ended up adding an extra week of meals because as I discussed the plan with DH, we kept coming up with meals we just couldn't do without. So later this week, I will be writing down a few new recipes and re-arranging my card files.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday
Salad Seasonal Fruit Bread	Green Beans Peaches Rolls	Corn Seasonal Fruit Bread	Carrots Pears Bread
Pizza 1 Hour	Sweet & Sour Chicken Crockpot/1 Hour	Mexican Salad 30 Minutes	Spaghetti & Sausages 25 Minutes
Herbed Chicken & Potatoes 50 Minutes	Tater Tot Casserole Crockpot	Fettuccine Alfredo 25 Minutes	Tortilla Soup 25 Minutes
Lasagna 1 Hour 15 Minutes	Taco Soup Crockpot	Company Chicken 60 minutes	Stroganoff 30 Minutes
Porcupine Balls 1 Hour	Creamy Cooker Chicken Crockpot	Rice & Sausage Casserole 1 hour 30 minutes	Enchiladas or Tacos 30-60 Minutes
Chicken Curry with Rice 45 Minutes	Cowboy Casserole Crockpot	Baked Potato Bar 60 minutes	Grilled Cheese & Soup 30 minutes

What have you found to make menu planning easier?



Edited to Add: Friday night is (*supposed to be*) date night, so either we have leftovers or something simple the babysitter can feed the kids. When DH & I don't go out, we'll either do leftovers, or DH will cook. I'll try to post my recipes later.

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Just waiting for Santa . . .

The stockings are hung and the kids are in bed, excitedly waiting for Santa to come tonight! Joey and Michael even cleaned their room enthusiastically, when DH reminded them that Santa might check their rooms before leaving them gifts.

Oh, I know that at YOUR house, Christmas has come and gone, the presents opened, some no doubt broken already, the overflowing trash can taken to the curb (packaging drives me nuts!), and the battered tree holding on for just a few more days until you get the energy together to put it all away. But not here. We decided to celebrate Christmas Eve today and Christmas Day tomorrow. We emailed Santa and he was glad to have fewer houses to visit on December 25th, so here we are, waiting for Santa and the Christmas excitement to begin.

So why on earth would anyone delay Christmas? So they could hang out in sunny Arizona (ok, so half the time it was rainy Arizona, but still) and forget about the 11 inches of snow piling up back home:

DH's sister is in Sierra Vista for the next few months while her husband is in training at the Army base there. My in-laws decided to go there for Christmas, so we figured we'd take the chance to enjoy a warmer climate. We had an awesome time. Our kids earned junior ranger badges at four national parks or monuments:

The Petrified Forest,


Saguaro National Park,

Tumacocori,

and Montezuma's Castle.


We enjoyed the Painted Desert:


a mine tour in Bisbee,
and a hundred other things, including church and dinner with old friends, and Christmas Day with family. We stayed at a hotel while my oldest three spent two nights with my sister-in-law, Diane. They were there Christmas morning when her family of three (ages 4, 2, and 2 -- yep, she has twins too!) opened their presents. Diane said she felt like the bourgeois aunt who had invited the poor orphans over to watch her kids open presents. She may have felt that way, but my kids were still so excited and happy to open three presents -- one from us, one from her, and one from their grandparents. When we came over around 10 in the morning, all three came over so excited to show me their gifts! I was humbled to realize how simple Christmas can be and yet bring such joy. Lillian told me her favorite part of the day was watching her cousins get so excited over their presents.

So, in a way, my kids get to celebrate Christmas twice this year. We've never really traveled over Christmas before, and I don't know if we'll do it this way again, but it sure was fun!

And after all, what could say Christmas Eve more than watching a gunfight at the OK corral and eating lunch at a saloon in Tombstone?

Merry Christmas to you and your family!

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Bright Spots in Dark Times

It's been an emotional, exhausting week for me. I spent Sunday through Friday in Boise, helping my parents through an experience that is beyond difficult. They are living in their worst nightmare as my dad struggles with a debilitating illness.

I took Harmony with me to Boise -- a nursing mother and her infant are not easily parted -- leaving the other six children in the very capable hands of their father, my mother-in-law, and a few neighbors and friends. DH scaled back his work schedule this week, my mother-in-law came for two days, and a few friends helped out here and there. In my preparations to leave, I was grateful to realize just how many friends I could call on, so many that I didn't even call half of them to help.

Harmony, by her very presence, helped in a small way to relieve the burden at my parent's house. She gave my dad something to smile at and my mom something fun to focus on. So it was more than significant, at least in my mind, that Harmony chose this week to learn a new skill:




No, not crawling, though she does scoot around in circles and move a few feet after toys. Nope, this little barely-four-month-old is up on her knees and rocking! Pretty amazing, and a good reminder that there are bright spots even in the darkest times.

For those who want to see more of my amazing little girl, here's a video of her new skill:

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