I am in the midst of changing a few things around here…

One… I had never wanted to give juice but it made its way into our household for occasional use and just became a more then occasional thing… Recently Xavier stopped wanting to drink water as much and wanted juice all of the time… I didn’t let him have it but it was a struggle that I just didn’t want anymore… so now… I have now stopped buying juice…

Since Colin was about 7-8 months old I would make him cold plain herbal teas… Xavier never wanted it before but now he sees it as the alternative to water and has started asking for it. I have quite a few kinds so he is having fun choosing… Today he tried Summer Berry.

Two… TV… I have to admit (not the first time that I admit this) that the kids watch more TV then I would like… However, we are starting to break the habit and it is working… I let them watch a show in the morning and then I turn the TV on to the Talk radio that I listen to and that is what stays on all day until I start getting Supper ready… Sure, they still watch a bit of TV but I am OK with that… Maybe our next step will be no TV at all but for now I don’t see it… we are cooped up in the house a lot because of the weather, cold etc and it just does help…. I do know that once spring comes we will be out more, I know that when summer is here we will live outside most of the time… for now… I am quite happy with the amount of TV that they are now watching….
Three… I have been making meal plans each week and sticking to it… I made a really cool Shopping list grid that I can just fill out every week…. I check what we already have, what is on special and choose about 7-8 meals including breakfast, lunch and snack ideas and then fill out my list to make sure that I have everything. Now, instead of asking myself (and Simon) everyday what we are going to eat, I just look at my meals for the week and choose one knowing that I have everything… I have also made sure that I use everything and I try to make enough for the next day’s lunch for Simon…

Four… You may or may not know this… but I have never been a good housekeeper… I hate cleaning and would rather be with the kids, and even before I had kids, I would put off cleaning… the house isn’t dirty (no food etc hanging around)… but it can become messy…

However, I have been cleaning more. We were in a rut… the house would get messier and messier as the week went on and then the whole weekend was used to clean, making family time almost non-existent… Now I have been doing quite a bit more throughout the week doing and I have set small goals for myself… (kitchen clean everyday, the floors swept, and sometimes I even make my bed!) Weekends have now been a lot more relax and have a completely different atmosphere… we clean but we have more time and if we have company over it isn’t as much work…. Also, the more I clean, the easier it is to keep it up, so it has become easier to clean and less depressing…

Five… I have been on the computer a lot less lately… which has meant less posts lately…but I am having fun with the boys… it also means that I don’t visit BabyCenter as much since I resigned as host and since then I have not needed to rant as much… but don’t worry… I still have a lot more ranting to do!

I borrowed this post from Sara…. I have been wanting to write something simular for a while now.. but she said it too perfectly…

I have strong feelings (some call them opinions.) They’re my reality. They’re based on instinct and intuition. They feel right to me. I share them. I never intend the sharing of my feelings and thoughts as harassments of the choices of others. However, sometimes people respond defensively to what I say. I think that if those people truly felt secure in their choices, they wouldn’t feel so affected by what I say.

I don’t doubt that others who choose different ways love their children as much as I love mine. I don’t live up to my ideals, but I’ll keep those ideals anyway. Circumstances, even financial ones, don’t change what is. That excuse will never convince me of anything.

I don’t believe that my way is the one right way. I just know what feels right for me and for my babies. That’s all.

So, why do I share? Because I learned from the shared thoughts and feelings of others, especially from the ones who challenged me.

Thanks Sara 🙂

OK… well technically I can but it is not an easy task!

I made a great grocery list… I mean really great… A list of Meals for the whole week (breakfast, lunch, supper and snacks) and then what we need to buy for all of those so that we don’t have to go bacak for at least a week or more…

I asked Simon to get Xavier ready while I went to de-ice the car…. yeah…. right!

I quickly came back and told Simon to never mind for now… I couldn’t even open the door to get to the scraper…. There is a sheet of Ice at least 1/4 of an inch thick on the whole car! I went on the other side of the car and finally got into the passenger side open and from there I got my door open and the side door…. I still couldn’t get the trunk open… but I got the scraper and then got that open too…

Then came the “fun” part…. Both of took turns scraping and after an hour we didn’t even have half done… So, I gave up for now…and before I cam in the house, I turned the car around so that the sun could do a bit but I don’t know if that will really help much….

I’m gonna go take a few pics 😉