Phew! That feels SO good!

We moved into our home in May. The garage has been full of boxes. I’ve been really working hard the past few months to go through things and donate things and decorate and unpack things.

Our garage has some wire shelves on the walls and I was telling hubby that I felt like things could be so much more efficient. We had several three-drawer plastic drawer thingies sitting in the computer room closet that I hadn’t put stuff in yet.

I got motivated tonight and pulled out those shelves and put them under Jake’s work bench. I moved boxes and pulled the gorilla shelves from the middle of the garage to the side. I put the light bulbs, extension cords, paint supplies and tie down thingies into their own drawers.

I had some of Eliana’s baby clothes still in the black garbage bags. I was wanting to sort them, but decided to go ahead and put them into the bins and label them by sizes, and put them into a stack so Jake could put them into the attic. I’ll pull them down after Christmas to sort out what I really want to keep and then will give away the rest. I also labeled the bag with the crib bedding and put misc. baby items into another bag and labeled it and added it to the attic pile.

Then I took the craft boxes and fabric boxes and put them in a neat stack on one of the side walls. I organized the book boxes and the misc. boxes. I also took stuff that I knew we would want to keep and put them on the garage shelves. I also made a garbage pile and a donate pile.

When Jake got home tonight, I was just finishing up. He went ahead and put the boxes into the attic. I was going to sweep the garage, but I’m too tired.

Now we can actually put the car in the garage!! I wish I would have done this last week, so that I wouldn’t have had to scrap the ice off the car after our mild ice storm. Our garage door is finicky, so Jake will take a look at it and hopefully get it working so that I can use it. It’s in manual mode, which I can do, but I have a hard time locking the door.

I just feel so productive and happy to have some things sorted out! We have guests coming to stay with us for Christmas, so I’ll continue the sorting process after Christmas.

Jake is really happy that I got things more organized and neat and tidy in there! It’s a much more efficient work space for him now, and I’ll be able to find the craft stuff that I need. Plus it looks nice!

Forgotten Photos

I’m in the midst of burning photos onto CDs and it’s been so fun to stumble upon photos I forgot I had taken!

In September, Eliana, David and I went to the Fort Worth zoo with Jake’s mom, Lisa, and his sister Amanda.  It was so fun to see Eliana yelling so excitedly, “Look, Mommy!  It’s a ZEBRA!!!!  Look at the black and white STRIPES!!!!  It’s just like in my animal book!!!!”  David was along in my carrier for his first trip to the zoo, and he just took it all in.

Here are some fun photos from that day!

Eliana, Jen and David by the zebra exhibit.  Check out that yawn smile!! LOL!

“What you lookin’ at?”

Snuggles with Aunt Amanda

“Help!  I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”

Fun in the sand!

Tuckered out and ready to go home

Oh so delicious!!!

I was house sitting last week and helped take care of some starters for Amish Friendship Bread.  I forgot about yeast being in the starter and filled the mini loaf pans too full and created QUITE the mess in the oven, LOL!  I started the next batch of starters and brought one of them home with me.  Today was the day to bake the bread and create the new starters.

I thought I had all the ingredients, but realized too late that I didn’t have vanilla pudding.  But I did have chocolate pudding!  The chocoholic in me was secretly very happy.  Jake and I ate some warm slices as we watched an episode of 24.  I giggled at the contrast…. watching a show about terrorists and interrogations, next-gen weapons and violence while eating a slice of yummy bread from a group of people known for contentment, peace, and lack of technology.

And the bread was absolutely WONDERFUL!  If you get a chance to make some Amish Friendship Bread from a starter, I highly recommend it!  It’s worth the wait!

I noticed online that there is a crock that is designed to hold the starter and a spoon to prevent any contamination, and it looks nicer than a ziplock bag sitting on the counter.  I’ll have to remember that when my birthday rolls around next year!

Yay for online tutorials!

After getting some great feedback from some mamas on one of the online forums I frequent, I decided to have some fun and show the reality of trying to get a decent Christmas photo with two kids.  I’m quite proud of it and hope that people will enjoy receiving this card from me!  I’m going to mount it on green cardstock and then mail them out as postcards.

And I just giggle every time I look at the photos in this collage.

May your holidays be full of laughter and love!

I’m so tempted…

to either use this photo…

or this photo…

for our Christmas card. They make me giggle every time I look at them!    And trust me… there are a whole lot more photos just like these ones!

This is what I get for trying to take pictures of the kids when they are sick. I’ll have to try again once we are back home and we get our tree up and decorated.