3 Day Weekend

Who doesn't love a day off? I do, always have! Some might say being a stay at home Mom everyday is a day off... not true. The girls keep me very busy and can't ever seem to be done with my chores especially now that we have a bigger house. Some times I feel like a dog chasing its tail. So, when Shawn has a day off I try to mix the to do list with a little down time if I can. Shawn is great at relaxing, what man isn't lol! This Presidents Day weekend we managed to relax and tackle a few things around the house. When Shawn is home I a bit more productive because I basically let him have Daddy duty while I do things like laundry which is what I managed to do this weekend. We went for a walk on Saturday as a family which was really nice. I am loving our double stroller, its awesome!

I still have about 2 more weeks before I can really start working out. I have never really enjoyed working out but have had to off & on in order to take my Army PT test when needed. I have 6 months to take and pass a PT test again and have told myself that I will take & pass the 1st attempt. So, I have a lot of work to do & I am anxious to get to it. The Army requires 60 points in each event and if I did that bare minimum I would need to: Do 20 push ups in 2 minutes, 46 sit ups in 2 minutes, and run 2 miles in 20 minutes. I have always tried to do more than the minimum to set a standard for myself, my fellow soldiers and my unit. Having to lose weight while preparing for a PT test will be a new challenge for me but I think I am up to it!! My Dr gave me the green light to start walking at my 4 week recovery mark. I started walking right at 4 weeks which was this past Friday. I walked for an hour and was sooooooo sore the rest of the day. It was a good sore though. Saturday we only walked for about 30 minutes. Before we became pregnant I weighed 127 pounds, my top weight while pregnant 181. Yes, thats right I gained 54 pounds. As of this morning the scale said I weigh 153, so I have lost 28 pounds in just 4 weeks. This is great number wise but the scale is not everything. The numbers are not everything. Muscle weighs more than fat so this needs to be factored in as well as I am not going for a certain number but to look good and feel good again. The Army does have a chart of age, sex & height as to what you should approximately weigh so I have to keep that in mind in this journey as well. The goal really is to be HEALTHY and not OVER weight. So I will share parts of my journey with everyone, I am not afraid to put it out there for everyone to read :-)

Little Miss Norah is now of course a month old. Doing Foster care and having raised 2 kids from birth thru that... I now think that each kiddo grows faster and faster. Its still amazing to see mile stones and I dont think I could ever get board of witnessing them! Both girls had Dr appointments on Monday and both girls are hitting all there miles stones on time if not a little early. The Dr was extremely happy with them both. D is now 24 pounds and will be coming off formula over the next few days transitioning to milk and more big girl foods. Shes been trying many of the things we eat but the Dr said its now time for her to eat what we are eating. She is such a big girl and I can hardly believe she is a year old now. I have enjoyed watching her grow this past year and cant wait to see how she blossoms over the next year. 

School started yesterday and has already been a challenge with the girls today, but I am bound and determined to make the two work with out either of them lacking. I always love a challenge so I will keep you posted on the full time Mom who is also a full time college student journey. Having 2 young ones I am sure I will have many stories to tell along the way.

Hope everyone enjoyed there 3 day weekend as much as we did. Any time together as a Family is always welcomed!

Falling into a routine

     So, little Miss Norah will be 1 month old tomorrow. This past month has been a blur and I was just thinking last night that it seems like ages ago that I was pregnant not just 4 weeks. She is a really great Baby and is falling into a routine at a steady pace. Shawn will say she is difficult but this is only Baby #2 for him this is #3 for me in less than 3 years. My Baby skills are more polished than his. He has been wonderful though, coming home every day from work and taking over the task of the girls so I can get a mini break if only it means I make dinner and can finally do the dishes. He wakes them up and gets all 3 of us girls moving in the morning lol! I am not exactly what you would call a morning person but I have become more of one with kids, kinda don't have a choice.

     This past Monday Miss D turned ONE... I cant believe it. She is growing so fast right before my eyes. A year ago I got a phone call asking if I wanted a Newborn Baby girl and for a moment I almost said no. Thank goodness I said yes because I couldn't imagine my life with out her. She is one amazing little girl, whom I grow more and more in love with everyday. We are hoping all goes well and she is officially and Adams by Summer time. That means we will have gone from a family of 2 to 4 in just 1 year!! I feel so blessed, I find myself staring at the girls thinking I must be dreaming.

     Shawn is back at work after 3 weeks of helping out with Norah and my recovery. He was reluctant at first he enjoyed his days in pajamas lounging around, but now that he's back in the classroom he couldn't be happier. I went thru the process to become an official volunteer for him and was going in to help him out regularly until Norah came. Last Friday was the 1st time going into his classroom to help with 2 kids. I go when school has released for the day of course. I felt like I was moving in. I had to bring the playpen to keep D contained and toys for her, bottles galore for both it was pretty comical but it went well. We got a lot accomplished. Not sure if I will go back to doing it weekly but I will still go, I have to Shawn's not that creative so when he has creative projects to get done he calls in the reinforcements lol.

     Besides the Girls growing up right before our eyes, there hasn't been a whole lot going on. Shawn loves work, I am enjoying being a stay at home Mom and all that entails. Starting on the 20th I am going back to school for a second BA degree. I applied to ASU for a MA in Non Profit before the Holidays and was not accepted due to a lower GPA. So I am going back to Wayland where I got my BA in Criminal Justice. I will take enough classes at minimum to bring up my GPA but might possibly go all the way as to obtain a 2nd BA degree, this time in Christian Ministries. Thank goodness Uncle Sam foots the bill, & it helps that they pay me to go to school as well. Getting paid to be a college student is something I never dreamed of, super grateful! Going to give School a good 3 weeks to integrate it into our schedule then around mid March we will be starting Emergency Receiving & Respite for Foster Care. Its an on call last minute kind of status but short term too. I am still fumbling with what I want to be when I grow up but Shawn & I have decided that there is no rush and if I start a civilian career at the age of 35 for 20 years I can still retire at the age of 55. So for the next 5 years I enjoy my kids, keep going to school to keep my brain active as well as to interact with adults lol, and we wait and see what God has in store for Me/Us. I am excited for the journey ahead.

     We splurged and had Newborn pictures taken of Norah, as well as Family and 1 year old pictures for D. I can only show pictures of Norah on here but am anxious for when we can share cute D's face with the world. So here are a few of my favorites from the Newborn session...

This one has special meaning, Norah is asleep in my Grandma Rahn's old suitcase. A suitcase she had for ages. It still saddens Me that she passed away in October and just missed meeting Norah. But this picture makes me happy in a special way.

Norah Patience Adams

Our own little Miss America!

Wrapped in the same flag we used in our Maternity pictures, it was wrapped around my belly!

Happy in Daddy's arms.

Hope everyone enjoys there Presidents Day weekend. We will its a 3 day for Shawn so we are going to stay at home and enjoy some family time!

The miracle of life

Its been crazy busy since my last post. A HUGE change in our life... Baby Adams is finally here! Norah Patience Adams born January 20, 2012 at 8:52 pm 7 lbs 14 ounces and she is PERFECT! Her due date was projected as January 20th. Thursday, January 19th at about 7 pm we sat down to watch a movie, just prior I had been complaining that I was "so ready to have this Baby" and "what is she waiting for". The house was SO organized it wasn't even funny we had gone as far as cleaned out/organized/labeled the inside of our pantry & refrigerator. I even said "shes going to catch us off guard", that she certainly did. At 8 pm my water broke unexpectedly and we were off to the hospital. I wasnt completely sure it was my water so Shawn kept saying were coming back home and thought putting the bags in the truck was silly. Well, it wasn't silly, they admitted us right away and I was in labor for 24 hours 52 minutes. When we got there I was so excited, anxious and scared thinking this is it were really having a Baby. I was not prepared to be in labor for so long. I had wanted to go med free for the whole thing... after 9 hours no meds and only dilating 4 cm I knew I had to fold and get an epidural or I would be out of energy to push later and would probably have to have a c section. Shawn says the epidural was the best thing ever since we didn't have to go to the bathroom all the time for me to puke. I ended up having some serious back pain with the epidural, they had to flip me "like a burger" every 45 min to try and ease the pain. At 22 hours I was told that I could push, I was also told that the Baby was sideways and there was a large possibility I wouldn't be able to push her out, I am stubborn and wanted to try anyway. 2 hours of pushing and she didn't budge, we had to have a c section after all. At that point I was starving, tired and beyond ready to meet my daughter that I was not upset I just wanted to move forward. We had 4 names picked for Baby Adams and we planned on meeting her first before picking. When I heard her cry Norah stood out in my head, as I was rolled back into our room I heard the Dr yell Norah down the hall, the photographer said she liked Norah... but when Shawn handed her to me for the first time a Norah Jones song came on Pandora that was playing on my cell... it was fait, Norah it was!

We stayed in the hospital from Thursday night until Monday morning. Going home was a welcome relief and has been a surreal experience. I have done the bring a new Baby home before with the Foster kids so there wasn't any real stress attached. The first night was bad, Baby needed to adjust to the new environment, but since then its been almost smooth sailing. She is well on her way to sleeping thru the night, right now she's up about every 3 hours eating tons! She's  blessing to watch sleep and grow already. After a very long four years of trying she is finally here and we could not be happier or feel more blessed. We have so much to be thankful for. A week before Norah's arrival we were given the good news that we can adopt our Foster daughter, we couldn't be happier.

Enjoy some of our labor/delivery photos...

This journey has been a long one but well worth the Patience... Norah Patience Adams.

The week before her arrival I did many projects around the house... need to take pictures of them all and share, pretty impressed with myself as to how they came out and how much I got done. I am finding the key to a stress free life with kids is organization. If everything has a place then its more likely we will put things away and it makes things easier/quicker to find. More on this later...

Race against time

So last nights post was short and sweet. I was racing to post before my laptop died as well as the hubby was beckoning me to come watch "Its a Wonderful Life" with him before it got to late. So I shared a few of the projects we worked on over the weekend. I woke up today looking around feeling really good at what we got done around the house. When I moved us into this house a year ago (a week before Christmas) while Shawn was deployed, I was determined to get us settled in before the end of the year. I pretty much did getting everything unpacked. But, after a year of day in and day out I have re evaluated some areas and have moved things around trying to make our day to day as efficient as possible. We have a room that is our in home gym and over time sorta became a storage unit and you could hardly see the carpet. Saturday night we cleaned up and cleared out and got the gym in working order... just in time! Shawn has been on a work out break since coming home 3 months ago from over seas and I have obviously been on one for 9 months now. We really want to jump into working out once Baby Adams gets here! I have a couple pictures to hang in there and a small pile of misc things that need to be put away then I will post a picture!

Today I started small, I actually try to every day if I get at least 1 thing done off my to do list then I accomplished something. Today I managed to vacuum all the furniture which is a huge chore since we have a hairy Jack Russell. It took one hour to finish thank goodness D takes a power nap every morning.  I managed to get 2 more organizing things done as well. I have been spending a quality amount of time on Pinterest and cant get enough of it and all the ideas it has to offer. I thinks its why we have been on a bigger than usual project drive. I am really loving the organizational ideas. I expanded on two I already had in place today.

I have a great bank that offers a money tracker online but is not as down to the penny as I would like. So, today I labeled a small accordion file of areas we spend money on and plan on really charting it every 30 days, to then at the end of the year compose the best budget for us. Before I was just keeping a box of all our receipts if we needed to find one for a return or something. I am really stoked to really see where all our money is going.

The other was a binder that I had been storing menus of restaurants in it and some business cards. Well I revamped it based of a few pins I had seen on Pinterest plus some ideas of my own. We now have a binder with tabs of: Sitter, City, Services, Menus with room for more later. Under Sitter I have a fire escape plan, instructions for the kiddos, dog and house as well as contact info for Shawn & I and Dr. hospital info. Under City I have our trash/recycle schedule, and local amenities such as the baseball stadium schedule. Under Services is all the business cards for auto or home repair type places that we have used or have been recommended to. Menus is pretty self explanatory but I did include a piece of paper with our address, phone number, housing development and cross roads. Things I know I could never remember when I was baby sitting so its there for a sitter or even family thats over watching the kids/house. The binder has been a great resource and now that its been expanded on I know it will be greatly appreciated and used often!

On a whim I decided to organize D's hair things. Santa and my Sister in Law helped to make that collection larger & brighter! So thanks to Ikea (bin) they were already just tossed in and 2 up cycled items I have a super easy accessible hair bin for her. A 6 egg holder carton and 2 microwavable dinner trays.

I am always stoked after something goes from useable to super efficient. I am always tell hubby that if things are easy to put away/find then we will be more inclined to put things away and not let stuff pile up. We are both amazed at how right I am at this. It also makes it easy for kids to jump in on this as well as anyone who comes into our home can find what they need with out digging.

Only 11 more days or 18 max before Baby Adams gets here and I am hoping that this week I can finish most of my projects to feel more than ready for Baby and can just enjoy her, D and family time! Hope you all had a great Monday! I sure have.

Project weekend

Been busy here. I am always thinking of new creative decor to put up or projects as my husband calls them to do around the house. Now that hes home I can do the crafty parts and he can do more of the manual labor which he is not a fan of lol! But hes a good sport about it all. I know that most people would think all the things I have been doing would be nesting but then they dont really know me. I am always re arranging furniture, organizing or cranking out some sort of project. I am one of those people who needs to stay busy. So starting with the organizing sort a lost steam on this one after the last post but I did manage to organize some linens. I took table clothes and cloth napkins and put them in the zipper sheet/curtain packaging. Super great idea and you just save the packaging when you purchase new sheets or curtains for later use. I used a name tag for labeling and put them all in a basket on a lower shelf in the kitchen!

Got 2 small projects done in the guest bathroom that has been a piece meal project from day one. I cant wait until its transformation is complete it will end up being 1 blog on its own its been big.

1st picture is of 3 pictures I got hung... originally a post card that I cut up matted on scrapping paper and hung in cheap small frames for a nice big impact. Total cost only $13.00

This pic is of iron hooks that were off white that I painted black. Found a salvaged gold frame and you have creative eye catching towel hangers!

Then I did 2 small projects in the girls room total cost for the ribbon wreath $10.00 and the hoop wall art about $10.00 as well. Both I have seen on many sights but my colors and display are unique and not over paid for something every store has. Home made is my favorite!

The mirrors where plain I added the rhinestones for some girly glam! Pretty proud of all these projects this weekend. This was just a quick post gotta go join the family for family movie night on the sofa.

January 2012

January 2012!! Cant get over how fast 2011 flew by... it was one heck of a year full of all sorts of challenges but I think that 2011 helped me grow a bunch in so many ways and I couldn't be more thankful for the experiences. I have a feeling 2012 will be just as challenging but I am ready for it!

We spent the 1st day of the new year busy but relaxed. We got up and went to Church, walked around the mall, came home took a nap, watched a Disney movie as a family and did a few little chores around the house. Over all it was a perfect day and a great start to the New Year.

Yesterday was a super productive day! I started the day cleaning out our junk drawers on a whim, actually I had been wanting to for a while and I figured new year and all the consumerism/advertising for organization I better jump on it. I wouldnt call it nesting because I am an organizing freak and am always looking for something to organize. Outwardly it annoys the hubby but inwardly he loves it cause he can find things on his own, most everything is in clear bins/containers and labeled too so its pretty hard NOT to find what you are looking for. After the junk drawers I got our tax paper work together... well it was already together I just went thru it to organize it better and double check were good to go. Then I recalculated our budget, paid a few bills and my favorite part... paid off a small loan, great feeling! Then I decided to 1/2 gut our master closet to fine tune its everyday use. Its a GIANT closet so I recently ditched the dressers in our bedroom and moved every piece of our clothes and the kids into our closet. When I did it though I didnt really map it all out, so yesterday I literally sat in our closet for a good 20-30 minutes configuring in my head where the best place for everything to go would be. The end result... not bad. One of these days I am going to go all out and have the closet professionally done but until then what I managed to accomplish will work for some time.

Today the quest to organize continues. But, I thought I would share some of my organizing mania with you all, feel free to steal the ideas some I have some are original but I have always been one to share. Happy organizing!!

Couple junk drawer tips... office drawer dividers work well but if your on a budget I have found that microwave meal dishes work well. After you enjoy your meal wash the plastic dish in the dishwasher and then into the junk drawer it goes to hold just about anything. I have 2 in the back of the drawer on the left! Laundry soap lids work great for all sorts of things I have one in the front of the drawer on the right holding misc nails and such. Be creative I have seen egg cartons used, muffin tins all sorts of things. I love it when I can re use/recycle things!!

I learned the hard way but plastic bins are the best. I used to use all sorts of decorative cloth, cardboard metal etc but I finally realized that they are not exactly cleanable friendly. Plastic can be wiped out and washed out. Plus with a man in the house to SEE what's inside AND label it its guaranteed he will be more inclined to put things away and take initiative to find things on his own!

For a closet this is great this one is from Target there are much nicer more durable ones at Ikea but for the closet this works just fine and is cheaper. each cubby has 2 purses in it... yes I have an addiction! Since most of my purses are Coach and come in purse bags cloth storage seems to be ok. Since you cant see whats inside I opted to label the wood right underneath each bin. Another option is to take a picture of the items inside and attach to a tag putting the tags on a ring on the handle of the bin.

Clear drawers! They are stackable and hold things like my socks, tights, work out clothes etc. Shoe storage I have had these for some time and they work decent of course who wouldn't love a Sex in the City closet but on a more affordable everyday use this works and looks pretty good. This of course isn't even 1/2 my shoe collection. For the most part I try to keep them in there shoe box if its a decently durable one those are stacked on the one built in bookcase in our closet just to the left of these. These I would say I really great for kids shoes cause as you can tell some of my sets of shoes don't fit so they take up two cubby holes. VERTICAL is key and personally so is a LABELER!! 

One of my favorite ideas. These are supposed to be for belts... as you can tell they work super for necklaces. I have a send one hanging right underneath this one for all my costume jewelry to hang on. Super cheap! Other options are peg board which we have hanging over head but have hats hooked on. I have seen wood hangers with plastic shower rings as another option. 

Thats it from yesterdays organizing day... more to come tomorrow.

Happy Holidays!

This month has zipped by so fast already... its Christmas this weekend. I am prepped for it with presents wrapped & under the tree, decorations up, lights up, cards out etc. But I am not mentally feeling prepped. I am hoping this weekend once in the midst of it all it will finally sink in... its Christmas! This year has been an amazing one to say the least. This time last year I was moving us into our new house by myself with two kids and didnt really get to enjoy the Holidays. This year Shawn is safely home from over seas, we have our beautiful 10 month old Foster Daughter "D" in our lives, in about 30 days we will be holding our first in our arms, we are healthy, both have jobs... I am feeling blessed thats for sure. With all thats gone on this year I am anxious to see what 2012 holds for the Adams family, I have a feeling some pretty amazing things! Thank you to everyone who has stood by us and helped us out over the obstacles this last year with Shawn being deployed we are so lucky to have such wonderful Friends and Family supporting us. Shawn has 5 years left in the Army and we are hoping he wont have to deploy but once if at all, that will be nice once he retires for only one of us to be in still. By then I will only have 5-6 years left myself, then we can just focus 100% on our family! I hope everyone has a safe and Happy Holiday season, enjoy the time with your Friends and Family and reflecting on the past year good and bad and looking to next year to be a great year! Love to you all!!

Happy Holidays from the Adams Family
Shawn, Tara, "D", Baby Adams and Fo