I did it!!!

I reached my goal weight and lost 70 pounds!!!

This is how I looked before I started my weight-loss journey.

This is how I look now! It's hard to believe I let myself be so over-weight for 12 years!! But instead of dwelling on the past, I am soooooo looking forward to the future! I have many more fitness goals I can't wait to achieve over my lifetime! It's surreal to be in a position now to work on those goals, instead of having to work on losing tons of weight first! It's surreal....and it ROCKS! :)

To read more about my weight-loss journey and any future health endeavours, click here or the link in the sidebar!!

Answers to 5 Questions

My lovely friend, Michelle, tagged me in her blog to answer 5 questions....for which I am very grateful! :) I was just thinking this morning, before reading her blog and finding out I was tagged, about how lame I have been about keeping my blog updated. Life has been CRAZY for the last few months since I have devoted so much time and energy to getting healthy plus life with 7 kids is just CRAZY all by itself! :) I haven't felt motivated to blog about stuff we're doing because it didn't seem fair to post about one day and not another, if that makes any sense...which I'm sure it really only does in my busy, unorganized mind! :) So, point being: thanks Michelle, I needed a good reason to blog today! :)

1. If you had one super power to wish for (x-ray vision, invisibility, etc) what would it be and why?

This is actually a hard question...there is tons of cool, useful stuff I would love to have as my super power! It would totally rock to be able to fly places I needed to go and be SUPER handy to have super sonic hearing or something. There was a time when I actually did pin down the super power I thought would be the awesomest to have....but now I can't remember what it was. :( I think I would want to be like Mary Poppins...I'm not totally sure what her super power or powers would be called...but instantly befriending and helping kids, cleaning up with the snap of a finger, fitting tons of stuff into a small bag, floating, going into neat drawings/paintings and singing really well all fit in with would I would like! :)

2. What is your favorite book of all time?

I would have to say the Little House on the Prairie series are my favorite books. I just love that era in general...and I love the story telling and descriptive way Laura tells of her family's life. I also love Pride and Prejudice. I could read all of these books over and over and be happy. :)

3. What is your idea of the perfect day?

My perfect day starts with a good nights rest, waking up to a spotlessly clean home and happy children all busy doing productive things (whether that's playing or something else.) Then we'd all go do something fun together (the zoo, a museum, the mountains, etc) and eat yummy snacks and homemade lunches (that included full-fat Doritos!) I would get to take lots of really awesome, good, meaningful photos on our fun excursion. Then we'd go home and Dave and I would get to go out on a date and eat yummy food and have a good time laughing and talking while our kids were at home with a super fun babysitter. I would also want all calories on this day to not count. :) My evening would have to include a lovely, hot bath and a good book to read. :)

4. If you had the chance, what one famous person would you meet and why?

I think I would like to meet the prophet, President Thomas S. Monson. :) Or really, any of the apostles. :)

5. If you could possess one talent and be truly proficient at it, what would it be?

I would love to be able to just wail....as in sing and just belt it out and have it sound super awesome and feel really great. :) And play the guitar while I was doing it! :)

Please let this be a trend! Please let this be a trend!

Duncan has never been a very good sleeper. Coming right after Brighton, a.k.a. The World's Best Napper, this has been tough. For the first few months of his life, he needed to be rocked to sleep and then held to stay asleep. We then tried a swing (which worked so awesomely for Brighton and Scarlett) but he would only stay asleep in it for about 15-30 minutes. These are magic nap numbers for Duncan: basically all of his naps, unless he's being held, last for about 15-30 minutes...which makes for a baby who is always on the verge of a meltdown from being overly tired and also makes it very hard to get things done around the house. Yesterday and today, though, things have been a little bit different. Happily, Duncan slept for over an hour and a half at the gym childcare and then he stayed asleep in his car seat in the bathroom after my shower for 2 whole entire hours!! So today during my shower, he fell asleep (as he usually does) under the little heat light with the fan going and has, so far, stayed asleep for 45 minutes!!! I REALLY hope this whole napping thing, as in actually napping, is a new trend!! :) Hurray for napping babies!! (As I write this, I can hear Brighton, who is supposed to be napping in his room, playing with blocks instead of sleeping. But, he usually lays down in his bed after an hour or so of playing and goes to sleep.)

Duncan, who usually wakes up for good before 7am, even slept in this morning! (See above photo of His Cuteness right after I had to wake him up.)

Night time sleeping is never really a big deal to me. Our babies sleep snuggled up in the crook of my arm, which I love and feel is the best and safest place for them. (See sidebar for more information on co-sleeping and how to do it safely, etc) Even if I have a baby who wakes up every couple of hours to nurse, like Duncan does, it doesn't really bother me too much. I wake up as the baby is making little "I want to nurse" noises and hook the baby up. The baby quickly nurses and within 5 minutes or so, we are all back to sleep.

Naps and babies taking them, however, are important to me...and to the happiness level of the baby. So I really, REALLY hope Duncan is finally going to start napping! :)

Another One Bites The Dust

The world of Facebook is a strange one. One day I have 297 friends, the next I have 296 and I have no clue who's missing. Or why.

I was very reluctant to join Facebook. For years, friends were sending me e-mails saying they had joined and wanted me to too. I didn't. I fought it. I didn't really understand it. Then, one by one, most of my family (including my 99 year old Granddaddy) joined. So I did to. Then, I got it! Facebook is basically hanging out with family and friends whenever you want!! :) It is the main way my extended family communicates with one another. In fact, since joining Facebook, I interact with my extended family and friends more in a month than I did before in a year! I really like that. :)

Facebook is not just a meeting place for family...it's also the place where you are now friends with people who knew you when you were only 3 1/2 feet tall and missing most of your teeth! Re-connecting with old friends has been so much fun!! :)

As a non-phone person, I also REALLY enjoy being able to arrange stuff with people via Facebook!!! Playdates, zoo trips, errands, visiting teaching appointments....it's all made so pleasant and painless by sending them a message or posting to their wall!!! :) It actually makes me so happy to not have to arrange stuff by phone that I'd like to jump up and down and giggle with glee!!!!!!!!!!!! I will spare you that image, though, and remain in my seat...but still smiling. :)

It is a strange phenomenon, though...this missing friend thing. It happens a lot. I'm not sure why, but some times I have a few less friends than I used to, but I can't tell that anyone is missing. Of course, out of the almost 300 friends only about 30-40 post much at all...so I guess whoever defriends me hasn't posted enough for me to miss that we aren't friends anymore.

I won't defriend you if you won't defriend me. :)

Our laundry system

After posting here about our new family closet, I thought I should post about my dirty laundry management system.

After years of trial and error, I finally found a system of keeping and organizing dirty laundry! One of my main problems was having enough bins to keep a weeks worth of dirty clothes (because I don't always do laundry regularly) sorted and where they need to be....close to the washer. After going through big laundry hampers that took up too much space and over-flowed way too soon, I bought some heavy duty laundry sorters with 3 canvas bags each from Lowes. (I tried the cheaper version from Wal-Mart...NOT worth your money!)

Each bag can hold 2-4 whole loads of laundry! I made a handy little chart so that "helpers" can easily tell where each color goes. I sort them as follows (and pictured from the top left to the right): whites, browns+yellows+oranges+khakis, greens, blues, blacks+grays, pink+purple+red.

As you can see from the first picture, I keep towels and sheets in a pile in front of the washer, and blankets and pillows in a pile on the floor next to the sorting bins. In the future I will probably put a basket where each pile is. :)

There are hampers to collect dirty clothes in the master bathroom, the upstairs hall, the big boy's room, and next to the hanging clothes rack (in our family closet area) in the family room. Kids take turns having "sort the dirty laundry" as one of their monthly chores.

As I do loads of laundry, I sort the upstairs clothes (mine, hubby's, and the two little boy's in addition to the towels and other linens) into one big hamper and put the other kid's clothes away quickly and easily in the family closet.

This system (with the family closet) has been working better than anything else I have ever tried! I think it's a keeper! :)

By the way,

I've lost 20 pounds in the last 2 months or so!! :) You can read about how/why/etc HERE. :)

Family Closet

After struggling and struggling with laundry issues for years, I finally decided to make a family closet! I first saw the concept of a family closet from watching the TLC shows about the awesome Duggar family. I don't have a whole room I can dedicate to it, but I did figure out that it could fit nicely in our family room, located very conveniently next to the laundry! Our family closet consists of 2 dressers, a few bins and crates, and a hanging rack with bags underneath. I keep the five oldest kid's clothes in the family closet. Mine, Dave's and Duncan's are in our master bedroom (like normal people...) and Brighton's clothes are still kept in his room.

Everything is labeled. Each of the three girls have three drawers: one with undies, socks, swimsuits, jammies and undershirts, one with long and short-sleeved shirts, and one with pants and shorts. The boys each have a drawer with their undies and swimwear. Then I ran out of drawers. :) So the boys have two stacking bins, the bottom one with their socks (they wear the same size) and the top with their jammies (again, they basically wear the same jammies.) The sock bin is our cat, Owl's, favorite new napping place. :) I keep the boy's shirts in the two crates turned on their side: one stack of short-sleeved and one stack of long-sleeved.

All the kid's church clothes are hung on the hanging rack. Girl's skirts are kept folded on top. The hanging bags below come in very handy! One bag is for items that need to be mended and/or dyed, one bag is stuff that needs to be donated and the last bag is stuff that has been grown out of and needs to be sorted into the correct storage bin to await the next kid to grow into it!

I LOVE this new system!!! It has made laundry a joy to me! For years, I have gone from one method to another, mostly consisting of each person in the family having their own clean clothes basket....with the goal of putting their clean clothes away at least once a week. In reality, all 9 or 10 clean clothes baskets (gotta have a sock basket!) were lined up in my room where kids rifled through them each day to find clean clothes (and left their jammies strewn about) and each night to find jammies (and left their dirty clothes mixed in with the clean!) I only got around to putting clothes away every month or two. Our master bedroom always felt and looked like a disorganized laundry room. Now, my kids clothes are all put away for the first time in a looong time, and, better yet, I know that they will always be put away! No more clean clothes baskets (except for Dave and I, but putting away our clothes will be much easier now!) means that the kids clothes get put away as soon as they are washed and dried!! :) I hope in our next house, we will have a laundry room big enough to house our family closet...or even a small room close to it to devote to the cause!

Want to see our dirty laundry? Check out this post to find out how we manage it! :)

Need some more laundry room/laundry keeping ideas? check out this link and all the links here to see how other families do it!