Five on Friday!

TGIF~ I hope this week has been a good one for you. Everyone is on the mend here, thank goodness (although the full movie day Wednesday was a nice change of pace, if only it didn't come with sickness).  Chris brought back lattes this morning so it's off to a good start. I'm linking up with the Five on Friday ladies and sharing five things making my life easier right now, and maybe they will make yours easier too (and throwing in a couple pictures from our 1 year old photo shoot because they make me smile).

1. If you have a toddler, this is the best mat ever! I bought it thinking it wouldn't really work, but it works. It's so easy to serve, clean (yay dishwasher), and I even take it to restaurants (all my babies ate off restaurant tables, but I can't help thinking it's gross and this solves my dilemma)! It's called the ez-pz happy mat (we have the mini version). It even comes in a reusable bag for easy travel.

2. Have you used Amazon Prime Now? It's a separate app from Amazon Prime and it's such a lifesaver. This week with the kids sick, I ordered clorox wipes and beer and they arrived within 4 hours. If you spend over $35 delivery is free (unless you need it within 2 hours) - I threw a $20 amazon gift card in my order to reach the $35 (and totally felt like I beat the system). When we traveled to Disney, I used this to get a few staples like milk, diapers, and snacks. The order does include a tip for the driver.

3. Fresh Lotus Youth Preserve has been my new go-to in this cold dry weather. I think it's too late to "preserve" any youth, but it feels so good and really helps my dry skin. I love that it's light enough for  morning wear too.

4. My kids are not great eaters (except Katherine, she'll eat just about anything) and Chris is a vegetarian. This means our meals lack some important nutrients. I've started cooking eggs more often, but I've also added Bob's Red Mill Vegi Soup Mix. For some reason my kids eat it up. It has veggies and lentils and alphabet pasta. I always throw in whatever veggies we have for some extra vitamins and freshness. The lentils add lots of protein and the pasta makes it fun. They will yell out whatever they've found (doesn't really help with manners). I always add vegetable broth instead of water (or a mix of the two).

5. A sales associate at Pottery Barn mentioned this wrinkle release spray and it has lived up to the hype. We one of the kids puked allll over our bed, bed skirt and rug, I washed the bed skirt, pulled it out of the dryer and thought, it will never look the same again. But a few sprays and a couple tugs and it looks perfect! So much easier than steaming or ironing!

I hope everyone has a great weekend. My kids are so excited their cousins are coming, I just hope the bad weather doesn't affect their trip! We have a full Saturday of basketball games, a birthday party, and the kids are going to the Hornets game.

Thoughts on Thursday

I should be cleaning currently. We have family coming into town this weekend, we had two very sick kids two nights ago, and because of that I had to cancel our cleaners and reschedule for next week. Which means I need to get things done. Buuuuut, I'll do it later.

Tuesday it finally warmed up! After days of below freezing temperatures it hit the 60s! It was beautiful. After preschool the girlies stayed on the playground for almost 2 hours. We came home in time for the boys to get off the bus and shortly after that KC puked everywhere. Ugh it was so so sad.
A friend asked to take N to a Hornets meet and greet and I wrote her thinking I should cancel but she said she'd take him anyway. N had a blast, and poor KC spent the night with a bucket. We had to take the T to piano and basketball so KC didn't even get the benefit of sitting on the couch watching tv.

That night, N fell victim to the tummy bug. It was a rough night. We had some puppy pads left over from Dali and I dug those out and put them beside each boy just in case. They worked great! Highly recommend using them if you don't have kids with good aim.

We said good bye to our tree this week as well. I love having Christmas linger. The kids wanted one more picture with the tree before we took it down. I always hate seeing it by the curb. I know it doesn't take the memories with it, but it's just such a big reminder that it's over and next year the kids will be older and it will be different.

I received our pictures from Katherine's 1 year old shoot. They turned out so well. I'll share more later but look how sweet!

This little one doesn't often say "MAMA" anymore she straight up yells "MA" like she's a teenager (and she's currently doing that from her crib, guess she's done napping).

Linking up with two of my favorites today, Annie and Natalie!!

Happy New Year // Five on Friday

Happy 2018! We started off the year finding out we had black mold under the sink and MRSA on our youngest. Hopefully things will only get better from here! I haven't uploaded pictures from our Christmas, totally forgot to take real camera pictures of our New Year's celebration and now the kids are back in school and life is back to it's regular schedule. Our tree is still up (well one of them, the other never took water and came down the day after Christmas to avoid being a fire hazard). Tomorrow is officially the 12th day of Christmas!

I thought I'd start this year out with a post about my five resolutions. I love setting monthly goals and yearly goals. These will be yearly goals, hopefully more like habits that will form.

1. Everyone in our family drops all the items they walk into the house with on the floor in the kitchen.  Currently there is a bookbag, my diaper bag, a bag of groceries that needs to go into the pantry, a bag of leftover party supplies from Katherine's birthday, a light fixture we changed out, and a box to be carried outside to recycling. Our kitchen isn't super functional the way it's set up and our mud room is even less functional but it looks even worse when everything is on the floor. So goal #1 - get everything off the floor of the kitchen.

2. Read!! Since Katherine was born I tried to start books but I was always too tired to keep up with characters and story lines. Now that she is waking up just once a night I feel like I can jump back into reading. My cousin gave me Book of the Month for my birthday and I'm loving it! It's such great movitation to read. Currently reading Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and loving it.

3. Somehow find a way to exercise a little. This has been so hard with our schedule and with Katherine's unpredictable sleeping patterns. I'm really hopeful as sleep returns to a schedule that I can carve some time to do something. A gym is out of the question, but seriously anything at this point will help. I just want to feel better about myself, even if I look the same.

4. Schedule better. I want to make sure I have everything entered into our calendars (all of them) so that we aren't constantly wondering what comes next. So far I'm failing on this one. The boys have games tomorrow and I have no clue when they are. Our January calendar isn't up and I've got nothing on my phone. Today will be the day I get January together. (and I love these calendars, they are HUGE and I put it in the kitchen so everyone knows what's up).

5. My overall goal is to be happier. Possibly find happiness in being content. I tend to worry and be anxious about everything. I have trouble having fun when things are stressful (even the smallest amount of stress). Having 4 kids is stressful. For us it's very stressful. I want to find a way to enjoy it more. Obviously I love them all dearly, but the daily arguments, whining, laundry, food prep, and even the scheduled activities are weighing me down, and I need to nip this now because it's just going to continue as Katherine and KC grow.

I hope 2018 brings the promise of a wonderful year to you! Those in the snow stay warm! Here's to a great 2018!