A day in the life of Heidi and ways to not feel overwhelmed by house work

I love schedules and lists.  My life just runs smoother that way!  Now that I am FINALLY done with school (well almost) I can have a normal routine.  Here is a day in the life of Heidi:

6:00 am wake up, treadmill, shower
7:00 am get Emmett and have breakfast before Greg leaves for work
8:00 am clean up breakfast and doing 5 minute rule and daily chore, balancing check book and paying bills
9:30 am Get me and Em ready for the day
10:00 am walk or play outside
11:00 am errands or just chill
12:00 pm Greg comes home for lunch
12:45 pm Emmett nap, clean up lunch
1:00 pm Work
4:00 pm Get Em and snack time.  Start dinner or play outside
5:00 pm Greg gets home and dinner prep
6:00 pm Dinner, clean up dinner, play, and evening walk
7:15 pm Bath and bedtime routine
7:40 pm Em goes to bed
8:00 pm Hang out with Greg
10:30 pm Bed

Everyone loves a clean house and few people I know enjoy cleaning.  Well I found a great cleaning schedule for me that makes it so my house is always clean and that the cleaning is not overwhelming!  Above I mentioned 5 minute rule and daily chore, they are explained below.

Five Minute Rule: Go though each room in the house and do a quick spiff putting things away, etc.   The kitchen is the longest because it involves unloading the dishwasher, wiping the counters, and doing the dishes.  Bathroom is wiping the mirror, sink and counters, and cleaning the toilet.  Bedrooms involves making the bed, changing the sheets (once a week) and doing any laundry.  Living room/dining room is a quick pick up. 

Daily Chore:
Monday-Sweeping
Tuesday-Vacuuming
Wednesday-Deep clean
     1st Wed, Kitchen-wiping cupboards, trash can, microwave, oven/stove top, fridge, dust, windows
     2nd Wed, Bathroom-cleaning tub and tile, washing bath mats, dust windows
     3rd Wed, Main living areas- vacuuming under furniture and cleaning furniture, dust, windows
     4th Wed, Bedrooms/Office-dust and windows
Thursday-Sweeping and mopping
Friday-Vacuuming
Saturday-Yard
Sunday-Break!

With doing the dishes I clean up right after a meal, put the dishes in the dishwasher and wash the ones that need to be hand washed.  This way the kitchen never feels overwhelming and it is always clean!

I do two week grocery shopping in Idaho Falls.  This means I plan out our menu for two weeks.  This makes it easy when it comes to meal time because I already know what I am going to make and I have all the ingredients for it!  Nothing is worse then trying to figure out what to have for dinner when you should have already started making it.

I love that I get to be a stay at home mom.  I take great pride in my family and the way my house looks and now I have the time to do those things!  Em and I have been having fun going to the library.  We went to story time yesterday and Em had fun.  Tomorrow we are going to go to music time.  We all like to read so the library is our new favorite place!

 These two are so silly together!

This past weekend we had a Pearce family vacation in Island Park and Yellowstone.  It was fun to hang out with everyone!!

A tour of the house

I will give you a little tour of our new house.  I love old houses they have so much character!

The front of the house

 

  

 When you walk in to the right is the play room

And to the left is the living room

 

The dinning room

The Kitchen

Mine and Greg's Bathroom

Then you go upstairs

This is the master bedroom which also serves as the laundry room andCyris room

Emmett's Bathroom

Emmett's Bedroom

 

 

 

We are now the Idaho Pearces!  Greg got a job with AMET as a mechanical design engineer.  The company makes automated welding systems.  We are SO grateful for the wonderful job Greg has with great pay and benefits!  Heavenly Father always has a plan for us it just takes some faith and patience that he knows us and our needs.  We have a always like the Idaho Falls area and have now ended up here!  Rexburg is certainly an interesting town with it mostly existing because of BYU Idaho.  I have seen quite a few Aggie shirts though so maybe Rexburg won't be so bad after all ;).  With some more help from Heavenly Father we found a place that lets us have Cyris.  Greg and I spent 2 whole days looking online for places to rent.  There were two places that would let us have pets, a 700 square foot apartment and a 2000 square foot house.  I don't even know how I found the link to the house because I could not find it again later but we ended up getting it!  It is a cute house with 4 bedrooms and a huge fenced yard.  With the extra bedrooms we have a guest room and an office.  The yard has the potential for greatness if only Cyris would go out there by himself without crying, sheesh!  The only thing we don't like about the house is that is has all wood floors that are very old making them hard to clean.  My OCD has been on overdrive about no body being able to walk around without socks or shoes on.  We did find a great price on some carpets so the main living areas have carpet now and I finally found a hardwood floor moping solution that seems to be picking up some dirt!  Once I find the camera I will take pictures of the house.  I am loving being at home with Emmett and Cyris.  I already have a nice little routine down.  Another amazing blessing from Heavenly Father is that I have a part time job!  At the beginning of May I had an interview with Golder in Tucson.  It would have been a wonderful job and I thought Tucson and the desert were amazing but Greg and I wanted him to work and me to stay at home.  I was offered the position and we accepted that maybe for now Heavenly Father needed us to keep our reversed roles.  2 days later Greg was offered the position here is Rexburg (YAY!!!) and when I called to turn down the position they offered for me to work part time from home doing groundwater modeling!!  I start on the 18th and with the amazing pay they are giving we plan to save it all and buy a house next year!  Picture to come of our new lives in the next post.        

Oh what fun we have had this year

 

Emmett LOVES to read.  He likes to sit in his little rocking chair and look at his books.  When we say it is time for bed he goes into his room and climbs in his chair ready for his bedtime story.  I am so glad he loves reading, to me reading is such a wonderful adventure!

Em had his first hair cut back in January.  We have a barber that lives just down the road from us so he had his first haircut at Bob's Barber.

 

 He thought sitting in the barber chair was so cool.  He felt like a big boy!  He held still for the most part and did get mad or scared!  It was defiantly time for a haircut too, he had a mullet!  I let his mullet grow out because his hair curls at the bottom and I loved it so much.

Emmett is such a good eater.  He eats veggies and meat, the things kids don't usually like to eat.  I am SO grateful he is such a good eater.   He is a pro at using a fork and spoon and a cup without a lid (as long as he remembers he is holding his cup).  He must be a hobbit though because like in this picture he is having his second breakfast.

 The slide is one of his favorites.  He says GO before sliding down.  He also likes to stand at the top and dance, very safe I know.

 Emmett and Cyris are best buddies.  This box entertained both of them for quite some time.  Emmett always asks for Cyris first thing in the morning and follows him around all day.  Cy is such a baby that sometimes the baby is scary and he tries to run away, which only makes Emmett laugh and chase him.

 "Potty training" is going great.  I put it in quotes because we aren't officially potty training just teaching him what the potty is and to like to sit on it and recognize when he pees.  He knows already!  He pees at least once a day when we put him on the potty and when he is playing he will stop what he was doing and get on the potty and go!  Sometimes we do not get his diaper off in time but he realizes that he has to pee and then goes and sits on the potty!  I have heard so many horror stories about potty training and I feel that it is because as parents we are not teaching our kids form the beginning to listen to their bodies.  By ignoring all aspect of using the toilet until they are 2 or 3 is a detriment to potty training in the long run.  Kids only know that when you go potty you use your diaper and therefore the potty is such a scary and foreign concept.  They have not been use to listening to the signals their bodies give them about going to the bathroom and it makes it frustrating to learn.  Okay I will get off my potty training soap box now :)

A couple weeks ago we took Em out to play in the snow.

As you can see he did not enjoy it.

Emmett is such a happy, easy going boy.  The dog kennels are his little forts

 He likes to climb up on anything he can

Sometimes he gets stuck and needs some help.  He did not appreciate us grabbing the camera and taking this picture before helping him out.

 This little boy loves his Aunt Nikki and he loves his dessert!  We took him to Aggie Ice Cream and he went to town!

 He especially loves his furry buddy Cyris.

 Me and my sister Nicole are members of the An Tus Nua Irish Dance troupe and LOVE it.  We started to learn Irish step dancing when we lived in Germany and are so glad that a certified school opened up not that long ago in Cache Valley.  We had our big St. Patty's Day show this month and had so much fun!

 Em decided after the show to steal some of the leprechaun's gold!  Greg and Em were so sweet and came to both nights of the show.  Emmett is a Michael Flatly in the making, he dancing all day long now!

 He is a John Deer boy through and through, making his Great Pappy and Pappy Koontz proud :)

 Here is Emmett with his Grandma Pearce and cousin Hayzlee.  He loves to play with all his Pearces.

 Best cousin buddies!

 All the nieces and nephews had to get a picture with Aunt Lizzy before she leaves to Sumara Russia to serve a mission.  We are so proud of you Aunt Lizzy!  Em loves his Aunt Lizzy!

 Such loving Pearce siblings :)

 These two could play all night as long as Em is in a good mood.  I realized we need to work on sharing and being soft to others.

 Cyris has a pretty hard life wouldn't you agree

Greg has been so great and keeping our family running with my crazy school schedule.  He has a job interview with USU tomorrow as and engineer with the facilities department.  We are praying and crossing our fingers this is the job that has been waiting for us!

Only 9 more thin sections and the last couple pages of my final report stand between me and graduation.  I hope this chapter of our lives (school and unemployment) is about to come to an end.  In the mean time we are just having fun being together and helping each other with our responsibilities.  I love me family SO INCREDIBLY MUCH!!!!

Where has the new year gone?

Everyone please forgive me that I have long periods of time between posts as my schedule does not allow for much leasuire time these days.  I cannot believe it is almost the middle of February!  That means I only have 7 more weeks to complete my Masters project and turn it over for edits if I want to graduate in May.  Just thinking about it is making me anxious!  It will all be worth it in the end, right?  My days consits of leaving before the rest of my famliy wakes up and then getting home at dinner.  I am glad I get to spend 2 or 3 hours with Em before he goes to sleep but then it is back to homework, writting my report, and reading scientific papers.  Trust me, you can take any subject and instanly make it boring by putting it in scientific journal format.  This semester has been interesting.  I changed my Masters from Geology (a thesis reguired and due to late and early snow I could not get field work done) to Applied Enviornmental Geoscience (a project reguired as well as 9 extra class credits).  I had to take classes outside the Geology department which made me really nervous but I am survivng and things are coming along.  From my Remote Sensing class I have been learning all about the physics of radiation and it makes me wish I went to school to become a meterologist like I had originially planned.  There are lots of things I would like to go back to school and do (pastery school, dietician, meterology, chemist) too bad school isn't free or maybe I would take a class or two at a time and be an eternal student!  My other class is Restoration Ecology which has not been as exciting as Remoste Sensing but hey it is a means unto an end.  Just wish me luck that I can keep up this crazy schedule!!  One fun thing I am able to do right now is Irish Step dancing!  I am SO happy I can do it again.  When I was in 8th and 9th grade and we lived in Germany I started dancing.  I basically ate, slept, and breathed dance and then we moved to South Dakota and it was only sadness.  That was the hardest part about moving, no more Irish Step dancing :(.  But a certified dance school opened up last yearish and there is a free preforming group that I get to be a part of!!  If I could I would be at the dance studio all day instead of school.  Kids can start taking Irish Dance classes when they turn three and I already plan on signing Emmett up :).  Gerg has been a busy stay at home dad.  I don't know what I would do without him, he certainly keeps our family going!  He has enjoyed spending so much time with Emmett and Cyris but both of us will be greatful when our roles can be reversed and he can go to work and I can stay home with my babies.  I hope that role reversl can happen sooner rather then later, the stress of not having a job just might kill me.

When Life Gives You Lemons

I am not very good at journaling so I haven't written about my family's experience with job searching.  I want to write down my thoughts and here seemed an easy place where I could read it again later.  For the past year Greg has been searching for an entry level mechanical engineering job.  He tried a semester of Graduate school but with budget cuts the classes he wanted to take were no available, the professor in the area he wanted left and it just didn't seem worth the student loans for something he would not enjoy.  Fortunately I had my TA job from January-May and then September-December and Greg worked with facilities on campus from April- November so we could pay the bills and have some money to do fun things but of coarse we were stressed out about finding Greg a real job, a career, something he would enjoy doing.  Greg has had several interviews in the past year but no luck (obviously).  It has been quite the experience and I just wanted to share what we have all learned this past year.  From January to April I was SO stressed out, I didn't feel like Greg was doing enough to apply to jobs and I was always nagging him to be doing stuff.  Needless to day it wasn't very much fine.  Sometime in May I finally realized Greg's job search is up to him, I cannot be in charge (which is what I had been trying to do). I told him I was willing to help with whatever he needed help with and most importantly I realized the Lord knows what we need to do and where we need to be, we just have to be patient.  Since then the Lord has blessed us in so many ways.  I have come to realize there is not a lot I need in this world to make me happy.  Sure there is a lot of stuff I would like but to be happy I do not need it.  I have found such joy in raising and just being with my little family.  I realized I just want to be able to provide a stable, nurturing atmosphere where the gospel and learning and laughing and loving are what we do.  I have realized that by following the Lord's simple commandments I have more joy then I know what to do with!  I started a gratitude journal and by doing so have realized how many amazing blessings the Lord has given me, I have never felt happier before in my life then I do right now!  There are three specific experiances I want to share related to our job search.

In September I was stressing about what happens if Greg never finds a job and I have to go to work everyday and leave my babies at home to provide for my family.  What is it takes another year to find a job how are we going to provide for ourselves, etc.  On Sunday I was sitting on the couch in the foyer during sacrement (we just cannot be on time to church lately!) and I was stressing about my families situation when the phrase "I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it" came into my mind.  I know that was Heavenly Father speaking to me, telling me everything would be fine, just have some faith and a little patience and I have something great instore for your family.  I just hold that promise for the Lord in my heart and just let him guide us as we look for a job and go about taking are of our family.  Since then I have not worried about the future, we will be provided for in some way as long as we just keep following the course He has for us.

The second experiance came when Greg and I were reading Elder W. Christopher Waddell's talk from Conference "The Oportunity of a Lifetime"  The talk is about serving missions and about an elder from Spain who was called to serve in Arizona he didn't know why he was sent to Arizona because most forgin missionaries are called to serve in their own countries.  He came to realize the Lord knows excatly where everyone needs to be.  This missionary was able to meet the man who baptized his father in Spain and able to show this man that he had been a wonderful missionary (the man all these years had thought his mission a failure because he only baptized on man).  From this talk the Lord told me that he know where my family needs to be and that is in Mendon with my family.  We have been living with my mom and sister for a year and a half and we are so grateful that we can do so.  There is no way we could afford to live on our own and I wouldn't have been able to continue my masters degree without my mom to watch the baby.  This whole time though I have wanted to live on my own.  I am a adult, I want to be self suffient etc.  I feel like people look down on me when they know I moved back home but after this talk I know this is where the Lord needs us to be.  He needs us to be here so my parents can help us survive and we need to be here to help my mom and sister while my dad serves in DC and Afghanistan.  I am at peace now with living back at home.

My third experience came while reading "Waiting upon the Lord: Thy Will Be Done" by Elder Robert D. Hales from conference.  By turning our selves over to the Lord and waiting for the right time and season for everything we can receive so many blessings.  The talk made me realize that since I turned myself over completely after that experience in September the Lord has blessed us in SO many ways.  Greg and I have never been closer, I feel such a strong love for him.  I find myself filled with so much joy I feel like I am going to burst.  Emmett and Cyris bring so much love a fulfillment to my life, I have the desire to sever the Lord and to follow his commandments with renewed conviction, and I KNOW that we will find a job, the Lord will bless us with a way to provide for our family.  

Life usually doesn't turned out how you planned it and it is better that it doesn't because the Lord has a plan in store for each of us and while we have to pass through trials, we come out of them a stronger, happier, more faithful person.

Here are my 3 favorite pictures we had taken in October.  I just love my family!

Dr. Seuss Birthday Party for the Birthday Boy!!

Our little man turned ONE on October 20th.  First off, he has such a cool birthday, 10/20/2010!  What a wonderful year it has been!  We all just love our little guy so much!  He has such a personality!  He is such a great sleep compared to a year ago ;), he loves to eat his finger foods and will try new things, he says mama, dada, dog, and talks all day long.  When he plays he talks in a really high pitched voice, he loves bath time, loves to be snuggled at bedtime, LOVES to play with the dogs, is a flirt, and there are so many other things I could say but the post would be way to long. 

Emmett David Pearce

One Year 10/20/2011

20lbs (15th percentile)

29 inches (30th percentile)

Emmett had a Dr. Seuss Party.  I went all out on his party because he is my favorite little boy and needed an awesome celebration!  My sister made his invitation (she is so creative)!  There was a picture from Oh the Places You'll Go and it said: Big B Little B what begins with B?  Birthday Bash Bonanza, B, b, B!  Oh me!  Oh my!  You'd better come by for dare I say it's Emmett's First Birthday!  So Please, Oh Please pick up your keys and join the fun as the clock strikes one on the 22nd day of the 10th month.  Where in Mendon you will find a party right out of Dr. Seuss' mind!  So be inspired and come seussically attired.  Be a smarty and come join the party!

For the party my mom made a Cat in the Hat felt hat and a banner with all the Dr. Seuss characters.  She also helped me make the onsie.  I made a ton of Dr. Seuss inspired food, what kind of party would it be without food!    

 Beezul Nut Juice (sprite and Jello cubes)

 Water From the Cool of the Pool

 BBQ Iota (little sausages)

 Poodle Eating Noodles

 ABC's of Dr. Seuss

 Fruits and Veggies From the Jungle of Nool

 Cheese Trees

New Blue Goo (Carmel Rice Crispy Treats dyed blue)

 One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish Seuss cakes, we also had red and blue homemade ice cream

 Emmett's Cat in the Hat Smash Cat

Emmett eating his smash cake.  He loved it!

 We gave these out as party favors, they said: Today was good!  Today was fun!  Thank you, thank you everyone.

A slideshow of our little man

 

The sign says: WAIT!  Stop here you see, and write a very special message to ME!  A Birthday Wish or just to say HI, to your very favorite ONE year old guy!  On the front, the back, or any pages.  It is something I will treasure all of my ages!  Signed Mayor Emmett.

This will be a fun tradition to read this to him every birthday and read how much his family loves him

 We had three guessing jars.  They said: tell me the correct number of candies in the jar.  If you're the winner you'll take them home in your car!

There was a Dr. Seuss Trivia Quiz that said:  Think you know your Dr. Seuss, take a guess but you won't win a mousse.

We played pin the star on the sneetch

We also had Ring the Gak (horseshoes) and Tweetle Beetle Battle (croquet)

My cousins came seussically attired, aren't they so cute!

He had fun opening presents.  He got books, a ball, some food, a stuffed animal, his Caterpillar Halloween costume his Grandma Pearce made, and a wooden dog his Grandpa Pearce made.  Thanks everyone!

 He likes to play on his toy caslte from his Koontz grandparents

And he is in LOVE with the dump truck that makes sound that me and Greg got him.

Thanks everyone who came to his party!  We love this little boy so much and are so glad we could all celebrate him!