Perfecting Imperfection

Guess what I got for Valentine's Day?


I am so stinking excited about this because I waste a ton of coffee by making a whole pot but LOVE a cup in the morning to get going!  Plus - it's super easy, super fast and there is NOTHING to clean up!  ;)

I also got another wonderful Valentine's surprise!  I got an email this morning telling me that I won a copy of Clutter Rehab for submitting a recipe here!  I used Say Mmmm to make the printable grocery lists!

What a great start to a day!


In all honesty, this week is kind of lame...but it's a busy week, so what can I say...

Monday ~ Heart Shaped Pizzas from Papa Johns (a Valentine Tradition!)


Tuesday ~ Chicken and Rice


Wednesday ~ Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes


Thursday ~ Nana's or Leftovers (I have Open House so Jerry is in charge!)


Friday ~ Turkey Chowder (this is a push from last week...someday I'll tell you about how Jerry broke my crock pot.  :(


Saturday ~ Chicken Nugget Casserole and Salad


There you have it!  I did plan breakfasts and lunches, too...but they aren't anything exciting so I figured I would just share what we will be eating for dinner this week!

Hope you all have a great Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day has never really been a big deal for me.  I like chocolate.  I like flowers.  I don't necessarily think  they are money well spent, though.  I don't like jewelry.  Weird, huh?  I'm just not into jewelry...I've got my wedding rings and a few necklaces, some earrings and my watch...that's about all I need and all I really want.  My husband bought me a charm bracelet for Mother's Day last year and I like it...but it's kind of noisy and bulky to wear all the time.   So ~ I made a decision about Valentine's Day.  I'm going to teach my children to enjoy Valentine's Day as a holiday when we show people we love them in different ways...doing things to help them or making sure to give them extra hugs and kisses.  We will also enjoy a great "family" dinner tomorrow!


We are also going to make chocolate chip cookies.  :)

Jerry and I had an awesome Valentine Celebration last night!  My parents kept Nate and Danika and we sent the twins up to bed at 7:30.  Then, we dug into this:




It was SOOO yummy!

Then we watched a movie and went to bed!  It was relaxing and quite and wonderful!  To top it all off - we slept wonderfully because we didn't have little people (aka Danika or Nate) in bed with us in the morning!

Well - I'm off to go clean up the kitchen...shine my sink...and maybe get to bed early again tonight!

Happy Early Valentine's Day to all!  <3

This week I was busy.  VERY busy and I'm still not feeling great - which meant that I couldn't take on one of the bigger projects on my To Do List.  What I did do was organize my online clutter.  I started by taking care of all of those emails that can't bring myself to delete for some reason or another - responding to those that need responses and even unsubscribing to a few newsletters here and there.

In fact, I unsubscribed a lot this week.  I hit my Google Reader hard and really looked at the blogs I read and the ones that I only followed because I wanted the follow back...yes, I'm guilty of that!  Honestly, though, I use FeedSquares to read my blogs and I LOVE it...but seeing that number climb and climb (85 unread, 146 unread, 238 unread) makes me feel crappy and over whelmed.  So...I cut down the number of blogs I subscribe to in hopes that I won't have that sinking feeling I get when the number is too big to tackle.

In doing all of that I realized something about myself...I try to do too much.  I don't stick with one thing.  I don't give myself time to really try something out and see if it works before abandoning it.   I'm not very good at following through.  I plan on really thinking about this discover and trying to come up with the one thing I want to try and ignore the rest for a while.  It might be the whole grocery thing...or maybe I'll get back to Flylady - I haven't given up on that, yet!!!  I'll keep you posted, though!

I did head out to Staples today and bought some awesome organizing supplies for next week's project!  I can't wait to get started!!!  :)

So...I must have felt like taking pictures today because I have some to  share with you!

First...remember when I did this post for Say Mmmm?  I talked about making some grub for the Super Bowl?  Here's pics of the ones I made for lunch with the leftover ingredients!



Totally yummy, right?

Remember my last post about Duct Tape and Velcro?  I figured out that I can get about 40 minutes of peace if I just give in and strap them to chairs and let them beat up  play on my table!



I also want to share this awesome Valentine hairstyle for little girls!  Here's the practice pic from our morning try out of the hairstyle.  We are going to redo it for her party tomorrow.  It was SUPER easy!!!



I also stumbled across this awesome post today - and pulled out my #6 plastic cups to decorate with the kiddos!  (Who knew #6 cups were made out of the same plastic as shrinky dinks?!?)






So - that's it for now!  We had an awesome day playing at home and just hanging out - tomorrow we start early Valentine Celebrations with Danika's party at school...then Nate's on Friday!  :)

Here are a few more pics of them doing their cards last night - Jerry is such an awesome dad!

Love this one!