Khloe's Monthly Photo Project & Photo Book

Way back when in this post, I talked about Khloe's monthly photo project.  I showed a few months of her photos, but never got around to showing the final project.  I took a picture of her every month and kept track of milestones throughout the year.  Then for her birthday, I made her a photo book called "Khloe's 1st Year".  

The pages were laid out with the picture on the left side, labeled with the month, and a paragraph on the right with a blurb about what she did that month.

I tried to take a picture of every page so you could see what each said.  Some are crooked and a bit distorted... just ignore it :)  Click on the pictures to make them a bit bigger.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was really pleased with the book and everyone loved looking at it at her birthday party. I decided to continue on into her second year.  I've been taking monthly pictures, but I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do on the right side page.  Thinking about maybe funny stories or things she says. 

Here are the pictures so far for this year.  

September (with birthday cake of course)

October (we just so happened to have puppies!!)

November

December

January

February

March

 April

May

June

 July

 

I wonder if she'll get annoyed with me when she's 16 and I'm still doing this..... 

-Brooke

Cleaning Schedule

I thought I was busy before I had a kid.  I really did.  I wasn't.  I didn't even know what busy was until I had Khloe.

I've always strived to be an organized person, sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fail.  When I had Khloe and then went back to work, I realized just how hard it was to keep up with simple things that I had taken for granted before.  I would go to work all week, come home, cook dinner, bath Khloe, play with her and then it was time for her to go to bed.  By the time she would go to bed, I was exhausted and ready for bed myself.  Then came the weekend and I would have 10+ loads of laundry to do (how in the world do 2 1/2 people go through that many clothes???? It's one of life's great mysteries), every room of the house to clean and then my weekend would be gone before I even got to relax.

I've seen a million and one cleaning schedules on Pinterest and have tried a few.  Every time I would fail miserably. They were all way too intense for me.  In my mind they were for someone who was home all day with no kids to watch and nothing else to do except clean.  I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to clean my windows/ baseboards/ lights every week!!!   Are you kidding me!  I’m lucky to get the dishes out of the sink!  I can count on 1 hand the number of times my baseboards have been cleaned ever!  After being extremely frustrated with these cleaning schedules, I decided to make my own, more reasonable schedule that fits my life.  I’ve been trying it out for a few weeks now and it’s actually working.  No, my house is not immaculately deep cleaned every week…. (I don’t know too many people  anyone who actually shampoos their carpets once a month…. ) but my house is clean and presentable.  If someone decided to drop by unannounced, I’m not going crazy trying to hide things.  Yes, I would like for people to think that I mop my floors once a week, but I don’t.  I’ve found that the best part of this cleaning schedule is the 10 minute tidy every evening.  I actually set a timer for 10 minutes and challenge myself to see how much I can get done.  Usually this 10 minutes is spent putting things away like toys, books, food back in the pantry, bottles and hair tools back in the cabinets.  This has been the key step to keeping my house presentable.  As Khloe gets older, I’m going to implement this as a part of her chores and she’ll have her own 10 minute tidy.  I’ve also found that if I can do 1 load of laundry a day (put it in the wash at night and move it to the dryer in the morning) it never adds up on me.  Some days I don’t have enough for a full load, so I’ll go 2 days in between.  

Hope it helps you out!

-Brooke

Cheap Seat

Last week when I showed you our new porch roof here, I mentioned that I had saved money by buying an unfinished swing.

This year for Mother's Day, I asked Chris if I could pick out my own gift.  After he did his happy dance, he agreed.  All I wanted for Mother's Day was a porch swing and flowers for my porch.  

So I started scouring the internet trying to find a swing and quickly realized that I could afford nothing.

I did find this one on Lowes.com for $119... but also found that the weight limit was 300lbs.  Well... we could sit on this thing by ourselves, but both Chris and I together and.... let's just say I'm not 100 lbs.

Most of the other swings were $300 and over (too rich for my blood).  So I went over to HomeDepot.com and found this one.

It's unfinished, so I knew I would have to either paint it or stain it, but I don't have a problem with a little elbow grease.  At $99 and with a weight limit of 500 lbs, this baby was calling my name.  And it was 5ft!  That's huge!

Before ordering, being the eternal cheapskate that I am.... I wanted to look around and see if I would find this same swing somewhere cheaper.  Lo and behold, Amazon came through again.  

I bought this little baby and after shipping and everything, my order came out to $74.  And it was delivered in 2 days!!!

It arrived in a box and Chris assembled it in about 10 minutes.  I slapped on a couple coats of outdoor paint and here she is.

I was a little nervous because it had some bad reviews.  Some where saying that it felt flimsy.  When both of us first sat on it together, it did make a creaking sound.  But, I think that was just from it being new and the first time weight was applied to it.  Since then it actually feels very sturdy and doesn't creak or crack :)  I'm happy with my purchase and my deal finding skills!  

-Brooke