Ketchup

or Catch Up.

I have been MIA for many reasons. 1. I have been EXHAUSTED! Naptimes used to be my time to get stuff done. Blogging, sewing, cleaning, etc. Now nap times are used for naps. For everyone! Well, except my 3 year old of course who has officially become too old to nap. But if I can corral him in his room with his Tag Reader and some books, I can usually catch 45 min worth of ZZZs. The other reason I have been MIA is because we have had the most amazing February ever! If you are not from this area, I only hope your weather has been as amazing as ours. Of course, it makes me a little nervous about our summer outlook if we're having 70 degree days in February, but for now we are just trying to enjoy it as much as possible. We stay outside as much as possible. Going to the park, the zoo, playing b-ball in the driveway, going for walks, playing in the sandbox, drawing on the sidewalks! It has been heavenly. Of course all that energy being expended outside has added to the exhaustion. Hence the naps. Hence the no blogging.

We also took a small family vacation to Branson, Missouri. Also know as "Old-People Vegas". I <3 Branson. The four of us went for four days. We saw a show ("Amazing Pets"--i highly recommend it for young kids. I was pretty entertained as well. Who knew you could train house cats!?). We also went on a dinner cruise down by Branson landing. The kids were pumped just being on a boat. The captain even let Max drive for a little bit. We also swam in the indoor pool, played putt-putt at our resort, and played on the playground. But mostly, we just hung out. I packed activities for the kids and lots of movies. As a last minute addition, I threw in a box of markers and coloring books. We soon learned that we could have saved time and money by going to a hotel near our home and coloring with markers for 3 days. You would have thought that markers were the coolest thing under the sun. We usually stick to crayons at the house, so they were in hog heaven and colored pretty much the whole time we were in our room. It was a lot of fun.  Good Quality Family Time!

As I started to write this post, I was looking back at my New Years Resolutions. How many of you have broken yours already? yeah me too.
*I had decided that if I did a load of laundry from start to finish every day, I could stay on top of things. I quickly realized that that would not be enough. I pretty much do laundry all day every day. I have been able to work it into my routine to where I constantly switch loads and all that. Then I have one or two days when I fold everything and put it away. It has worked ok.

*I also vowed not to go to bed with a sink full of dishes. ha! that one lasted 2.5 seconds. I have been doing better overall about keeping up with the dishes though, so I have to cut myself a little slack I suppose.

*I have been better about planning activities for the kiddos, thanks to pinterest (can i get an "amen!"?) We have played with aqua beads, flour, oobleck, and all kinds of interesting concoctions. plus with the aforementioned awesome weather, it is so much easier to do fun stuff besides just chilling in the house.

*The hanger thing has been awesome. It helps me see that I need about a tenth of the clothes that are in my closet because i wear the same things over and over. after a few more months, i look forward to clearing out the riff raff.

*As far as the weight loss goes, I am making progress. But after about a 10 year strike from all things related to "working out", I have joined a boot camp! yikes. I am slowly getting past the point of feeling like I'm going to die, so that's good. Hopefully, I'll be able to drop my last few pounds and tone up a little bit before I get pregnant again.

We were determined to do everything in our power to make 2012 a better year. (of course, barring a catastrophe, that shouldn't be TOO hard :). So far so good. Hope the first 1/6th of 2012 has treated all of you good as well!!

-Mica