Rearranged

If I owned the home we are in now, one of my first projects would probably be to finish off the basement.  But, we don't own it so we don't want to spend a ton of money on a place we don't own.  It is a fairly nice basement compared to other ones we have seen and it is nice to have a basement unlike some of the homes we rented.  Therefore, we did want to use the space even though it wasn't a finished basement.   It is finished enough though to put in a play room down there.

On one side of the basement (the larger area) is our washer/dryer and storage area.  The owners of the home, now our landlords, left us some shelving down there, and I have added some for my job materials.  It also has a half bath down there, not a pretty one, but now that Kyper is potty trained it is nice to have a bathroom closer to where we wanted him to play.

However, the first year and half Kyper would hardly play down there, especially by himself.  After a few trips to Holland, where Kyper would play great in my parent's basement or my in-laws' basement by himself, Joel and I decided that we needed to rearrange the basement to try to make it a little more homey feeling. (As well as a little less smelly--due to a sewage problem right when Anja was born our first area rug got a little smelly.  We thought we cleaned it enough but every once in a while that smell would come back.)  We also got our little tv back from Joel's brother and sister-in-law.  My idea was to put our Wii downstairs so he could watch netflix down there.  Draw him in with the tv, but with all his toys are down there, so I wondered if he'd start to play on his own.  Joel's parents also gave us a swing that we could hang from the rafters down there.  Joel's grandpa Rosema made a swing for each of his kids' families.

I don't have any before pictures, but here are some of the after pictures of the rearranging:

Before, we had a tan area rug, the now floating black loveseat was where you see the television in the picture above and we did not have the flags hung, so the walls were just white cinder block.    We think the red area rug makes the space feel a little warmer.  The rest of his toys are behind the floating couch.  Once we rearranged the furniture Kyper called it more like a room and now he spends a lot of his day down there playing and I don't have to be down there the whole time now either.

I could probably do a separate post, but the swing has made our lives so much easier too.  Thanks grandpa and grandma!  We took Kyper's pacifer away in July when he turned 3 and lets just saw bedtime become much harder.  Once he is asleep, Kyper is a great sleeper, but the pacifer helped him fall asleep.  So taking it away amped up his procrastination efforts and made momma and daddy a little frustrated at bed.  He also cut out naps soon after turning 3, because if he napped he wouldn't go to bed until 10 and still would wake up before 7 sometimes before 6.   If he doesn't nap he will go to bed between 7-8pm and wake up 6-7 (if we are lucky 7:30am).  Well I don't know if it is just because of the swing or if it is school or if Kyper is just getting a little older, since the beginning of the year, bedtime has been so much easier.  He now will have a bedtime snack and watch a little something downstairs.  He typically gets done with his snack and starts to swing.  He swings for 15 minutes and some nights he comes up on his own and tells us he is ready for bed.  Other nights, we call him up but there is no arguing.  He then brushes his teeth and we read to him.  He hops into his bed and now rarely comes out (if he does it is just once to tell us a silly little snippet from his day).  This is a much welcome change and we think some of it has to do with him getting his energy out on the swing.

Kyper Begins Preschool

Many of you know that I work from home for a non-profit.  About a year and half ago (once Joel started getting paid instead of paying to learn) we had put Kyper in a in-home daycare.  We loved it.  The house he went to was within walking distance, so on nice days we'd walk there.  He loved YaYa and made some fun friends there.  He went to mornings a week, so that I could focus on work.  Let's face it I cannot do non-profit work with a busy boy at home.  (Anja will probably go to the same place this coming fall once she is older than 18 months and getting to even more trouble than she already does. :))

Well, this fall Kyper started to really dislike going to daycare.  There were a few issues I think that surrounded his feelings including, another little boy that was having some issues with the rest of the kids, Kyper was potty-training, and he just seemed like he was getting ready for a more structured environment.  We love YaYa and so did Kyper and I think she is really good with younger kids, but I don't think she had a lot of structured activities, but rather it was just free play.

Kyper also started going to story hour through hour coffee break this fall, and at story hour it is more structured.  They have a story time, craft time and a snack.  He often would tell me that Wednesdays were his favorite day--story hour day.   So along with this information and his dislike of going to daycare Joel and I prayed and really thought about preschool for him.  Our original plan was to wait until next fall, but the more he didn't want to go to daycare and the more he wanted to go to story hour kind of showed us that he may be ready for school.  I also talked to a non-family member who is a first grade teacher.  She and her family watched Anja and Kyper for a weekend while I was gone for a women's weekend and Joel was working.  I realized that I have mom-bias when I say this, but Kyper is smart.  When talking to Tracie though, she said we'd be crazy not to send him and he is ready for school and she pointed out some reasons she said this.

Therefore, after much praying, talking amongst ourselves and with some friends and family, Joel and I decided to send Kyper to preschool starting after Christmas break.  He goes to the Christian preschool that is attached to our church.  The teacher is great.  Kyper loves it and we are excited to see him start the new adventure of school!  Here is a picture of him on his first day of school:

This is the best shot I have of him--what a goof. :)

Meal Planning: Phillips Style

I recently posted a picture of our meal planning board and it has created quite a frenzy of activity on my facebook page and with friends that I actually see in real life.  So, I thought I would blog about it.  First and foremost, I have to credit Joel with doing most of the work on meal planning in our house.  He is the one that typically will sit down and fill out the calendar.

We have a white board monthly calendar that we use to fill it out.  I am sure you can pick up a very similar thing at a store like Target, but I got mine free from MOPS. (Actually, I just saw a nice one through Fathead)   It used to hang from a 3M hook that I put on our fridge, but I decided to take that down and hot glue a magnet we didn't need anymore.  (It was a hockey schedule, so it was a big magnet, but I didn't want to throw a nice magnet away, so we found a way to reuse it.)

Joel has a list of recipes/meal ideas on the computer that are tried and true.  Some months, when he has more time, he'll also sift through cookbooks to get some new ideas.  He then just fills the board up.  We only plan the main dish and we only do it for dinner.  I have my go-to lunches or we have leftovers for lunch--no need to plan for those at our house.  I also tend to have frozen veggies in the house that I just throw with whatever meal. Also, some of our meals we hardly need sides--like stir fry or casseroles--all the food groups are included.

We also have a few standing dates most months.  Like the first Wednesday of the month, we put down WND, which means Wednesday Night Dinner.  Our church hosts a community dinner the 1st Wednesday of the month September through June.  We also go to small group on the first Friday of the month and that is potluck style.  Finally, we have days labeled LO--that stands for Left Overs and are days when Joel is on-call.  IF we have left-overs that is typically what I fix.  Or, I will do another easy meal like spaghetti, grilled cheese, mini pizzas, chicken nuggets, etc.  (Easy, fast and very kid-friendly.)  Many months Joel and I also try to either do one night out or a date night for just the two of us.  (Although to be budget friendly sometimes the meal out will be breakfast or we won't go out at all that month.)

Here is a picture of our white board:

Reasons we like to meal plan:
1. I don't like to cook.  There I admitted it--I actually really dislike it, but lets face it, it is necessary for me to cook with Joel's schedule.  So because I don't like to cook a meal plan prevents a) having the same three meals that I can make every 3rd  night and b) that we don't have to wait for Joel to get home to even begin cooking.  Because this brings me to the second reason we plan.
2.  Part of cooking that makes me dislike it is just coming up with so much is coming up with an idea for dinner.  If we don't have something planned ahead of time all of a sudden it is 4:30 or 5:00 and I have super hungry kids, which means they are also crabby.  I then need to think of something and hope that I have all the ingredients on hand.  Also, it probably means that we will have a vegetarian meal (not that, that is bad), but most of our meat is frozen, so it requires time to thaw.

1 and 2 ensures that Joel typically comes home to a almost ready meal and doesn't have to stop at the store on his way home.  Although, I have to give Joel even more credit.  He tries to plan bigger, more time-consuming prep meals on days he thinks he'll be home on time or on weekends he doesn't have to work, so he can cook.  He likes to cook, but just can't always because of his schedule.

3.  It also helps with grocery shopping.  We make the meal plan first and then I get a grocery list from it.  If I am on top of it, this means I only have to go to the store once for a large shopping trip a month and then perhaps one or two more times for a few items and fresh produce.

Finally, I think there are one thing to remember about us--.
We are pretty laid back and that is one reason we love the white board.  We are flexible with our meal plan and we aren't rigid with it.  If we don't feel like having what is on the meal plan, we can easily switch (which is way reason 3 is helpful--I have ingredients for almost all the meals for a month).  I know this is one reason my friend gave me for why they don't plan.  I say, be flexible.  Don't worry if your meal plan says tacos but you feel like pizza.  Do it and then just do tacos another night.

I know a month seems like a long ways out to plan, but remember reason number 3--it really helps with the grocery bill each month.  It also helps with our flexibility since we have quite a few options to switch around too.