I am so excited that Christmas is just around the corner! That means that Christmas break is here - since Tim sent in his final on Monday evening, his break is official! He also had most of Saturday off of work until today! It was incredibly nice to not have one thing after another to do. It was actually pretty relaxing.

Yesterday morning we went to visit his grandparents and give them their Christmas gift. Ella had fun playing with Grandma and Grandpa Madlo, Lucy had fun showing them all of her pretty smiles and of course Tim and I had fun showing off our beautiful babies. ;-) We ran some errands after that. We grabbed some lunch of the way to Shakopee and brought some stuff to the thrift store that was cluttering our garage. We also returned a few things, grabbed diapers at Target, sold a few baby books at Once Upon a Child and got a few groceries. It was an absolute zoo out there! I would have been very happy to have stayed home instead of going out, but it is very nice to have those errands done. Its difficult to have a large to do list when I go out alone with Ella and Lucy!

We came home with 8 apples that Tim's grandparents had given us. So I browsed some recipes online, found 3 cups of frozen cranberries in our freezer and baked a cranberry apple pie from scratch! It turned out very delicious! We're having my parents over this evening to enjoy it with us. I also made cranberry apple bread that I threw in the freezer. We will have it on Christmas day. That is about the extent of my Christmas baking! There have been a lot of shared Christmas cookies already, so I really didn't need to make anymore sweets.

Today my mom and brother came over to watch a movie with us. I was trying to coax Ella out of the bathtub this morning. She loves the bath so much that she stays in there for as long as possible. Especially when the tub is filled with "Elmo bubbles" (basically bath bubbles with Elmo on the bottle). I had told her the day before that Grandma was coming over. She was very excited when she remembered this. She told me "Mama's coming over to watch a movie with us. Ella's so excited!"

When "Mama" arrived she suprised us all by telling us how to turn Sesame Street on. We have a DVR that we record Sesame Street on, so it requires a lot of button pushing to get to the right place. But she sure knew how to do it!

Well unfortunately, quiet time is about up and my little girl is calling for me from her room. It seems strange that naptime is almost non existent at our house for her, but I guess I can't expect her to still nap when she sleeps in so late! Today I woke her up at 11:15 am! Normally she sleeps until 9 or 10 am. She hadn't been taking a nap very consistently, and if she wasn't going to take her nap she would stay in her room and fuss until I got her up. So we decided to have quiet time instead. She lays in her bed with a big pile of books for an hour. If she is tired she falls asleep, and if not she still stays in her bed quietly looking at books until I get her up after about an hour.

Its the weekend of Christmas already! It hardly seems possible!

We are so excited to celebrate Christmas this year with our wonderful family! Its so much fun having young children to celebrate with. This year Ella understands what is going on and she cannot wait to open her presents! She is also learning the Christmas story. She knows it so well that she can tell it to us, and she often does. She has a paper Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, Angels, donkey, shepherds and wisemen that she colored and made at grandma's house. They are her favorite toys nowdays! In fact yesterday before church she had most of them in her toy jeep and she told us that the Angel and baby Jesus were going shopping!

Here is to an abrupt ending of this blog - Lucy needs to eat!

Have a wonderful Christmas remembering the best gift that was ever given - Jesus Christ!

I spent a couple hours this evening going through all of my girl clothes taking inventory of what I already have. I found a blog that had templates for an inventory tracker. I am hoping this will help me stay on track to what I really need for the girls and help me not to buy more than I really need for them. So far Lucy has been able to wear all of the clothes I still had from Ella. I didn't save a lot from Ella, just a few favorites. I am saving a lot more this time, but I have a feeling if we have another one it will be a boy, just because we have nothing for a boy!

Tim and I talked for awhile tonight about his school situation. We are going to try to schedule our lives differently and make a few changes that will hopefully help a lot. He is going to try going to bed earlier and waking up earlier so that he can do his homework when everyone is still asleep. Personally, if I were him I would prefer this. I have a much easier time focusing when the house is quiet.

I am also going to try cooking meals in advance (maybe once or twice a week) and freezing them. Then I can pop them in the slow cooker to warm up. This way I would elminate cooking while I am trying to do a million other things, and if Tim gets home a little later than expected we don't have to worry about the food getting cold. Also a big advantage will be less clean up time as I will only need to wash the slow cooker and our dishes for the night. We'll give it a try!

I also want to get back into my cleaning schedule. If I try to keep the house clean all day until Tim gets home it can be quite stressful since I have a 2 year old who even if she tries to help me clean can be kind of accident prone thus making a mess of what had just been cleaned. This is why I have found it to be very helpful to try to stick to a list of cleaning certain things on certain days. For example, Monday is my day to deep clean all of our bathrooms. All 3 of them! Tuesday is my day to wash clothes. Wednesday is my day to wash towels. And so on...

Here's to hoping our new plan will give us the both of best worlds!

I love Saturdays. Saturday is normally our family day where even if Tim has a lot of homework he takes a break for the majority of the day. And even if he is swamped with homework, he is still home, and I love it! Lately when Tim is on call he has to work on Saturdays. Normally I am very bummed and it ruins my whole Saturday! However, today my disapointment takes a backseat to the fact that he has a ton of homework already and working today was not ideal for him either... Not that he ever likes to work on a Saturday its just sometimes the timing is even worse than normal!

We had talked about him taking a break from school from now until August, but it seems there is no perfect answer. He is on a plan right now where he will be done a year from now. If he takes a break he most likely will not be able to take the classes he needs as they only offered on a certain schedule.

On the other hand, if he pushes through this next year to finish up, we need to create some kind of plan. There is so much on both of our plates that I am scared we're going to break!

Tim works full time plus some overtime (and is on call every few weeks) and goes to school every Monday from 5:15-10:45.

I stay at home all day, and contrary to what some might think, its a full time job in itself! I also work part time from home. I really do love it and its a huge blessing to be able to do that and not miss out spending time with my family! Then there's the grocery shopping which I normally do with one or both of my children. It also requires a bit of planning to stick to a budget while eating healthy. Not to mention if there is no planning involved I have been known to get home from the store missing most of everything we need! Unfortunately our grocery store is 30 mins away.

Then there is Ella and Lucy. Our daughters who are such a joy - but also require a lot of work! Ella is very sweet but also very demanding, determined and very busy! She keeps us very busy! Lucy is an extremely good baby, but even perfect babies are a lot of work. I love being with them all day, but sometimes to truly enjoy them, you need a bit of a break. It is extremely rare to have even a moment where I am by myself!

We are praying for God's will to be revealed in what we should do in this situation! Afterall, only He knows everything. We know that He has a perfect timing, and maybe if Tim took a break now, once he graduates he will find the perfect job. Or maybe he is suppose to just push through this next year, and his perfect job will be open in the next year. We realize that it will be hard to finish in this next year, but life is full of moments good and bad. Its normal to want to omit the bad moments, but they are vital. I have this quote on my wall in the hallway. Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass it's about learning to dance in the rain.

Yesterday I was reminded why its easier for me to stay home than to take both of my girls to do errands. Its one thing to take them shopping just for fun but completely different to take them with a full to do list. The only thing we managed to do was to drive the 25 mins to Chaska to deposit a check in the bank. We did manage to get in Kohls and fill our cart with a few things. Their carts really aren't made for infant carriers let alone infant carriers AND a toddler. Then of course Lucy needed to be held and I was left carrying her through the store and pushing the heavy cart with one hand. Its nothing new since I have become a mother of 2, but it just got worse from here. It was the first time that I have ever had to leave all of my stuff at the store and bring Ella home. I felt like it was more punishment for me than discipline for her to have to drive all the way home! She may have just been crabby and tired... when she woke up from her nap she said "Ella sorry mommy."