Daddy is Cleaning?

Yes I have some ideas on how you can get daddy to help out!! So we will be doing this in my mommies group tomorrow as our tip however I am not sure I will be there so I figure I would blog about it. So here is my dirty secret. Doug did not like helping with the house at all!! Why? Because he is a guy? Because that is a womans job? NO! Because I wanted my house cleaned a certain way and if he did not do it right then he got yelled at. Who would want to work for a "boss" that was never happy? So he just flat out avoided it. I think he would rather just hear my snide comments about him not helping around the house then to get yelled at for helping but not in a "sufficient" way. Okay so first thing to do. Change Doug. He just needs to get better at cleaning right? Big buzzer noise. First what is clean in my eyes? Scrubbing until my fingers bled? Pretty much and if I did not see blood when Doug was cleaning then he did it wrong. So this is all before we had our oldest daughter Taylor. As the years went on and I got pregnant time after time and added more kids to the equation I started to desperately need Dougs help. I did not even care if he did it up to my standards! Just take a disinfectant wipe across it. So here was my (his but he probably won't read this:) brilliant idea. When I finally got off my high horse and decided that maybe my way of cleaning was not the only way then things started getting easier. I was still getting frustrated that Doug was not helping and by helping I mean cleaning an entire floor a day. I could do it so why couldn't he? Yeah that big buzzer sound again in my head. I have a feeling God is pushing that buzzer. Here are Gods exact words to me. HE IS NOT PROGRAMMED THAT WAY!!!! LEAVE HIM ALONE!!! As my husband put it the other day you either get quality or quantity with him. Men are not great multi taskers which is not a bad thing!! I love that my husband gets his head wrapped around something and is so in the zone with that one thing that he does an awesome job at it! That my friends is why he is an AWESOME soldier, father and husband!! When he is in soldier mode, he gets the job done and right! When he is in dad mode the kids are the only thing he sees!! When he is in husband mode....well moving on ;) This is what a man is built to do. He thrives off of getting the respect that he deserves from a job well done. Woman on the other hand can do multiple things at once. God has programmed us that way. I wish sometimes He didn't. The other day I would paint a window in the kitchen and while it was drying I was cleaning, doing laundry and homework while also trying to feed Bailey every once in a while. Most of this on auto pilot. Yeah God did not equip Doug for helping with feeding Bailey which is a little frustrating. Haha. Anyways I could not tell you what my homework was because I did it so fast that I got nothing out of it. Yes I got a lot done but still felt like I got nowhere. I know you stay at home moms get that too. Anyways it is not a bad thing that we can do this but maybe we just need to slow down a bit. BACK TO MY IDEA!! or Dougs...whatever. So he said make a list and put it on the fridge where he can look at it daily. Then he said dumb it down! Instead of "clean the downstairs" put "dust the living room" or "sweep and mop the kitchen". Now let me tell you this worked fabulously!! He will go look at the list and yeah he is not cleaning the entire floor but I will see 3 or 4 things knocked off the list. In his mind it is too much to think "clean downstairs" because that entails dusting, sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, wiping off counters, wiping down the glass and mirrors and much more. It just seemed like too much. So when I make it simple, he sees it as "vacuum the stairs" and no problem. That will take me 5 minutes. When he is done and he goes to mark it off he sees "dust the living room". Well that will only take 5 minutes so lets do that too! It really has worked and we are keeping the house clean!!
Now ladies. I am going to share a little tip that has made my marriage a lot happier. I used to think "Oh I will wait until he gets home and see if he can help me" but being a military wife, that is not always the case because he ain't comin home some nights. So I started looking at it as "I want him to spend as much time with me and the kids as possible so I will do this now". Now trust me I was there where I thought if I do all this he is going to think he gets to come home and sit there and do nothing and totally take advantage of me!! BIG surprise. He didn't!! I noticed when I ran out on errands or went to a girls night out, I would come home to laundry being done, house being cleaned and even dishes all done!! Now I thought...hmmm...this won't last. Well it has and it seems that me and my husband just kind of click with everything. So much more gets done around the house and we are so in sync right now it is nuts. There are days that he does sit and just want to sit and now I never get frustrated at this because my thought it "he helps alllll the time now so one day of sitting is not going to kill me" and I do not feel guilty when he walks in one day and I am on the couch just sitting and nothing got done. This whole situation is where I have truly seen the meaning of "married to your best friend". Do we still have our tiffs? Absolutely and anyone who doesn't is not in a marriage. They are in roommate status because roommates just exist together. Husband and wife thrive together! We have been together for 10 years now and I am more in love with that man then I was the day I said I do. We have grown and when we started living for each other instead of ourselves, that is where it started getting good! We have our not so great days and those are the days that we go to God and repent for being selfish and thinking of ourselves and we know we will both have many more of those days however once we first and foremost put God at the top of our list for the day and then each other, our marriage just started to soar and we can see it in our attitudes toward one another and in the kids and how they respond to us and to each other. God is good and He is leading us by example and we are trying to do that with our children and our lives have just been so much better since we have done this.
On another note we have also started doing morning family devotionals. I read a story out of the kids Bible and ask the kids questions on what they think about that. They ask some really good questions and by they I mean Taylor. I just want them to be able to know that that is a safe place for them to ask anything so we can biblicaly explain it to them. So many parents just tell their kids "because" and they never really know why things are the way they are and I really want that openness in my family so this has just started and I will let you all know how it goes! So far the kids and myself are loving it!!

Another little tip I forgot. Mamas...when it is 5 and he walks in the door you are not off work. Keep in mind he just got off work too so you both go from a full time job to your part time jobs and mom and dad. And it is not him doing 50% and you doing 50%. You both still need to be on 100% to each other and your kids.

Diaper Sale

Totally not sure if I got a great deal however we really needed diapers and this was where we could get the most for the cheapest for right now. Do not tell me I am wrong because you will make me feel bad about myself and that is not what Jesus would do :P

Okay to went to Target and here we go...

I got 2 boxes of 84 count of Huggies. They were $19.79 a piece. I had a manufacturer coupon for $2.50 off and another manufacturer coupon for $2 off. Then I had a Target coupon for $5 off. Plus they were giving $5 gift card for buying 2 boxes of Huggies. So after all that we paid $32.45 for 2 boxes of diapers plus we got a $5 gift card.

Then we bought a box of Huggies wipes, 448 count, 2 of the big Mayos and a small lemonade. I had a manufacturer coupon for the wipes for $2 off and a Target coupon for $1.50 off and then $1/2 Mayo coupon plus they were on sale. So it came to $14.98. We used the $5 gift card and then it came out to $9.98.

So what it all comes down to is we bought 2 boxes of Huggies diapers and got everything else for free:) Not too bad.

Coupon Virgin

So I had my first coupon fun today!! I was super excited. I am going to copy my friend Jennas outline:)

Walgreens

• (4) 16 oz. Nivea Mens Bodywash originally at $6ish (can't remember how much over that) would equal $24. Today they were 2/5 and I had a $3 off coupon so we got them for$7.
• (2)16 oz. Coffee Mate originally $2.69. Today they were B1G1 and I had a $1.50 coupon so I got them both for $1.19. However I had another coupon fr $1.50 off and it would not take it for some reason so I was expecting to actually be up .31. I did not want to argue with the kid so kinda bummed about that.
• This one is my favorite (3) 10 oz. cans of Cream of Chicken Soup which are originally $1.59 each. Today they were 2/$3. I had a manufacturers coupon for $1.50 and a store coupon for 3/$2.73 which brings it down to .41 a can:)

So with not knowing the price for the wash my total before coupons came out to $30.28 and I only paid $9.96. That is a $20.38 savings!! For my first time and not really knowing what I was doing I thought this was good!!

Now at the Commissary I did okay but just with regular coupons. Before coupons it was $14.93 and after it came out to $9.23. Only $5.70 but that will pay for childcare Tuesday night. Yay!! I am loving this couponing thing!!
And yes I got more Coffee Mate. It was $1.50 each and I had a $1.50 and .75 coupon so I only paid .75 for both which is awesome because I go through that faster then my coffee it seems.

Record Breaking

Yep thatt is what the heat is doing to us out here. Breaking all the records. Sooooo hot:(

Anyways we took Bailey in for her 2 month appointment yesterday! She is HUGE!! Her are her stats:)

• She is almost 13 pounds which puts her in the 96th percentile for weight! I have never had a baby this big.
• She is 25 inches long which is pretty normal.
  
• She has a little cold :(
• She got her shots yesterday and was NOT happy and daddy was the one to hold her down so I did not have to.

She is also smiling a lot and I LOVE her little smile!! She is sleeping 6 hours a night straight which is awesome for my sleep however my boobs have not caught up to that and I still wake up in the morning in pain because I am so full. I am loving nursing her! She is way easier then Taylor was. She is also starting to cry when I am not holding her and someone else is...even daddy. Although this is sad....it makes me a little happy because our other 2 will ditch me in a heartbeat for daddy.

Brecken my love is really starting to verbalize!! He says mama extremely well now and he still says cheese although it sounds like "eesth". That is kind of it on the words that I can tell he is saying. Still better then where he was and I am confident in the new direction his therapist has decided to go. She is really doing great with him! We had to cancel family pics because he got a black eye from nailing the couch. Poor baby. Boys will be boys.

Taylor is still doing her thing. She decided to be Alice in Wonderland for Halloween. Bailey is going to be a banana and Brecken a monkey. Taylor is excited and I am hoping my om gets out here for Halloween. Plus I bought tickets for Princess's on Ice so it will be just me and Taylor going to that!! We are really trying to spend alone time with her since we have Bailey plus Brecken still needing so much from us too. I think daddy is taking her on an ice cream date tonight. Just the 2 of them:)

Well that is it for now!