the weekly what's up.

oh man.  after trick-or-treating with the kids yesterday, i'm zonked out.  plus, i'm half-depressed that it's already november.  which works out in your favor if you think i'm too wordy: i'm just going to let the photos do most of the talking today.

 

finn had his first haircut. he was a rockstar about it. also, he now looks entirely bald because his hair is so light and (now) so short.  more photos next week.

 

 

we took the kids trick-or-treating on main street.  my mom made their costumes, like she does every year.  this year they went as pumpkins with their ages on them.  the numbers of which just happen to 'spell' out 'pi.'  which makes them pumpkin pi.  (yep, we went with punny this year.)

 

none of the candy dispenser people 'got' the costumes and just thought they were numbered.  one guy told us a story of how, as a senior prank in high school, he and his friends numbered a bunch of animals but omitted one number, and let the animals loose in the school.  the people trying to round them all up at the end spent a bunch of time looking for the missing number.  another girl started singing some song about 'five little pumpkins sitting on a fence' or something, but penelope corrected her that we only have FOUR little pumpkins.

 

 

 

yaya and her punkins.

and lastly, laurelai turned two months old!  we are all deeply, madly in love.

and that was our week! rock on with your socks on.

snow day!

so, like i mentioned last week, we had a decent snowfall.  it was finneas' first time playing in the snow, and after he got the hang of walking (and falling) in one-size-too-big snowboots, he loved it.

 

 

not quite comprehending the sticky properties of warm snow that allow it to cling to your gloves.  he was a little freaked.

 

 

 

penelope spent her time eating snow.

 

atticus spent his time wiping the snow off the van and staring in awe at the melted snow pouring out of the downspout.

video vednesday: you don't want to get...GINGIVITIS.

congratulations.  here's...a pottypop.

 

 

 

 

flush it. flush it good.

hey! i forgot to tell you the story of how all my clean laundry ended up soaked in toilet water!

a couple weeks ago, we were really busy with hospitality.  every day that week had at least one person or couple coming to our house, if not more than that.  (one day that week, we had SIX separately scheduled meet-ups with people throughout the day.  SIX!)  needless to say, i was behind on laundry.  i had gotten most of it through the washer and dryer, but it was still sitting in baskets in the basement, waiting to be folded.

then our toilet clogged.  not an unusual occurrence around here, what with trillions of people around and only one bathroom and a toilet that was installed in the early 90's.  so at first i was all, 'no biggie.  i've got this covered.'  but then i was all, 'scratch that! it is a biggie! and now i have a quarter-inch of water all over my bathroom floor and into the hallway.'  (luckily it really was only water.)

so i mopped it up with a bunch of towels, which i then stuffed down the laundry shoot.  goody, more laundry!  but when i went down to actually put them in the washer, i discovered that the water had leaked through the ceiling onto everything below.  including all the clean laundry that i was already behind on and would now have to wash again.

i realize this is not a big deal to anyone else.  but i was SO. TICKED.  i've also forgotten to tell you that this was the same week that i was switching out all the kids' clothes for different sizes/seasons, so i had a ton of extra laundry in addition to everything else.  i'm not sure exactly how many loads had to be re-washed, but it's reasonable to guess between five and seven, not including the extra load of toilet-water towels i ended up having to wash.

and that is why, on that particular day, i was all, 'can i just chuck my life out a window and start over?'  anyone else have days like that?  (who am i kidding? of course you do!)

apparently todd is 15 months. (or was, anyway.)

as you all know (or should know.  if you don't, it means you don't read my blog often enough, and i'm hurt.  HURT.), it was todd's birthday last week.  i thought it would be fun to post the kids' answers to some questions i asked them about him on father's day.  (just for clarification, i asked them these questions separately, which is why it's kind of surprising that the answers to some of them are similar even in their weirdness.)

here are atticus' answers:

My daddy’s name is: Todd.

My daddy’s age is: 15 months.
His hair is: brown.
His eyes are: blue.
He is: taller but not taller than me.
His birthday is: in four days.
At work, my daddy: works hard.
My daddy’s favorite food is: daddy cookies.
My daddy’s favorite thing to do is: play with us.
My daddy’s favorite movie is: Thomas.
My daddy is smart because he knows: Jesus.
My daddy always tells me: all about construction.
Daddy is happy when: good things.
My daddy’s favorite way to help around the house is: to clean up.
My daddy shows Mommy that he loves her by: he loves us.
My favorite thing to do with my daddy is: to play outside at the park.
I know my daddy loves me because: he gives hugs to me.
My daddy makes me laugh when: he is tickling me.  Daddy always tickles us!
If I could give my daddy anything, I would give him: presents! Green ones and red ones and blue ones!
I love my dad because: I dig for him in the sandbox.  I like to hug him and give him special treats and daddy cookies and ice cream.


here are penelope's answers:

 

My daddy’s name is: Todd.

My daddy age is: short.
His hair is: brown.
His eyes are: blue.  My eyes are blue like Daddy’s, but you can’t see the blue part when I’m in bed, but you can see the blue part when I’m out of my bed and I look in the mirror.
He is: short.
His birthday is: in four weeks!
At work, my daddy: makes coffee.
My daddy’s favorite food is: pizza.  Daddy LOVES pizza!
My daddy’s favorite thing to do is: make coffee.
My daddy’s favorite movie is: People movies.
My daddy is smart because he knows: Jesus.
My daddy always tells me: it’s time for nap.
Daddy is happy when: maybe let’s go to sleep.  I don’t think so.
My daddy’s favorite way to help around the house is: to make us go to sleep.
My daddy shows Mommy that he loves her by: hugging her.
My favorite thing to do with my daddy is: color cups with him.
I know my daddy loves me because: I hug him.
My daddy makes me laugh when: he is tickling me.
If I could give my daddy anything, I would give him: a cup.
I love my dad because: I love him.

widdle waddle.

whew! it's friday!  these last few weeks have been packed full of the most fun and most challenging part of ministry: people.  lots of people.  i really like the community we have here, and the people that we're getting to know and getting to serve, but wow.  i am an introvert.  and i am tired.

so we're taking the weekend to hunker down and maybe refuel with some junk food and movies.  we'll see how it goes.

anyway, some highlights of the week:

on saturday, my sister came up from des moines for the day, which was really really great.  we tried to go junk-shopping, but instead ended up at qdoba.  it's the same.

saturday evening, todd went to 'man time,' which i mentioned on wednesday.  he shot a rifle.  he shot a shotgun.  he tried a little archery.  he dueled a guy with airsoft guns, which he lost because his gun was (unbeknownst to him) out of pellets in the last duel.  it seems a bit unfair, but there are no do-overs in the wild, untamed west that is man time.  then he played some football and some golf.  then he got tazed (during which he obeyed my wishes and didn't have a heart attack, so that was considerate).  then he had some steak and corn and then came home.  i'm pretty sure he now has a few more chest hairs than when he left, and his beard is noticeably more voluptuous, so it seems the event was a success.

on tuesday, i got up early to read my bible and pray a bit before the kids got up.  soon enough, though, they were peeking around the corner and telling me that it was snowing.  i was all, 'hilarious, now get those booties back to bed.'  but they were all, 'no really! it's snowing!'  so i looked outside, and sure enough, it was snowing.  and not just snowing, but snowing.  big old fatties of flakes.  and it kept going all morning and into the early afternoon.  so what else could i do but let the kids play outside?  it was finn's first time playing in the snow, and he loved it!  i'll have to show you some more photos next week.

yesterday was todd's birthday.  we got cupcakes from the local specialty-cupcake place.  they were amazeballs.  amazecakes.

 later yesterday evening, he got the chance to teach at The Salt Company, our church's college ministry.  he did an incredible job, if i do say so myself.  i was so proud of him!

and in sadder news, i'm gearing up to sue hy-vee for using my rap name, 'freaky fresh,' in their local ads.  that name is trademarked.  they should know that by now.

happy 35th birthday to my wonderful husband.

all i can really say about todd right now is that, if we both knew how to play the banjo, he would play 'dueling banjoes' with me.  just because he knows i would love that.  todd is my dueling banjo.  and we all know how much i love the banjo.

happy birthday, todd; i got you a new nickname!  todd 'the banjo' van voorst.  (todd vanjo voorst?)

he laughs at my jokes; he tells a few funny ones himself.  (quite a few, actually.  we spend a ton of time laughing.)  he listens to my rants and the reading-aloud of many articles regarding the things i care about.  he eats at panera with me, even though they have tiny portions.  he stays up late with me, whisper-talking so we don't wake up the baby, just so we can chat a little longer, and even if it's not about anything important.  he encourages me to grow deeper, grow better, and he offers me grace and patience when i fail.

he's my best friend.  i miss him when he's at work.  and not (always) in a mushy-gushy-get-a-room kind of way, but in that way that everything is made better when you get to share it with a friend. 

so happy birthday to my bestie.

video vednesday: i modified my garden hose to dispense nacho cheese.

this weekend, our church held this thing called 'man time,' where guys went and shot guns and ate steak and voluntarily got tazed.  todd went.  he got tazed.  this one goes out to him.




(psst - i did end up posting really late yesterday, so today's like a twofer if you missed it.)

gunk on, gunk off.

okay, i had set aside this week as an opportunity to detail some of the organizational/task management systems i have going on at chez van vizzle.  today, let's talk about cleaning. 

in fact, this post is late going up because i was busy actually cleaning.  which leads me to my first point: sometimes do it instead of other stuff that's more fun.  you have to tell Yourself what Yourself is going to do sometimes. Yourself might not like you bossing it around, but Yourself also doesn't like sitting on an unhygienic toilet either, so it's going to need to buck up a bit and act like an adult and just clean all the things.  lay down the law!

okay.  i assume we all know the basic jist of how to clean a house.  however, i'll leave you with a couple of book recommendations and other bits and pieces that have helped me along the way.

first, a couple rules of thumb:

1. your house is only as clean as your corners/edges/caverns.  your house can be totally clean, but if you've got those little gooey-dusty bits in the corners, it doesn't look as clean.  true story.  under furniture, along the top of the baseboards, etc. are all places that get overlooked but make a big difference.

2. mix 1 part vinegar with 1 part original blue dawn dish soap and keep it in a dishwand in the shower.  after each shower, just wipe the walls down with this little number and you'll never have to all-out clean your shower again.  (as someone who would rather clean a toilet than a shower, believe me that this is a game changer.)

3.  use an ostrich feather duster.  you think i'm joking.  i'm as serious as a zombie apocalypse.  the coordinating french maid getup is entirely optional, but the feather duster is NOT.

4.  do it better.  we all hate cleaning (or, most of us do, anyway) but it has to be done.  why not put a little energy into figuring out how to do it really well, and really quickly, so it doesn't suck so bad?

and those are my rules of thumb. 

okay, so, because i FIRMLY believe that homemaking is a vocation, and i really think that 'continuing education' is important in any field in order to learn to do that job as best you can, here are a couple of book recommendations:

top right: Sidetracked Home Executives.  this book is terribly written, with horrible jokes and an entire chapter dedicated to detailing the divorce and subsequent 'self empowerment' of one of the writers.  the authors (sisters) call each other 'sissy.'  yeah, really.  it has comics, if that says anything.  but the index card system they lay out, in addition to the fact that neither of the authors are 'naturally' organized people but have learned and implemented a sustainable way of doing stuff, make this one of my favorite cleaning books.  (here's a post in which i detail my own card system a little further and also show you the authors' surreal haircuts.)

bottom: Speed Cleaning.  also not a pulitzer prize winner, but not horrible.  this has SERIOUSLY changed how i clean.  it now takes me significantly less time to get my house clean, and it's even cleaner than it used to be.  (seriously - it tells me to clean that window on my oven door (and other moronic stuff i'd like to forget about) every week, and even with doing so, i still get my whole house clean in about 45 minutes.  with kids making it their singular goal to thwart me at every turn to boot.

top left: Sidetracked Sisters Catch-Up on the Kitchen.  (yes, there's an unnecessary hyphen.  don't ask me.)  again, since it's written by the same authors as the first book, there's really only a couple of chapters of pertinent information and about 40 million too many comics in here, but the info that is good is GREAT.  kitchen organization and meal planning at their finest.  more on that later.


read these.  grovel at my feet for recommending them to you.  send me some 'thank-you bonbons' (it's a thing) so i have something to sit around and eat in all the free time i have now that i'm not cleaning every second of the live long day.  you're so very welcome!

The Plan.

a couple of weeks ago, i mentioned in passing my family/household binder and was asked about it.  between that little prompt, and the fact that i've been overhauling a few things in my household routine lately, i figured i could spend some time this week just talking about how i organize and run some of my household tasks, like meal planning, decorating, cleaning, etc.

i know it's probably presumptious of me to assume that anyone might be interested in the inner workings of the twisted organization of our house.  but i do know that a) i always love to see how other people are doing it, and b) if pinterest is any indication of how interested other people are in stuff like this, i'm guessing there are at least a few readers who won't be utterly bored by this.

okay, so first up: my organizational binder.  otherwise intimidatingly known as The Plan.

 

sorry for the terrible photo.  weighing in at 5.5 pounds, this puppy is difficult to shoot without a wide angle.  and also while eating an apple with one hand.

there are tons of binder how-to's out there, with lots of cute printables and recommendations on what to put in your binder.  if you're just starting with one, check some of those out for ideas.  i put mine together close to six years ago, so i've been using it for a while and finding what works for me and what doesn't.  the truth is, i just kind of wing it at this point.  which is why it looks so wonky and dissheveled and sooo 2007.

anyway, here's what's inside:

the front contains all my 'randoms' (or, at least, some of my randoms).  let's see what's in there right now... the rules for city trash pickup.  some comic strips i found funny.  some anthro wallpaper samples.  a card with the local mormons' contact info.  my 'my lowes' card. post-its with all our new medical contacts' information. a business card for the local fitness place with free child care (because i like to pretend it will come in useful someday).  lists of books and websites i want to check out.  a calendar of friends' birthdays and anniversaries. and...yikes...some really old thank you notes i forgot to send after finneas was born.  whoops.  i guess i need to clean this out more often.

the first section is for cleaning and home maintenance.  it contains checklists for seasonal cleaning (i like to do a really really thorough cleaning of my house twice a year, that way i feel less guilty letting it go to crap the rest of the time) and maintenance schedules for our mechanicals and the physical structure of our house.

the second section is for food and groceries. i'll talk more about our actual menu planning later this week.  i don't keep that stuff in here. mostly, i keep contact info for local farms/farmer's markets and price reference sheets for places like trader joe's, azure standard, and the like.  that way, if i'm at the amish store or something and see gluten free oats, i can remember how much i can get them for in bulk other places to know whether or not it's actually a good deal.  i just take the plastic pocket with my price lists with me when i go to new places, and i update it as prices change or i find a cheaper source.

 

 

the third section is for home decor and design, but it's basically a catch-all for random stuff around the house.  i keep instructions for not killing my houseplants, dimensions of my kitchen counters for the glorious day when i can replace them with butcher block, lists of house projects i'm hoping to get to someday, and paint chips, receipts, and other reference stuff for current decorating projects.

 

i keep those little reference tags for houseplants in a business card organizer so i can see names and care instructions at a glance.  i toss them when i inevitably kill the plant they belong to.

 

i used this book as color inspiration for the kids' room, and have been using the paint chips for reference when i'm making decisions on paint, fabric, etc.

the fourth section is for long-term planning.  two resources i absolutely love are alexandra stoddard's book living a beautiful life: 500 ways to add order, elegance, beauty and joy to every day of your life (yeah, the title really is that long and the cover really is that pastel) and mark driscoll's 'reverse-engineering your life and marriage' teaching.  (pdf of the questions here).  basically, both resources force you to think about what you want to accomplish/what you want your life to look like over the long term, and challenge you to put into motion actions that will get you there.  in this section of my binder, i keep the questions and the answers so i can refer back to them or change them as my long-term plans flex.  (just a personal word of advice: listen to the reverse-engineering sermon and answer the questions with your spouse.  really insightful and gets you on the same page.)

the last section of my binder is for spiritual disciplines, and includes things like bible verses to teach the kids, prayer cards for our sponsored children and sponsored pastors, and notes from sermons/teachings at church that i want to go back and reference.

 

you will notice that i was inspired to pray ephesians 1:17-20 around the same time that i was also reminded to buy a shop vac filter.  a fine example of the spiritual meeting the mundane, and also my bonkers attention span.

lastly, i have a secondary binder/file folder that i call 'The Plan: B' where i keep all of our warranties, instruction manuals and receipts for major purchases.


some things you may notice that i don't include when comparing it to some of the other ones floating around the internet:

*anything that needs to be referenced on a daily or even weekly basis.  this sucker is huge.  it's unwieldy.  i don't want to have to get it out everyday.

*calendars.  i use a planner that fits in my purse.  or, more recently, a bunch of random post-its stuck every which where.

*recipes. i print off successful pinterest recipes and put them in a binder of their own.  (you'll soon see i kind of have a binder problem.)  they're easier to access at dinner time.

*anything that i know off the top of my head.  why anyone puts instructions for cleaning a toilet in their binder, i'll never know.  why take up more space than necessary in here? relatedly, anything that's generic, universally relevant information, like cleaning how-to's and interesting tips. i have pinterest boards for that stuff.

*sensitive information.  if a burglar wants to know my social security info, he's going to have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands top-secret safe, not just open a binder and browse it like a pottery barn catalog.

*budgeting and bill-paying.  todd does the budgeting, i don't bother my darling little head with the finances.  i'm just here to look pretty.  as if that wasn't obvious.  (seriously, though, the only financial area i'm mostly in charge of is medical expenses, and i have that info in another folder.)


and that's it!  super long post, i know, but hopefully it was slightly interesting.  let me know if you have any questions about it, or if you decide to start one of your own if you haven't already!