More house

I am REALLY over the bedding in my room, but Dave Ramsey isn't allowing me to redo it anytime soon, so I figured I would have to work with what I have for the time being.  I decided last night that we needed something above our bed, and voila...I painted our monogram.  There are about 12,000 pinterest projects that I would like to do, but I figured these would do for now!

And here's a kitchen preview.  More kitchen to come soon!

Work in Progress

So we're first time home owners.  We spent the first six years of our marriage living in apartments in Memphis.  Lovely.  This was certainly not because we didn't want to live in a house; we just knew that we would be moving away from Memphis eventually and we didn't want to be stuck with a house we couldn't sell when we needed to move.  Therefore we were able to somewhat keep our sanity for that long! :)

So since this is our first house, we are extrememly hesitant to do anything with it.  We wanted a "move-in ready " house, and this one was just that.  We have had ZERO experience with painting walls, mowing lawns, caulking things, and so on therefore we have basically just decorated around the current colors and what not. 

Lainey's room is a sage green color and since we have an older house all the trim in our house is oak.  Don't get me wrong...I would rather have the good quality woodwork we have than cheap crappy white stuff, but I do like the look of white more.  Previous homeowners have painted the trim white in our family room, our bedroom, and Lilly's nursery, but the rest of the house is the oak color.  Painting the trim white is something I REALLY want to do in Lainey's room, but that is a large task that we just haven't had the time or courage to do yet.  Soo....all of that to say that I had to figure out some way to decorate her room leaving the green walls and oak trim for the time being.  So for the time being we went with a green, pink, and white theme with a possible pop of aqua here and there.  Here are some current pictures of her room.  There is still plenty I want to do with it, but that will have to wait for when we have more time and money!

The view from her door.  And yes, her Christmas tree is still up and will probably stay that way for awhile!



Her reading nook

Barbie World!

Refinishing her furniture is my next big task.  It belonged to my mom and then me, so it's in desperate need of a facelift!  I am feeling somewhat accomplished though seeing as we have lived here for almost a year.  I could get used to this maternity leave stuff! ;)

Blessed

How can I look at this picture and not just feel overwhelmingly blessed?!?

2012

I'm not usually one for New Year's Resolutions, but I figured if I documented them somewhere this year that I may be able to better follow them.  Here they are in no particular order...

1. Live like no one else, so we can live like no one else! :)

Ok so maybe this one will not be followed exactly as our old friend Dave Ramsey would suggest it should, but I want to make a conscious effort to be better at following the Tosics' version of FPU.  We graduated from Dave's Financial Peace University a couple years ago.  Since then we have attempted to follow the plan, and we've even paid off some of our debt, but we are certainly not debt-free yet.  About a year and a half ago I handed the finances over to Jovan...he is the accountant after all!  I found that when I was the one handling the money, I was a little dishonest.  I spent a little more than I would fess up to and it would result in some heated arguments in our monthly budget meetings. :)  All of this to say, I am fully aware of my spending habits, and I knew Jovan needed to take over to hold me more accountable.  We did a good job with our envelopes for a bit, but I want to make the commitment again this year to really stick to our envelopes and know where each penny we are bringing in is going.  After all, we have a Disney trip to look forward to in December!

 2. Be a better wife.



Jovan and I circa 2003



Jovan and I have been a couple for over nine years.  Over the years we have grown closer together, and with that closeness has also come routine and monotony.  I don't necessarily mean that as a bad thing, just saying that we have maybe become too comfortable in our ways and it wouldn't hurt to get somewhat back to how those kids in the picture were!  We had to read His Needs, Her Needs during our premarital counseling, and it is one of my goals to read this book again and make an effort to focus on putting Jovan first.  So many times I let life get in the way, and I need to remember that next to God, my husband is my priority.



 3. The old stand-by: LOSE WEIGHT!

This would be a picture of me in May of this year.  I lost 35 pounds in 2010, and I spent 39 weeks of 2011 being pregnant.  With this pregnancy came quite a bit of weight gain.  TOTALLY my fault, so now I have to live with the consequences of my decisions and start the weight loss battle all over again.  I'm ready to get back to the gym and ready to get started on Weight Watchers this week.  My goal is to lose at least 40 pounds, but I learned last time that I do better breaking my goal in to small attainable chunks, so here's to the first 10!

4. Slow down and take time to get to know my girls.

This one is a big one for me.  Of course we know our children...it's our maternal nature, but I want to really spend some quality time with each of my girls this year.  I have had a really difficult time with my job this year, and I feel like I can never even do enough to get caught up.  I'm constantly having to do something, and I have found myself taking time away from Lainey to grade papers, lesson plan, and just try to keep up with all the paperwork that comes with being a public school educator.  It's not okay, and I resolve to not let my job take as much time away from giving my family the attention they deserve (this goes hand in hand with my next resolution).  I want to make it a point to have scheduled and spontaneous "dates" with each of my girls, as well as spending time with the three of us.  I think it's important that I develop a special relationship with each of them, even if one of them won't be able to talk with me for awhile! ;)

5. Let my job be my job-period.

This is a picture of me in my first classroom my first year of teaching in 2005.  Oh how young and naive I was!  Oh how I thought I could change the world!  Oh how I learned so quickly that my pipe dreams were far from reality, ha!  It saddens me to say that I used to love my job.  I used to love teaching and all that came along with it.  For some reason, this year has deeply darkened my outlook for several reasons that I will not go into (ya know, things I don't care to remember later on!).  Some would say my resoluteion should be to have a better attitude towards my job, but I have decided that I will resolve to change my outlook towards my job.  I am a bit of a perfectionist and tend to give all I have to my classroom, even if that means neglecting other areas of my life.  Now having two beautiful daughters, I will be spread even more thin.  I have to learn to let my job be my job and not take things so personally, not put more time into things than needed, and not bust my tail for things I cannot change.  By no means does this mean that I will stop caring for my kids, that I will stop putting an effort in to my teaching.  It just simply means that I will do what I need to do to help my kids succeed, but not at the expense of taking time away from my friends and family. 

Updates to come!  Here's to an amazing new year!