Our 2015 goals

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As I mentioned yesterday, I have a few lofty goals I'm planning on working on in 2015. As you might've already noticed I'm a little OCD and like to have everything under control. Well, few things throw you for a loop more than having a child. Multiply it by two, and I'm amazed that my hair is not all grey yet. But there is always something optimistic about the beginning of a new year! And even though my first and most important goal is to survive the first year with twins while still being a somewhat decent mother/wife to my other 3 boys, I want to challenge myself and all of us to achieve a few other things because, well, that's what I always do. So here it goes:

1. Find some "me" time once in a while. 

Now that we became an instant family of 6, it's even harder to find time for myself beyond brushing teeth in the morning (or in the afternoon... don't tell me it never happened to you...). I want to challenge myself to carve a few minutes every week to nap (haha...), relax, ponder, read Scriptures, listen to the music, read a book and whatever else might help me to stay sane and not lose it on everybody in a one mile radius. The emotional imbalance I had to deal with the first few weeks postpartum kind of scared me. I had baby blues before but this time things were more intense. I'm in a way better place right now but it's still hard when you are always exhausted and sleep-deprived, so a few minutes for myself, I know, will make a huge difference. And yes, it does include blogging. I really missed this little blog and all of you, guys! I'm not sure how often I will be able to post or visit your pages, especially in the first few months of this year but it will get easier and I'll be back more and more often very soon.

It also includes taking care of my body. I've lost everything I gained while pregnant and then another 8 lbs but I'm nowhere near where I want to be yet. And it's not even about the extra pouch in my mid-section. I want to be stronger and healthier too. I'm really looking forward to the time when I can start exercising more regularly.

2. Organize and declutter.

What's new under the sun? It seems like I always have something to organize and get rid of here. But with the birth of our babies, all 1800 sq. feet of the house shrunk even more. With four children, having house under control is a must. As usual, I want to challenge myself to get rid of 365 things but, honestly, it's not about the number. Even if I can only eliminate 140 things but have the house in a more usable stage than it is right now by the end of the year, I'll be one happy girl.

3.Beef up our savings after paying off all of the medical bills and some other expenses. 

We are yet to get all of the bills in but we know approximately how much we will owe. After paying off that and making another upcoming big purchase (more on this later), we will do our best to get our finances under control again. Ideally I want to save at least another month worth of expenses plus start working on a replacement car fund. Our sedan that my husband drives is 9 years old and has more than 140000 miles on it. Granted, we had very few major repairs done to it so far and we hope it will last us many-many more years but we don't want to be caught by surprise because DH uses it to travel for work every single day.

Another thing we want to start working on are "sinking funds". I'm not a hard-core Dave Ramsey's fan but I have huge respect for the man. One of the things he's really big about is to be prepared not just for emergencies but for everyday things too. The "sinking funds" are when you set aside money every month for the things you will definitely buy/do/use throughout the year like haircuts, clothes, car expenses (tires, maintenance, inspection etc.), vacations, Birthdays and so on. Basically, you estimate how much whatever you need will cost and then divide it by 12 months. I think it's a wonderful idea. One of our biggest expenses every year are medical bills. I want to be sure that we will have at least deductibles for all of us in savings at all times separate from our regular savings. I will be working on other sinking funds too.

4.Cash flow a few home projects

We also have a few projects planned that we, hopefully, will be working on throughout 2015. First and foremost, we want to finish our guest room aka the room for my parents. I don't know when they will be able to visit again with my Mom's health (she's doing great but is yet to receive her transplant. Hopefully, by the end of January but I'm not keeping my hopes too high because they delayed it before due not being able to get a certain medication for her. It seems like it should arrive very soon but, again it wouldn't be the first time...) but I want the room to be ready. Plus, who knows, maybe somebody else would want to visit a family with two newborn twins and to have fun staying up all night "parting" with us? :)

The other "big" project is to re-do our laundry room closet. It's just not functional right now with the amount of laundry I do every week. We want to keep it under $500. And last but not least is our master bedroom. As it often happens, the room for parents is the last to get tackled in the house but, I think, it's time. I've been collecting bits and pieces for it for the past two years and I can't wait to finally get them out of the garage and actually use them.

And, of course, there will be other small things we will be working on but these are the three big areas that we will be planning and saving for in advance. Oh, and we will be buying a new couch very soon (the big expense) but I'll share all the details about it another time.

5. Create goals every month and blog about them.

Nothing helps me to stay on track more than when I feel accountable about what I'm doing. Every time I posted goals on this blog before, you, guys, and your encouragement helped me to stay in check and persevere.  Thank you for still reading my ramblings even after I pretty much abandoned this blog for a few months, and I hope you'll have a few words of encouragement for me again.

And here it goes, my yearly goals. I told you they are pretty lofty! But hey, how can we get better if we don't push ourselves a little bit, right?

And what are your goals/resolutions/aspirations for 2015?

My, oh my... the 2015 is almost here

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Well, I didn't come back over the weekend. So much for keeping the promise... The days are still kind of a blur here. But time goes on. It's (almost) hard to believe that the babies will be 7 weeks old on Friday. Time is sure flying by... Minus those days that creep along like months...

The last few weeks have definitely been a roller coaster. To quickly sum it up, we had to deal with my milk drying up, the flu, the stomach bug, the rotavirus (baby girl) that made us switch to the most expensive formula out there, physical therapy for my husband for the pinched nerve in his back (that's been dragging for months already but we finally started seeing some improvement) and the freezing weather. Add to it two newborn babies who don't sleep day or night and yeah, life is fun...:)

I do think, we are slowly getting into some sort of routine but it will be a while before we can all breathe a little easier. Still, it shouldn't stop us (or at least, me) from trying to get my life to a somewhat organized stage. Hence, back to becoming a goal-oriented girl again.

You might remember that last year I opted not to make any goals. 2013 and the beginning of 2014 were VERY rough for us. In fact, exactly a year ago we found out that we were 6 weeks pregnant only to lose the baby just a week later. Then I lost my Grandma. Many things had happened last and this year, both heart-breaking and exciting. I have to say, I'm kind of ready to slow down to a more predictable lifestyle. I know it's not exactly in my hands but some things are. So this year I'm going back to creating and trying to achieve a few goals in 2015 even if some of them might seem lofty :)

But since this post is getting a little long, I'll share them with you tomorrow. A sneak peak - the top of the list is surviving the first year with twins :) Oh, wish me luck!!

Happy New Year, everyone!

I hope we all have an amazing year ahead of us!

Merry Christmas!!

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I hope you all had a wonderful, happy and safe Christmas!!

Life has been a bit of a roller coaster here lately. I'll be back with an update some time over the weekend, I promise.

Miss you all!

We made it through week 2 :)

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The "twinkies" officially turned two weeks old yesterday. This week was definitely a roller-coaster. We had days when all they did was sleep and eat, and others when they were screaming their little heads off without apparent reason. It seems like even a little distraction can throw them off the loop. And on Wednesday they had a big one. We had our first appointment with their pediatrician. Normally she wouldn't schedule it for a few more weeks because with both of our boys she would stop by the hospital while we were still there. This time around we had to go in because she doesn't work with our hospital. And it was brutal! We stayed there for almost two hours discussing everything twins, getting them checked, poked, weighed etc. On a good note, Tanya gained a whole pound and caught up with her brother, Alex only got back to his birth weight but at least he's gaining. He's just my lazy one :) She already had her first growth spurt, lost the umbilical cord stump (can't wait until he loses that nasty thing) and, overall, she's usually way more alert and independent. But I know, it's only a matter of days until Alex "wakes up", and then I would be longing for these sleepy days to come back again. That's exactly what happened with my oldest, and then we haven't slept for like a year. Oh, the bliss of motherhood! I'm not going to miss the newborn stage... Even though they are so cute:

The other thing I'm struggling with right now are my emotions. I'm a pretty emotional type, period, and I always get some "baby blues" (who doesn't when you only get an hour of sleep sometimes??) but this time it seems a little more severe. I can actually physically feel the "wave" of emotions coming over me, and that's definitely new. I haven't experienced it as much in the past three days, so I'm hopeful I will snap out of it very soon but I'm sure happy to have my sweet hubby here with me right now to keep an eye on me. I really don't know how I would do it without my amazing man! Meeting him was truly the biggest blessing of my life (and now I might just start crying. Darn hormones...). I do have an appt. with my OB GYN on Monday, we'll see what she says...

On a very non-related note, I'm pretty much done with Christmas shopping. I only need 1 more gift for Hubby's uncle who lives out of state and I need to send a package to my parents that's been sitting in our bedroom all packed and ready to go for almost a month right now. Other than that, we are DONE!! And the best thing is that we stayed within a budget (I do love me some online shopping deals :) and we did not have to dip into our regular savings, let alone pull out a credit card. We added another $100 to what we saved by July, and it covered everything. As I mentioned in that post, most of the money came from the other sources, and I love it. Now I just wish we had the energy to decorate the tree...

And are you done with your Christmas shopping? Did you end up going out for Black Friday this year?

Gobble, gobble, gobble...

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Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you all have an amazing day full of love, laughter, lots of hugs and delicious meals!! Sending warm wishes to you and your families today and for the rest of this week/weekend!

Love you all,