Day 11

One of my goals for the new year was to clean out my closet, which had become a total nightmare.  Since I had Jackson, I have managed to lose all of my baby weight, and then some, through breast feeding.  This feels great, but it means that once again, none of my clothes fit!  I thought after nine months of every being a little too tight, I would finally be back in my regular wardrobe, but now there are a lot of things that are too big.  I know, I know, this is nothing to complain about, so I am not complaining.  I'm just explaining that this led me to make one hell of a mess out of my closet.  My habit was to pile up the reject clothes I tried on day-by-day and it finally became unbearable.  So, on Sunday, January 10th, I decided to pull every item of clothing out of the closet for a complete wardrobe review and reorganization.  This is the final result.  I refused to take a "before" photo.  I just hope it can stay like this for a while!

Day 10

My first attempt at homemade baby food using the new Baby Cook machine my mom gave us for Christmas.  I steamed apples, mango and peaches.  So far, Jackson is a big fan of the mango!

Day 9

This is what happens when your baby is trying to learn to crawl, and only knows how to go backwards! 

Day 8

Date Night!  Ryan and I had my mom come over to babysit Jackson while we went out to dinner with our friends, Jackie and John.  We had a long lively dinner at McCormick and Schmicks - yummy!

Day 7

On January 7, 2010, the Texas Longhorns played in the National Championship football game.  Ryan is a UT fan, to say the least, so their loss in that game was a sad event in our household. 

Day 6

Baby, it's cold outside!

Day 5

Jackson enjoys playing with his first set of blocks.  And his binky. 

Day 4

I'm gonna get you!

Day 3

At the end of our quick surprise trip to The Woodlands, we enjoyed a late lunch at Rico's Mexican restaurant with GiGi, Papa Jim and Kyle.  Jackson got to taste his first bites of refriend beans.  I think he is a fan. 

Day 2

After the success of cleaning out our own garage, we agreed to attempt to pay my mother back for afor everything she does by cleaning out her garage the next day.  My dad was out of town hunting, so it was a race against time to get the true junk thrown out or given away before he could come home to reclaim it.  Holy crap - my parents are packrats!  I'll admit that a lot of the stuff they'd been packing away was mine.  The passing of time and the accumulation of crap help me to let go and get rid of things like the "Barbie graveyard" - a trunk of naked Barbie dolls stacked 20 across and 3 deep.  I hope that they feel a little lighter now that we have removed some of that burden from their space. 

After a long day of working, we rinsed off the dirt and hopped in the car to make a surprise trip to Ryan's parents' house in The Woodlands. 

 

Day 1

My first photos of the year with my new Promaster flash. 

After hiding our garage from our friends and family throughout the holiday season, we decided to tackle the mess today.  We worked from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.  I was ready to quit as soon as we got all of the crap dragged out to the driveway.  We pushed through and organized all of the stuff that we are keeping, cleaning the floor with the ShopVac and consildating the garage sale and bulk trash piles.  We even set deadlines for ourselves - everything in the "sell" pile will be sold or donated by the end of the month and the "toss" pile will be gone by next week.  We made a deal that if no one uses the tredmill at least once per week, the it's outta there at the end of the month, too.  Now, if only we can commit to keeping it this clean!