July Goals

June, where did you go! By the time I realized you were gone I had missed June's goals and July was almost here. Yeah, so here we are!

Lets recap May shall we!

1. Spray the inside & outside of house for spiders- CHECK! I did this outside once but I think it needs to be done again, as well as inside. Too many creepy crawly's have been making their way inside lately!

2. Post before and after results of the 24 Day Challenge- CHECK! I did it and it was scary to be honest! (Here it is if you haven't seen it) I've lost a little bit more weight and toned up even more since posting it so that's really exciting! I think I might make these a regular thing. Not that I love posting my body after having two kids all over the internet but it really holds me accountable, plus it's helped others as well! (I have another challenge group starting July 6th for anyone interested-email me at eastwillowgrove@gmail.com-includes meal ideas/plans, workouts and constant support and check-ins the entire time to stay accountable!)

3. Get bike ready for the summer- FAIL! I keep suggesting that we do but then Jerek and I get started on other projects around the house. Hopefully this weekend we can because Tracen has his big boy bike now and it would be great to go on a bike ride all together!

1. Stay on my Macros/Gym routine- I've talked about how I follow IIFYM lifestyle here but July is always my downfall month. With the holidays, summer vacation and my birthday I ALWAYS fall short in July. I let myself go and indulge in so.many.bbq's! Then I hate myself come August because I've gained weight, made excuses why I didn't work out and it's all gone to shit! This July that's NOT happening!

2. Restart Kayla Itsines plan- This goes hand in hand with number 1. Although it's technically 12 weeks the first month has always been the hardest for me and with it being the month of July, I need that swift kick in the ass! I saw a lot of progress the last time I did it (well, only made it to week 8 because July came around!) but I'm going full force in this time!

3. Finish my dressing room remodel/refresh- I alluded on Facebook a week or so ago that I was already sick of my dressing room and was changing it. So Jer helped me paint the walls, and ceiling (yes, the ceiling is NOT white!) and I finally have put it semi-back together but I need to get all the art work I want framed and hung. I also need to have a sit down with my sewing machine and explain to her that I didn't mean what I said last week and I won't give her to the dump, regardless of threats... But for real, these curtains are giving me a run for my money...

4. Plan Skylor's 2nd birthday- wait wha? I saaaawearrrr I was just planning his fist birthday!? This shit is killing me yo! That's another post for another day full of tears though! So the kid would marry the Bubble Guppies if he could so I'm thinking maybe something fun in our back yard with a small group and a Bubble Guppies theme would be nice, we'll see.

5. Renew license plate tabs & license- yes, this is a goal for the month. Why you ask, well because last year I waited like 3 months to do, got pulled over and had to explain to the officer how I totally forgot about my tabs because we had recently moved and the notice must have gone to my old house. i know what you're thinking, LIE! BUT, it's not a lie, well not totally a lie. They DID go to my old address...and then were forwarded to my new one...but I didn't think it was fair I had to pay $287 on my birthday for a sticker...so I waited. And then I got pulled over, got a $150 fee and had to pay both within 14 days. Good one Chelsea, good one! Anywho, this needs to be taken care of by July 8...FML

Cheers to July friends! We have about a kajillion birthdays to celebrate and I couldn't be more excited! See you Friday for a little fashion Friday post for all my fashionistas out there! 

April Goals

March has been a very busy month, hence why I'm posting this a few days into April. Despite the fact that there were 31 days in the month it flew by. If my vlogs tickle your fancy you can see the last 3 weeks of March here!

Lets get this recap underway shall we!

1. Plan Jerek's birthday-  DONE! A short video should be up shortly (he vlogged his day for me!!!) I did a little gift/scavenger hunt on Tuesday followed by dinner with his sister and brother in law. Stay tuned for an announcement for what we'll be doing to celebrate his 30th birthday next year, it's very exciting!

2. Step up my gym game- I didn't really step it up but I didn't really let myself down, I kinda just did the same gym schedule that I've been doing. With that being said, I haven't noticed much change and that's something I was definitely looking for. Hopefully April brings me some motivation to start running outside again.

3. Finish kitchen refresh- DONE! Well 99.9% done! We have 2 more pieces of hardware we need to pick up from the store this weekend and THEN it's 100% done! {Post/pictures coming soon.}

4. Clean the upstairs carpets- Mega fail. We need to get our carpet cleaning machine back from our friends and I failed at attempting to even do so! Renee, if you're reading this, remind me that I need to grab it from you! HOLLA!

3 days deep into April but here we go!

1. Finish Secret Project- stay tuned for something really exciting I've been working on for a bit now! I know, I know, what a dickwad thing for me to say huh! I promise it will be worth the wait but by the end of April you will know all about it!

2. Finalize Wedding Plans- You are probably wondering what the hell is going on with the wedding plans. I basically warned people to never ask me about them in prior posts because I was so flustered with all the planning. Never you fear I came around and we've been planning planning planning! I recently just signed some contracts so stay tuned for that announcement soon too!

3. Run Outside- Still keeping my gym schedule up but I want to add at least 1 more day of working out and this needs to be running outside. I'm planning on doing the Detroit half marathon this year and want to train for it. Unlike last year when I just showed up and ran a 10k {and did pretty damn good actually!} This year I want to have a time goal to work towards.

4. Figure out a skin care routine- I'm 28 years old and still haven't really mastered anything that works for me! With a wedding coming up in the near future I want to dive full in and take care of my red, blotchy, sensitive skin. While I love me some beautiful makeup, having better skin will make my makeup look even better!

We're going to keep it at that for this month. With all these secrets I need to concentrate on I don't want to dig to deep of a hole for me to climb out of.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend and have a great holiday with friends and family!

March Goals

February is such a slump I tell ya. Everyone I know is so over the snow, the winter and the wearing a bajillion layers, myself included. I knew I might be setting myself up for failure for even making February goals but alas, I did and here is a recap!

1. Make German Flash Cards: DONE! I know I said I wanted to make these myself but I also always like to bite off more than I can chew. I turned to my girl Google and guess what I found...a GOLDMINE!!! I found some great websites with TONS of German flashcards and worksheets and goodies all in it! Here, here and here if you are interested as well! I'm so excited to get Tracen going on these I can't even tell you! I'm hoping Sky picks things up since he copies EVERYTHING Tracen does! I'm now on the hunt for some German cartoons so they will start hearing it more and more! They learn so much from Dora and Kai Lan already I know some German shows will be great!

2. Find a class for the kids to join: I started looking into this and then I got distracted and stopped. I really want to get Tracen signed up for soccer but I might have missed the cutoff, I'll have to check back into it.

3. Do taxes: DONE! In fact we Jerek did them on Feb 2 and we got all our money back by Feb 16th I believe! We've paid off some bills, are using a teeny tiny portion for the kitchen refresh {stay tuned!} and chucked about 90% of it in the wedding savings account.

March will be a fun one and hopefully a productive one! I'm going to attempt 4 goals this month so here we go!

1. Plan Jerek's birthday- I love Jerek's birthday more than my own for the simple fact that I love surprising him and doing things that he wouldn't normally do. We have big plans for his 30th next year so I know this year won't be as wild but I'm trying to iron out a few details and hopefully it will all work out, fingers crossed!

2. Step up my gym game- I didn't want to put a "loose 10 lbs" as the title because I've always said it's NEVER about the number and more how I look and feel and that is still true. But with these last two months being busy and effing freezing, sticking to my three days of gym schedule sometimes has been two or even just one. I want to step it up. If I don't make it to the gym than I MUST do a 30 minute kettle ball class on Youtube in the basement, or I MUST do lunges while watching a 30 minute Kai Lan episode that makes me want to pluck my eyeballs out. Or shoot, I HAVE P90x and Jillian Michaels DVD's, I could always do that! Never the less, step my game up and hopefully by doing so I'll start seeing the results that I want. Also, I just bought a new bathing suit top that makes the girls look killer! I want to get my tummy and butt in shape so then I can wear said bathing suit.

3. Finish kitchen refresh- This means the paint, tile, cabinets, curtains, everything. I want everything done by March 31st. That puts a lot of pressure on Jer really but we've he's been doing really good and I know as long as we keep the momentum going we can do it!

4. Clean the upstairs carpets- Jerek's aunt gave us a carpet cleaning machine before they moved so we really have zero excuse but if you asked me I could tell you at LEAST 10. I really want to do a big spring cleaning but I figured lets start with the thing I want to do the least, so that's where the carpet cleaning came in!

Here's to hoping all four things happen before St Patties day ;)

February Goals

Oh January, I thought you weren't suppose to be busy, wasn't that Decembers job??

January has been packed full of birthdays and attempts at getting back on schedules due to the lack of schedules from our long holiday vacation off from work. Does that run-on sentence even make sense?

You can find a 30 day recap from Tracen's birthday till the end of January here and a 18 month round up for Mr. Skylor here. I spent January working on my gym schedule and trying to think of things to do with the boys on the weekends while it was ice cold outside.

Before we recap January I want to show you our new nephew Emry. How amazing is this picture! I believe this was snapped by my brother in law (I'm pretty sure that is his app editing ;) SO SO cute!

WARNING, January was a fail...

1. Run 10 miles a week: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturday's are my gym days. Each day I do 15-25 minutes of cardio {running on the tread mill} followed by my Kayla fitness routine for that day. I then either do arms, legs or ab workouts with various machines followed by 5 minutes of detox in the sauna. Long story long, I've probably been running about 6 miles {2 miles a day} so I'm not there quite yet.

2. Print pictures: If you follow me on Facebook you'll have seen my plea. I'm not naming any names {SKYLORRRRRRRRRRRR cough cough} might have dropped my external hard drive causing it to not start up. This baby was full of pictures and videos from as far back as 2005 till present day. Although I upload all the videos to YouTube  and save a lot of my pictures on the cloud its not the same, I save EVERYTHING to my external, even after I've uploaded it here. Thankfully about 2 years ago when I got my new computer I had my moms boyfriend save everything on his external hard drive before we switched over to my new computer. So you would think I wouldn't be as upset since I have at least 2005-2012 on that hard drive right? WRONG. I'm devastated because that means everything of me being pregnant with Skylor, Skylors whole life, all of our 'before' house pictures and any video footage I had is gone because I didn't save it anywhere but this external hard drive. The cost to recover these things is a hefty one. $600.  And get this, that's the price you pay for them to TRY and get everything off of it, there's no guarantees anything could be recovered!!! Maybe I'm being dramatic but I'm trying not to think about in 12 years when Skylor is bitching about the 2nd child syndrome and thinks it's real because I have nothing from the first 18 months of his life :( So needless to say I've printed zero pictures, in fact I've cried over the this issue that these memories seem gone. And no, I can't justify paying $600 for something that isn't 100% going to work. 

3. Learn how to fly/video with my drone: We had to ship back the original drone Jer got me for Christmas and get a different one and since it was coming from China I legit just got it a few days ago. So hopefully I can start this weekend flying maybe

1. Make German Flash Cards: Tracen's preschool/daycare is great and they learn Spanish, Chinese, French and German. The kids a sponge and telling us all the words he's learning and remembering them so well! Since I speak German {working on bettering it!} he's so excited when he can tell me things and I understand them. I know I could buy these somewhere but I really want to make them!

2. Find a class for the kids to join: It's winter and when going outside to play is not an option one can only play inside with the same stuff for too long. I really want to get the boys both involved in something but more so Tracen. He really enjoyed swimming last winter {finally at the last few sessions} so I'm thinking of trying that again or maybe indoor soccer. Basically I need something for him on Saturdays to get his energy out!

3. Do taxes: This is an easy goal because I know it will get done. Kind of a cheap way out but I figured I needed an easy one after last month. And by do taxes, this means Jerek will do them and I'll watch and ask if he's done yet. I never touch those things, they give me anxiety.

Happy Monday and happy birthday month to all the Aquarius & Pisces out there!