Life Right Now 4\27

We are finally slowing down a bit and I love it so much. Getting married, going to school, buying a home, working, having a baby, hosting millions of things at our house and holding church callings has truly taken a toll on us! We needed so badly to take a break and take it easy! We have not hosted very many things lately and have been trying not to plan too much on our weekends.

Dustin is working away, hes been really busy and stressed with work but happy nonetheless. He recently hosted a game night with his brothers and had lots of fun. He also has been going over to my brothers house and making YouTube videos with him. Dustin has recently gotten into reading a bit more and has been working on a few books. He also plays his video games (boo) just kidding I try to be nice about them haha.

He has been wanting to start our garden to grow some veggies and just recently got the soil nice and primed for planting. We are super excited perhaps too enthusiastic, crossing our fingers we are able to grow some good stuff! We should do fine, we are a family of farmers after all.

Talking about me, I started working out regularly and it has made such an amazing difference in my life already! I have so much more energy to take care of my family and to keep up with the house. I have actually been keeping a pretty dang clean house, to the point to where just a little clutter makes me crazy. I am trying not to get to OCD about it though. I go to the gym everyday for an hour and a half and drop Jetson off at my moms to play during that time. It is the perfect ME time and I already see a big difference!

I am also giving piano\voice lessons to my two nieces and making a little extra money! It has been really nice and has been keeping me musical because I often forget to practice my music. I am also baking every Thursday for Dustin's office and The Plant, Dustin brings the goodies to work and we get a little extra income there too. Still doing the photography thing but business is slow, more just a fun thing hoping I get more customers soon.

I am currently enrolled in the BYU Idaho Pathway's Program, it is basically a gateway program to get you into BYU Idaho's online program without ever having to attend the University in person. (I will do a blog post about it eventually, its an amazing program!) My mom is doing it with me, and its simple and gets me out of the house once a week on the evenings. Dustin likes the quality time that he gets with Jet on those nights too.

I have been reading a lot lately too and it has made me so happy! I have made monthly book lists that I have been actually keeping up with! (At least three books a month.) I am so happy because when I read I really feel that I am accomplishing something!

Now to the little Jet-Monkey! He is doing great, I am not going to say much here I will save it for his 9 month blog post. He is 9 months old!!! I cannot believe it! He is a little crazy and we are just trying to keep up with him. He is for sure a dare devil and is learning SO many words! He went to the aquarium for the first time on monday and LOVED it.

As a family we have been trying to organize the house better. Come up with better systems for saving paper work. We also have been on a de-cluttering kick, spring cleaning seems to be getting to us. We are really hoping to get our garden started, hopefully Dustin's busy schedule permits us to. We are also trying to plan for the future and come up with different possible plans for different scenarios in our lives.


So that is it, we are kind of boring but that the way I want it to be right now. Boring is good sometimes.

My Pantry: How you can recreate this look!

I’ve gotten lots of questions about my pantry! People say, "wow you’re so organized" or "where did you get your containers?" 

This post is to first: 

1. Break the "you’re so organized myth" I am NOT, I am just really good at hiding the ugly stuff. 

2. Maybe give you some ideas for your home! Note: this pantry makes it so your husband can fend for himself a little bit more instead of asking you where everything is! (Not guaranteed I still occasionally have to tell my hubby the potatoes are indeed in the potato bin) 

Let me add, this is not my food storage area, this is just your everyday stuff. We as a family like to buy in bulk, when we can so that we have storage for emergencies. We slowly use our storage and rebuild it once it runs out. We buy the 50lb bags of flour etc and it takes a long time to use it all but we save lots of money in the end. I will eventually do a post about our actual emergency food storage too if that something you guys would like. 

Anyway so my pantry has doors on it so I can close and hide it but I typically leave it open because I love the colors and the way it looks. 

The first things I got were my blue and white storage bins, you can find them Here on target.com and then I bought these adorable chalk board labels off Amazon.com  and use them for all of my containers, so far they have held up really well. 

Each container holds something different, here’s some of my bins titles. 

-Potatoes

-Asian Pantry (Asian noodles, Asians sauces, rice paper etc)

-Totes/Bags ( grocery bags )

-Baby (baby food/snacks, bottles, sippies, breast pump stuff etc)

-Noodles

-Quick Meals 

-Snacks 

-Something sweet! (Hubbys favorite, here I keep the hot cocoa, s’mores stuff etc. we try not indulge to often though) 

The second thing I bought were these similar totes from target but a different size I keep these up top, I have a coupon one (which has ended up more like mail, ads etc that we don’t have time to go through at the time, but don’t want on counter), breads and medicine. (Medicine being up high is always a good idea) 

Note: I always use these totes all over my house, I use them a lot to hold my wash cloths, soaps and toiletries in my bathrooms) 

The next thing are these containers from Walmart that you can find here. Because these aren’t BPA free I don’t use these for my full blown food storage but I do use them for things that filter out fairly quickly. Be sure to use them in a place not in the sun or extremely warm temperatures and I’d avoid moisture. The containers are the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to food storage for $3, I have found a BPA free, less attractive option through Bobs Red Mills and I use those for my long term storage that is only about $1 more. I keep chocolate chips, beans, rice, almonds, raisins, quinoa, whole wheat flour etc in these containers. 

Behind these containers I keep my CRAP. The inevitable things that just aren’t cute and too big to be consolidated in a tote, like that giant Costco canola oil or the maple syrup or giant container of bissquick. See guys there it is I am not as organized as you may think. 

The last things I got were these awesome rubber maid cereal containers! Cereal boxes are so so ugly and these are the best if you buy your cereal from a place like staff of life where you can pay for it by the pound. I also put rolled oats in the middle container. You can find these awesome cereal container with the easy pour spout here.

One final thing to say is I keep all my appliances on the bottom shelf for easy access! And that’s it, really easy, cute and doesn’t break the bank too bad! This pantry has saved my OCD brain a lot of headaches for sure! Let me know if you try it! 

Monterey Bay Aquarium 2018

We had so much fun today, Dustin took the day off to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium! It was Jetson’s first trip so it was really exciting, he is the perfect age for this! 

Dustin and I having gone to the aquarium millions of times in our lives since we are locals still are never bored of it! 

It was one of the first beautiful days, since this extended winter we have been having! Hallelujah for the sun! I think we over dosed on vitamin D a bit though, because I’ve got a headache tonight! 

Jetson was pointing at the fishies all day! It was so adorable! He was a little scared of the shark. He really loved the jelly fish and octopus! 

He loved watching the penguins and the sea otters, I think because they are more puppy-like and to him, every animal is a puppy. He loves dogs. 

The ocean is such an amazingly beautiful place, a quote I saw on the wall sparked something in me, “the ocean is as close as we can get to seeing another world”, how cool is that and so true! In this earthly life it is the closest we get, and it doesn’t disappoint ! 

We had to take little jetty down the slide, because it’s just iconic right? 

He also loved the wave tunnel, this was seriously my FAVORITE part of the aquarium as a kid! 

We are sad daddy has to go to work tomorrow !