What's going to happen in February.

Hello, friends! I'm your Vitameatavegamin girl.

Are you tired, rundown, listless? Do you poop out at parties? Are you unpopular?

Well, the answer to all your problems is in this little bottle:

But you can't have any for the entire month of February.

That's right, my friends. Please welcome the return of Fizz-Free February!

(crickets)

Okay, I can't blame you for not cheering. I'm not cheering either. But by golly, I did it last year and I can do it again this year...

although February does have a extra day this year...

oh snap.

Okay but really - if I can do this, you.can.do.this.

So let's do this!

Also, with February being the month of love and all, I wanted to do some sort of "things I love" series for the month. Last February, my friend Lisa did a post every day about something different she loves, and I loved the idea. I'm not sure I should commit to a post a day, but I decided I could do a picture a day. So I'm going to take a picture of something different I love every day, and post it to Instagram (My username is whatthekatie if you're on Instagram; if you have an iPhone but don't use Instagram...start), but I'll also post the pictures on my blog - maybe not every day but maybe every couple days with a few pictures to catch up.

Very also, I'm reconsidering my choice to not post monthly updates on my 35 things. Those monthly posts really help me stay accountable for my list. So if you hate those posts...just don't read them. And if you made a list yourself, consider giving us a monthly update. It helps - I promise!

Anyway, I love February. The weather is still nice, and well, Valentine's! I really like Valentine's. Maybe I'll write another post about that later or something, since there are a lot of Valentine's haters and I'd love to give them a piece of my mind from a safe, remote location.

Hope you all are having great days/weeks/lives.

The 20-something-year-old Hubster

If I was able to tell you how good of a dad this guy is...



or how hard he works for our family...



or how devoted he is to his calling...

or how supportive he is of his wife...



or how proactive he is about keeping our marriage happy and full of love...



or how smart, creative, dedicated, fun, talented, generous, and righteous he is...

then I would. But it might not even be possible.

So, let's hope this will suffice for now: he's Superman. For reals.

I'm so glad I have him on my team.

Happy birthday, Dallin. You are everything to me and the girls; don't you forget it.

I have something to say.

I've just gotta do this. It's practically not even an option.

Now, before I do it, I've gotta tell you: we've all been there. I'm not trying to offend you. I'm not calling anyone out specifically. I've just noticed a little teeny tiny something that is begging to be blogged about.


I repeat: I've done this too.


Okay, disclaimer over. Here it goes:


NO APOSTROPHES IN NAME PLURALS.


NOT EVER.


What do I mean by that?


I mean that the plural of my last name, "Harris," is NOT "Harris's." Or "Harris'." It's Harrises.


As in "The Harrises are weird about their punctuation."

You are talking about more than one Harris. No apostrophe.

The Smiths.

The Joneses.

The Browns.

The Clarks.

The Johnsons.

If you include an apostrophe, you are making the word possessive, and you must include something that the people own, like:

"The Harrises' house has artwork depicting punctuation in it." (It doesn't...yet.)

"The Smiths' biggest fear is that the Harrises will come over for dinner and only talk about punctuation."

Does this make sense? Okay.

But really, it's okay if you've made this mistake. I make mistakes with my grammar/punctuation/life all the time...sometimes on purpose (except for the life one, I think). So please don't be offended. We can all just agree to keep it in mind, right? Right.

Sing it with me: "And the world will be a better place."

Look at me and my crafty self

I don't get many opportunities to show off crafty things, because I don't take many opportunities to do crafty things, because I have one crafty bone in my body, and I think it's in my legs somewhere, and I hate my legs.

And now that that's out of the way...

My sister Julie found us a little project to do that could be done even with one crafty bone, so it was just right for me. Observe:




Fancy schmancy embossed ornaments! Cute, right? But wait - there's more.




Awwww.

And yes - you read that correctly - we embossed. That's right - embossed. Like we had to use special embossing powder and a little embossing heating tool thingamajig to do this. Embossing is boss.



I kinda love them.

I made six total: two for my mom, two for my mom-in-law, and two for me. They made excellent grandma gifts, don't you think?

And I took exactly zero pictures of the process. I bet you can figure out what we did though, since chance are, you have more crafty bones than I do. (Answer: stamp letters with embossing ink on ornament. Cover with embossing powder. Heat until successfully embossed. Strap squirmy child down whilst stamping their embossing ink-covered hand on the opposite side of the ornament. Cover with embossing powder. Heat until successfully embossed. Tie pretty bows. Tie the best bow you can when it doesn't exactly come out "pretty." Say "Ta da!")

Okay, now - how much do you love them?

That's what I thought. 

5 Months

And now Charlotte is 5 months old!






Bonus outtakes from Charly's 5 month photo shoot:



And of course, Maddy had to get in on the fun:

35 Things: 2012 List

Just in case you weren't quite sick enough of all the "35 Things" related posts...here's another one.


But don't worry, this will be the last one for a while.


I do want to keep track on my progress on my blog, but wouldn't you say that the monthly updates are maybe a bit much? I'm thinking bi-monthly. But be warned - if I start slacking because I'm not keeping close enough track of my progress, I might go back to updating every month. And I'd better warn you - there are certainly NO other female 20-something married-with-kids LDS bloggers out there, so you'll be stuck reading my blog even if it does become "35 Things" city. Tough beans.


All right, friends, enough chit chat. Here's my list of 35 things to do in 2012:

Spiritual

1. read the Old Testament (the only standard work I've never read the whole way through)

2. re-memorize all scripture masteries (including references)

3. learn to play all the hymns in the hymn book on the piano (comfortably; I figure I've already got 100 or so (out of 300) under my belt)

4. have one month when I go to the temple weekly

5. put up a picture of the temple in every room of our home

6. read at least 3 articles in every Ensign (embarrassingly enough, a considerable improvement on my current reading of this awesome publication)

Home (lots in this category; did my home get neglected last year?)

7. deep clean the dishwasher (much needed)

8. redecorate the guest bathroom

9. decorate/organize the office/playroom

10. organize memory boxes (I have several that I need to condense/organize)

11. clean out junk drawers in the kitchen

12. create a cleaning calendar

13. clean master closet

14. clean tupperware cabinet (also the bottle/Scentsy/candy/medicine cabinet. Yes, we have a candy stash in our house.)

15. finish Maddy's room

16. never go to bed with a dirty kitchen for a month

17. clean off the "clutter desk" at least twice a month

18. get a fireproof/waterproof safe

Family

27. potty train Madelyn 

28. organize family folder

Financial

19. invest in the stock market (I have a set amount, but don't think I'll share it here)

20. pay off at least (again, set amount that I'm not sharing) of student loans

21. Have a month-long spending freeze (not buying clothes, makeup, books, apps, etc., anything that isn't absolutely necessary)

Food

22. build food storage (3 month supply)

23. make baby food

24. make a pie from scratch (never done this!)

25. make a week's worth of freezer meals

26. don't drink soda for 1 month (seriously debated this one. It's definitely hard for me, which probably means it's good for me. Fizz-free February, anyone?)

Personal

29. learn all the rules of NCAA football (I have a pretty good start on this, but I don't really know all the details)

30. read 32 books (I figure this is totally realistic if I don't take another 2 month hiatus)

31. be completely punctual for a month (yikes)

32. write at least 4 blog posts a month (usually happens naturally, but not all the time!)

33. color my hair

34. donate to DI (felt SO good last year; must be done again, especially with all the cleaning out I'm doing)

35. give a homemade gift (I'm sorry in advance if it comes your way)

So there you have it. I'm really excited for 2012. This list is going to keep me busy, I can tell. But it's gonna be great! 

35 Things: December Update

Well, wow. 2011 is officially behind us. And I bet the one thing keeping you up at night is this: did Katie finish all of her 35 things?


Allow me to bring an end to your ceaseless wonderings.


The answer is no.


But more on that later.


For now, here's what I DID accomplish in December.


3. Reread all 2011 Conference talks. I finished April's talks a few months ago, but just finished October's this month. 


7. Create a meal plan. Did it. And this means that I did this every month! Hooray! Final thoughts: I can definitely see how meal planning would be helpful, and I do want to continue doing it, to a certain extent. But I feel like I need to find a planning solution that works for me, and it will probably be a little looser than what I tried to do this year. We'll see...


12. Bake a new cookie every month. Haha - maybe this goal should have been TWO cookies every month, because I did two again this month. Pumpkin toffee chip and rolo cookies, which, in spite of their long time, were EASY and yummy, and chocolate peppermint sandwich cookies, which I actually didn't make into sandwiches and just put the frosting on top of. They were soooo good! Also, I blew this goal out of the water. Go figure.


16. Clean out and organize the pantry. I've actually done this a couple times this year, and have no idea how it slipped through the cracks on my monthly updates...


19. Sing in the ward choir. Just in time for all the Christmas stuff! Singing is fun. Hey, people in my ward: come to choir! 


25. Read 30 books. This month, I read:


Divergent by Victoria Roth: Oooh, this one was good. I was kind of expecting it to be "just another" dystopian YA romance with a rebellious heroine, which it...actually kind of was. But in an awesome way. 5 stars. 


The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis: So awesome. I've started this one before, but never finished it. That, plus its shortness, made it perfect to read at the end of the year to try to reach a goal. But seriously, I love this book. So thought provoking and clever. 5 stars. 


The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis: Also an ideal "dangit I procrastinated" book. Also very smart and intriguing. 4 stars.


Eats, Shoots, and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Guide to Punctuation by Lynne Truss: Actually entertaining, for a book about punctuation. 4 stars. 


The Life of Pi by Yann Martel: I would kinda get a "Whaaaa?" if I admitted that I hadn't read it. So I read it. And I really liked it. Well written and unique. Kind of made me queasy a couple times, though, which doesn't happen very often. I think it was all the fish. 4 stars. 


Which brings my grand total to....29. Really - one short of my goal. Which, you know, sucks. Although, if you factor in those 2 months that I didn't read a single dang thing, it's not too bad. OR if you count the Book of Mormon (which I didn't), that would make 30. Hmmm...


35. Complete a act of service every month. And I did this every month! Yay.


Okay, so what didn't I do? Well, maybe we shouldn't dwell on it. After all, I definitely did more than I didn't do, and I really am proud of the things I did this year.


There are a couple things that didn't get done that I actually don't care about:


-8. Make Hi-Hat Cupcakes. These looked like the most incredible things on the planet when I found them over a year ago, but now, I'm kinda "eh" about them. I'll probably never make them, and I'm really okay with that. 
-24. Save up to buy something I want. I take this to mean either (a) Dallin makes enough money that I don't really have to save to buy things I want, or (b) I really don't want anything that requires saving up for. It's probably a combination of the two, since I honestly never thought of something I wanted that I needed to save for (and I was looking!).
-32. Watch 10 movies I've "always wanted to see." To be honest, I had a hard time even coming up with a list of 10 movies I've always wanted to see. I watched about 6, and I'm glad, but I'm not really disappointed that I didn't make it through 10. 


There are some that didn't get done, which I'm bummed about, but still brought me some reward, which I'm glad about:


-1. Read the Book of Mormon - twice. I only made it through about 1.3 times, but I can say that I got more out of it that first time than I ever have before.
-2. Have one month when I go to the temple weekly. I'm SO disappointed in myself for not getting this one done. It's definitely going on my 2012 list. But the one "special" trip that I made in pursuit of this goal was an awesome temple experience.
-4. Memorize the Family Proclamation. First of all, I was crazy to attempt this. I might be able to do it eventually, but wow, it's kind of a lot. Second of all, I got some of it memorized. Third of all, I read it a lot, and it's powerful stuff. Just reading it so often was beneficial, I swear. Read it here. 


I think the only thing that didn't get done out of sheer laziness was number 10 - build our 3 month supply of food storage. I can't believe I didn't do this. As if emergency preparedness is something to put off. Great, Katie, great. That one's going on next year's list fo sho. 


Well, I think that about wraps it up, kids. All my 35 things for 2011 are accounted for. Most were completed, some weren't; some will be repeated, some won't. But I really am proud of the things I accomplished this year, and I'm really excited to get started on my new list.


Which, I suppose, I should go finish writing. Happy new year!