7 Quick Takes: Volume 11: Six/Seven Weeks and Summer Bucket List Update!

Hey everyone! Hope your week went well! These quick takes cover two weeks, since I've been super busy with the girls and some other things too :) As always, thanks to Jen for hosting. Shall we begin?

--- 1 ---

This past week, Emily and Erin turned 6 weeks and I was officially 6 weeks post-partum and post-op. Remember those running shoes I was so excited about buying?

Well, I finally got to try them out! I got cleared to exercise (starting slowly of course) as of Tuesday, July 31. Wednesday evening, Emily, Erin and I went for a 3/4 mile run with our jogging stroller. The shoes felt great! The rest of my body . . . well, it's been 10 months since I went running, so I guess my sore knees and ankles are par for the course. I was pleasantly surprised that my muscles handled it so well. The jogging stroller, fully loaded with both girls, their carseats, and the diaper bag, is not light. I don't think I'll need any additional weight workouts if I take them along a few times a week ;)

--- 2 ---

Knowing I'm allowed to push myself has inspired me to get out and exercise with the girls every day this week so far, and I've got plans for tomorrow already! It's a really great feeling to break a sweat and be a little sore the next day - I love it! I was in the best shape of my life since running collegiate cross-country when I got pregnant, so I think that definitely helped my body to maintain a base even though I wasn't allowed to actually work out at any point during my pregnancy. (I actually was cleared to exercise between 16 and 23 weeks, but walking and standing all day at work was as much as my body could handle, so that's all I did). I'm glad to be able to take advantage of the nice weather, and it feels great to share something I enjoy so much with Emily and Erin. They don't seem too enthusiastic so far, but maybe they'll like it better when they can see where they're going. Right now, their car seats snap into our jogging stroller facing me, which is handy for soothing them on the go, but they can't see anything other than a partial view of where we've been!

--- 3 ---

I haven't really talked much about breastfeeding the girls on here, but I do get asked a lot what we're doing, so I decided to write a post about it! It's over at Karianna's blog, as part of a World Breastfeeding Week series that she did. I highly recommend checking out the series!

--- 4 ---

Since the girls were born (and towards the end of my pregnancy as well), we've been trying to stick to a better budget. This is partly because I'm not working right now, and will only be going back part-time this fall, but also because we are trying to save up to buy our own house! So I'm going to be doing some posts about budgeting and meal planning and using coupons and other ways of saving money - and I'm going to have some guest posts as well, since I can hardly pretend I'm actually good at any of this. Let me know if you'd like to contribute!

--- 5 ---

Some posts I've enjoyed over the past two weeks: Elizabeth's on vocation confirmation, Caitlin's about celebrating their first wedding anniversary, Trista's on being single, and Guggie's on why it's ok not to be perfect as a mom. I love reading my friends' inspiring words, and I know you'll enjoy them too!

--- 6 ---

Emily and Erin got baptized this past Sunday! It was really, really hot here over the weekend, so I think we have a new family joke: you can pretty much count on 90-degree plus weather when we receive a sacrament. When Dan and I got confirmed: hottest day of the year thus far! When we got married: it was 98. This past weekend: 101 on Saturday, 95 on Sunday. The girls did really, really well in spite of the heat - in fact, I think they did better because they were warm and drowsy. Emily didn't even wake up for the holy water! I kid you not, she slept right through the entire ceremony. Erin was awake, but did just fine. Afterwards, we had a little reception with food and cake, and got to celebrate with friends and family, some of whom had not met our babies yet. It was a very enjoyable day! We didn't get a lot of pictures of the girls in their gorgeous baptismal gowns (Emily wore her Aunt Rachel's and Erin wore mine) because of the heat - we took them off fairly soon after the ceremony. I was a little sad because there is a very nice picture of me with my parents and grandparents in front of our church after my baptism, and I was hoping to get one like that, but it was just too hot. We can always put the dresses on and recreate here in a month or so when it cools down a bit :)

Me (holding Emily), Dan (holding Erin), and Deacon Tom, in front of the baptismal font

--- 7 ---

Finally, an update on the Summer Bucket List: I've actually finished over half of the things on the list! I read a novel this week, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, while Erin was having a fussy spell and just wanted to snuggle on my shoulder. I was tired and didn't really want to move around, so reading snuggled up with the girls made for a perfect afternoon. It was a good book too: I'd resisted reading it for a long time because I just didn't think anything so popular could be good. Open mouth, insert foot. It is really well written. It reminded me, in a roundabout way, of Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Crónica de una Muerte Anunciada) by Gabriel Garcia Márquez. It was much less bloody, however, which made me happy!
As I said above, I went for a run with the jogging stroller, albeit a pretty short run. It was a lot of fun! I've also been going for walks with a friend who has baby twins, so I've given the stroller a pretty good workout thus far :)
We took a trip to the coast a couple of weeks ago, which went really well, and we're planning on going again soon - maybe this weekend, in fact. I love doing things like that as a family, because it feels very cozy and fun, like we've really opened up our life to include them.

A concrete dock that floated all the way from Japan to Oregon after the tsunami in 2011. We stopped at the nice, family-friendly beach park where the dock was located to get a closer look and walk on the sand with the girls. The dock has since been dismantled and removed.

In preparation for our upcoming move, I cleaned out our closet. Ok, I didn't really do anything about the top shelf, but I know what's up there, so I'm not too worried about it. I didn't take a before picture (bad blogger) but I did take an after picture, and I will describe what I did:

My clothes, organized by type, style, and color. Yes, it's easier than it sounds!

The whole closet (more or less), after the fact. Notice the drawers and bin on the bottom.

 I did spend quite a bit of time on my side of the closet, but I did that a couple of weeks ago, while I had help watching the girls. I sorted my clothes by type (tops, pants, skirts, dresses, belts), style (polo shirts, button-downs, sweaters, jeans vs pants, fun skirts vs church skirts) and then color (color wheel order). It takes a little bit of time, but when you want to put together an outfit it makes it so much faster. It also makes it really easy to put your clothes away! (Side note: yes, I know I have enough collared shirts to outfit a small army, but I have to wear them to work so there's my excuse!)
As for the bottom of the closet, we had drawers going across the whole bottom when we moved in. There were two of the smaller units (as on the right), one on each end, and then the four larger drawers in the middle. Shortly after we moved in, I got a dresser for my clothes, and Dan's clothes (well, mostly) were in the closet drawers. Yesterday, I finally took everything out of all the drawers, put most of my things in the dresser, and organized Dan's clothes by type in his drawers. I emptied a whole set of drawers - yay! I know we'll find something else to put in them, but for now I'm really grateful to have organized clothes to pack up when the time comes. I wish moving could be like packing for a trip, where you just know what you need to pack and why, instead of going through all of your things and wondering if they're essential or not. Why do we keep non-essential things anyway? I could go on, but it's going to be its own post later on, so I'll stop :)
I hope you all have a fantastic weekend - I know we definitely are planning one! See you all soon!

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