New Year Resolutions.......

I know we are a month away from the new year, but I have a few changes I would like to make come January. A couple of them are with my girls--for starters, I would like to get Ellie potty trained as soon as we get home from our trip to California at the beginning of January. She is definitely ready. If I have to be honest, I have been waiting because "I" wasn't ready to do deal with it with the new baby and all that. Right now, she goes in the potty 50% of the time and it is time we stop buying diapers ($$ ch-ching) and take a week or two number one priority being getting her fully toilet trained.

I also will take the opportunity to come back from our vacation and start putting Katelyn to sleep in her nursery and her crib. We will be in a strange place for a week and I know that it will throw her off anyway, might as well make the switch after this. Right now, she sleeps in a pack and play next to our bed, which is VERY convenient for me......but I would like her to start taking naps in her crib upstairs and even though I will hate getting up for feedings, it will be better for her in the long run. Do I see a pattern here of me being lazy? Just kidding. I am actually not a lazy person. I promise.

And probably the biggest change I would like to make is for a year, I will not buy anything NEW for myself. Meaning, I will shop for clothes at second hand/consignment shops, I will buy random items on Craigslist and will do my very best to reduce my carbon footprint by reusing and recycling as much as I can. Of course, I won't be doing this 100% for my girls because it will be hard to find used items for them all the time, but I will try to when I can. And there will be things that don't count, like underwear and personal hygiene, etc. But I am excited.......I had a couple of girlfriends who did this a few years ago and I feel like this is a really good time for me to do it (and hopefully save a lot of $).

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately and I think this is something that I hope to sustain long term if I can. I also have been putting a lot of thought into what I put into my body and how I would like to feed my kids moving forward. As much as possible, I want to try to buy local and organic foods and try to the best of my ability to make the healthiest choices for my family (i.e. buy chemical-free household cleaners, etc.). I am not sure what sparked all of this in me......I guess I have always  been somewhat conscious of all of these things, but I have more time now and being a SAHM I will be preparing all of our meals and paying attention to the products we use a little more closely. I know sometimes people who make these changes can get carried away, preachy and be a bit "my way is the best way" about it.........but I definitely plan to be low key in my endeavor. Definitely going to take baby steps and not lose my mind when I can't find organic yogurt for my kids. I also plan on eating out and having pizza whenever I feel like it...... there is no way getting all crazy about it is going to be any fun for anyone.  More importantly, I won't impose my new resolution on other people. I'll see how things go and blog about it so you can see how we progress......Last week we started using seventh generation diapers and wipes for Katelyn (hope to be done buying diapers for Ellie after our big costco box runs out). So far so good :) And we also started getting our milk delivered from Smith Brother's Farm right down the hill from our house(antibiotic-free and the delivery man assured me that the milk gets to my doorstep the day after it is extracted from the cow. pretty cool? I think so!)

So here is to being a little healthier, going green and saving the world one tiny step at a time. Here is a list of 29 things we can all do to be a little more efficient and nicer to our environment.