February Monthly Review

I'm a little late, but I'm catching up! I'm pretty pleased with how January has gone, and the beginning of February. I have been lucky enough to have hubby home on holidays for almost 2 weeks, with was absolutely fantastic. It was fabulous spending extra time with him - and he renovated our wardrobe, I'm so proud of him! - but it was wonderful to have him help with settling LegoBoy into school, and Daisy into preschool. It made things a lot calmer getting out the door so early. Did I mention how much I love my hubby?

January Review:

• Prepare Lego Boy for school - he begins on 1st February. Done! Thankfully no tears, and he has really been enjoying school so far.
• Prepare Daisy for preschool - she begins 3rd February. Done! But unfortunately she doesn't like it! Her reaction the first day was "Me never, ever, ever, EVER come back". Hmmm. The second Wednesday it was "Me never come back". That's an improvement, right?? We're going to give it a couple more weeks, but the teachers think it's important to persist. I don't want her to 'win' either, but she isn't keen on going back. She settles after about 20 minutes there, and seems to enjoy her day, according to the teachers.
• Have another crack at toilet training Buster. We're making progress! Hubby was fantastic helping get Buster onto the potty. He tends to whinge and complain a fair bit for me, but would do it with hubby's guidance. Now he's doing his wee's "standing up". Poos need work. But we're probably halving our nappy usage.
• Go for another walk along the beach. Nope. I chose to swim with the family instead! I reckon that was just as good.
• Get the whole family in to see the dentist for a check-up. Done! No problems for any of us, and the kids were happy enough to open up.
• Take the children for a little 'explore' in the bush. Done! We have a bush corridor that seperates us from a small Coles, so I packed a light afternoon tea and we walked to Coles to fetch some milk and have a short morning tea break. It would probably be about a 30-35 minute walk for an adult (return), and it took almost 1 1/2 hours with the children, including a 15 minute rest stop. I think that's pretty good with 2.5, 3.5 and 5.5 year old children!
• Take a photo of myself in my "before" clothes. Done! You can see here.
• Work on our financial plan some more - specifically knuckle down our core budget, how we're tracking to pay off our home loan and how to reduce our grocery expenditure some more. Done! I've drafted a plan, and hubby and I will have a catch-up about it this week.

February Key Tasks:

• Get back to weekly library visits and our reading group on Wednesdays.
• Have Monday and Thursdays as "home" days. Good for the littlies and their rest, but also for me to be able to catch up on housework and washing!
• Donate clothes cleaned out from our wardrobe renovations.
• Clean up and clean out out the pantry.
• Try a new recipe or two.
• Track!! I'm managing to mostly maintain my weight, but I need to have a full week of tracking to keep myself accountable.
• Start a family binder, like this one, but with a calendar for kids activities, and sections for various notes that I need to keep as reference. I'm finding things getting out of hand with school notes!!!