1 Year Old M

Yep, that's right, baby M is now 1 year old M!  To be perfectly honest, I was kind of looking forward to baby M turning 1.  She has been somewhat of a tough baby... an all I want is momma and I want her to hold me ALL of the time and I only want to drink milk from mom kind of baby.   This would be fine if I didn't also have a 2 year old and work and you know, need to go to the bathroom every once in awhile.

As the weeks approached the big 1 year birthday, though, I felt less and less that I wanted her to be 1 and wanted more and more to keep her as baby M.  She is so sweet and loving and she gives THE best hugs and snuggles - the nuzzle her head into your neck and wrap her arms tightly around me kind of snuggles!  And really, can you blame her for just wanting to be hugged?!  I get the feeling though that even as 1 year old M, she will always be a super loving and cuddly little one.

I threw a family party for her at our family beach house.  I gave the party a bird theme since she was our early bird by 3 weeks.

Baby M at our family beach house when she was just 2 weeks old and 1 year old M at her party.

Here's a look at what I did for the party...

1. Bubbles and Water Fun (for a hot hot day)

2. Adorable and Unnecessary Party Hat (from Etsy)

3. Bird's Nest Cupcakes

I combined a couple of recipes for these.  I got the idea for the cupcakes from here, but instead of their recipe for the cupcakes and frosting, I made chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes from here.  Since I'm more of a chocolate lover, I made dark chocolate cupcakes instead of the white cupcakes from the recipe.  Some of the cupcakes had coconut on top and some I left plain for those folks that aren't coconut fans.  Oh and those cupcake labels came free with the party hat... aren't they adorable!

1 year old M's cupcake didn't have any coconut, but I added some sprinkles to make it look pretty.  She ate the cookie dough in the middle, but wasn't so sure about the cupcake and frosting.  She signaled all done pretty quickly.  On the other hand, 2 year old B loved her cupcake!

4. Paint Bird Houses

As I was walking through Michael's, I came across these cute little wooden bird houses, so I bought a bunch of them and some paint and had the kids paint bird houses for a fun activity.  2 year old B was the funniest... she was the last to stop painting and she insisted on using every color in the paint container on just one side of the roof.  It took all night to dry!

5. Party Favor - Bird Seed Wreaths (click here to learn how to make them)

These were so easy to make!  2 year old B helped me stir everything (I had to do the final stir to make sure it was all mixed well).  Then she got her hands nice and messy by putting the mixture into the mini angel food cake pan.

It was a super fun kid activity and we'll probably make them again just for us to hang in our yard this summer!  One little tip... you will need to put them out soon after making them.  I had a few extra left over from the party that were in plastic bags for about a week and when I took one out to hang outside, mold had grown all over it.  The birds weren't too interested in eating it then.

The party was a whirlwind, but so fun!  It was made extra special by our family and friends that came to celebrate 1 year old M's big day!

Happy birthday sweet girl!!

Minimalist May

I'm a little behind with my blog posts.  May has turned out to be a busy month and I usually work on posts during nap time, but I haven't been home for nap time lately so the typing has been on pause for the month.

Although it's been a busy month, I gave the month a kind of non-busy theme: Minimalist May.  Here's why...

At the end of April Nick and I took a look at how much money we had spent so far this year, and it was a lot - A LOT!  We had to buy a new oven and pay for plumbing repairs (multiple times) and refloor the downstairs, etc., etc.  The list went on and on and our credit card bill went up and up.

At about the same time, we got on this health food kick and started looking at how much sugar we are consuming, and it was... can you guess was I'm going to say.. A LOT!  We have dessert every night, yes, every.single.night.  And I drink mochas a few times a week... okay, maybe more than a few times depending on the week.  And during the winter we'd have hot chocolate while the girls napped or enjoy an after lunch cookie.  I'm not kidding, we eat a ton of sweets at my house!

So, we decided to go all in (or maybe all out?) for May.  I gave us the Minimalist May theme to keep us going and we set goals for money and sugar consumption.  Here was the plan:

1. Make a maximum goal for our credit card.
2. Keep a spending journal.
3. No buying clothes (for any of us)... umm, so difficult!
4. No more Starbucks paninis for lunch (I love them, but they are about $6 for a flimsy sandwich so I was okay with saying goodbye to those).
5. Only eat out once a week for dinner, which means cooking at home 5 to 6 nights a week depending on if we have dinner at my parent's house or not.
6. Stick to the American Heart Associations reccomendations for added sugar consumption (maximum 25 grams of sugar per day for women and 37 grams of sugar per day for men).
7. No more than 3 mochas a week. :(

Here's how it turned out:

Money

• We were able to hold the credit card bill to our goal - whoo hoo!
• The spending journal helped because it forced me to really pay attention to what I was buying and how much I was really spending.
• I did buy two pair of shoes for 2 year old B, but they were needed and I bought them on sale at Fred Meyer.
• I ended up getting 1 panini at Starbucks, but sometimes when you're trying to get out the door in time and you are starving and your little one falls asleep in the car, you need to buy a panini for lunch on the road.
• We stuck to eating at home most of the week and made an effort to cook meals with ingredients that we already had to avoid spending too much at the store.
• We did eat out once when Nick took me out for a Mother's Day date and we both ended up ordering the most expensive items on the menu... oops (not really), but Nick has the Passport card from work and one of those meals ended up being free because of the card, so we reasoned that it was okay to each choose the most expensive meals on the menu - sure!
• We did not go minimalist for a BBQ we hosted at our family beach house, but it was so worth it to see these kids having so much fun together:

Sugar

• Stayed within my 3 mochas a week rule - it wasn't easy and I REALLY resisted temptation!
• If I had a mocha then I didn't have any dessert that night.
• I discovered that I really could go a whole day with no sweets - what?!
• We had a slight setback one night... and weekend... and went a little sugar crazy when I made sugar cookies with cookie dough frosting from my new favorite cookbook:

source

I'm pretty happy with the way Minimalist May turned out.  I'm going to keep up with the limited sugar intake and also keep going with the spending journal so that I can keep track of how many times I click "place your order" because it's so easy just to click that button and not realize how much you are actually buying... do you hear me fellow Amazon shoppers?

What are some ways you keep track of your spending or how do you make sure you stay within a budget?  Does anyone else feel like they need to cut back on the sugar too?  25 grams a day for a woman is not that much!  That's like just a cookie and a half!

The New Bag

I haven't been happy with my purse/diaper bag situation lately.  My purse isn't quite holding everything that I need, but I really dislike lugging around the diaper bag.  I mention my favorite blog often - iheartorganizing.blogspot.com - because she always has really great ideas for organizing just about everything and wouldn't you know it, just as I am thinking that I need a new bag system, I read a post on that blog about her travel tote, so I decided to create my own.  Here is what I did:

I got this bag on sale at Target:



The outside is vinyl so it can get wet without soaking everything inside.  It's big enough to hold a bunch of stuff, but not too big.  And its pretty!

Here is what I keep in it...

My portable purse that holds the wallet, keys, chapstick, and cell phone that I blogged about here:

For the baby and toddler stuff, I got this fold over frame clutch from Target:

I put wipes, a few diapers, an extra change of underwear and pants for the big girl that is being potty trained, a onsie for the baby, a bib, some poop bags that I put the dirty diapers in, and a plastic freezer bag for possible dirty clothes.

I got a notebook similar to this one from Target as well to keep in the bag:

I tabbed it with a section for to-dos (since I always think of things to do while I'm not near my computer to do list), a section for work, and a section for 2 year old B's preschool class next year because I have somehow agreed to be the parent coordinator which is going to make for a lot more work and many more things that I'm going to need to remember to write down.  I also left an extra tabbed section for a possible errand or grocery list?

I bought these decorative files from Amazon that fit perfectly in the bag:

I use 3... 1 file for papers for B and baby M (side note... I'm just realizing that baby M is almost not a baby anymore!!), 1 file for work, and 1 file for B's preschool class (since I'm the parent coordinator I'm going to be hauling around a lot of paperwork for that class too - what did I get myself into here???)

So far my bag is working out great.  There is a zipper pouch inside where I keep pens and mints and other small loose items.  The tote isn't too big, yet fits all that stuff and there is still room to throw in sweatshirts or food/snacks or toys, etc.  If I am going out without the kids, I just throw that portable purse that holds my wallet and stuff into a bigger purse and I'm good to go.  The diaper bag is still around, but I keep it downstairs as a storage place for when I need to do changings, etc. downstairs.

Oh, and I got almost everything on sale so it wasn't too expensive to put together - yay!

Laundry Room Ideas

If you have at all followed some of my last posts, you will know that the downstairs of my house threw up - twice!  The first time was the toilet and we had to tear out all the laminate floors and will soon be tearing up the carpet in the playroom to replace since it seems as if the water damage got under the carpet as well.  The second time the downstairs had a case of the flu was with the sink.  Luckily the laminate was still torn up so no damage to the new floors, but this time the water got under the tiles that are under the washer and dryer, so.... out went the washer and dryer and tiles.

The new laminate is down (although I know we're playing with fire here, thinking we should have gone with vinyl flooring that looks like hardwood for possible future floods).  The new baseboards are up too, the door that has never closed is fixed, and since we had to remove the washer and dryer we decided that this was a good time to get them on pedestals, so those are in place with the washer and dryer on them.  Now it is time to make that space usable.  I've been spending some time researching ideas for how to make the laundry area look nice and function well.  Here are some ideas I've come across that I like...

I'm always finding random things in my pockets - yes MY pockets, not Nick's - so I thought this idea for a way to collect those things was neat:


I definitely need to find space to hang clothes after they've been ironed or for those clothes that have just come out of the dryer, but need a little extra drying time.  I like this idea for putting up hooks to hang the clothes:


I always have the ironing board open, but lets be honest, I don't iron that much!  I'm hanging it on the wall from now on:


I need tubs... for clothes that are waiting to be handwashed, for handwashing clothes, for dirty towels, for clothes that have been stained and need soaking, and for Nick's dirty/smelly workout clothes.  I thought these were nice and will bring some pretty color to the drab job of laundry:


We need something to cover up the holes in the wall behind the utility sink from when we had to pull the sink out to put down new floors.  I'm thinking I like a slatted wall that will hide the holes and be functional:


I've already decided I'm buying this shelving unit to hold some of the laundry containers that won't fit on top of the washer and dryer now that they are on pedestals.  Also, Nick plays basketball in the evenings after the girls are asleep and he likes to go for runs while they are napping.  He needs a place to keep his workout/basketball clothes and towels for cleaning up when he gets home.  I thought the drawers would be a perfect place to keep those things:


The last thing I want is a pretty rug to put in front of the washer and dryer.  I got caught up messing around with Polyvore and created this "lookbook" of potential patterns:



I need to do all of this on a budget so I might have to scale my ideas down a bit, but its always good to start with a plan!!

The Hallway Closet Project

For those of you Friends lovers out there, you'll understand the following reference... I have a Monica Gellar closet!  I know what is in there and where everything is, but pretty much no one else can find a thing!!  Usually this is no problem, but with the 2 months of colds and illnesses we experienced and midnight trips to the closet to find medications, I realized that I needed to do something so that I'm not the only one who knows where things are.  When you open the doors, here is what you will see...

So I exaggerated a little, it's not quite as bad as Monica Gellar's closet, but there is a lot going on in there.  I decided to tackle it one step at a time.

1. Organize those Meds

The medicine shelf is a disaster and as 2 year old B continues to grow, it is also within reach of small hands.  I decided to clean out the meds and move them up a shelf to keep them out of reach of curious toddlers.  First Nick and I went through all the bottles and tossed* what has expired and what we don't need or use.  Then I made groups of like meds.  Here they are in their groups just waiting for a storage tub to be placed in:

*When I say tossed, I mean dispose of the meds in an environmentally safe way.  We threw away the vitamins, but recycled the vitamin bottles.  All the other expired and unneeded meds (prescriptions, pain relievers, allergy relief, etc.) we kept in their bottles and containers and took them to a pharmacy where the pharmacy will dispose of them safely.  If you are curious about how the pharmacy disposes the meds safely and which pharmacies take expired medications, check out this website: http://www.takebackyourmeds.org.

I also had Nick make a baby dosage table with weight and amount of Tylenol, Benadryl for allergy, and Benadryl for severe allergy needed to add to the Kids & Baby Meds tub for a just in case I am having an emergency and can't think straight moment.

2.  Clean up the Towels

We have so many towels and we hardly use them.  It was time to decide what towels to keep and what to get rid of.  Take a look at the next picture to see how we narrowed our piles of towels to just the ones we need and use: 

If you need a comparison, take a look at the before picture at the top of this post!

If this looks like very few towels it is because the towels we are currently using are in the bathroom and these are just extras... and some of the extra towels were being used to mop up yet another basement flood at the time of this photo.  We also keep the girls' towels in one of their closets.

3. Everything Else

Just like with the meds, I took out each item on the bottom 3 shelves and the top shelf and either placed them in a like pile, threw them away, or put them in the Goodwill pile.

Next I found a place on the shelves for the items and put them back in the closet.  Seeing where the items will go and how much of each thing I have will help me figure out what type of storage container I need to get:

4. Everything Needs a Home

Ah yes, the fun part... storage!  I have to say that I'm pretty sure one of the reasons I decided to organize the hallway closet was to have an excuse to buy storage containers.  Here is a list of what got a home and where I bought the tubs and baskets:

• medications - The Dollar Store 
• light bulbs - Hobby Lobby
• cleaning supplies - Hobby Lobby
• linens - Target
• odds and ends - Target
• thermal devices (yes, we have a whole basket full of things to keep our muscles and ourselves warm!) - Target

I also bought shelf dividers to keep the items that don't go in tubs or baskets separated, but when I started to put them on the shelves, they scraped the shelf liner (see #5 below) and I ended up with holes in that shelf liner that I had already wrestled to put on, so I ended up only using them for the top shelf:

5. Line the Sheves

I've never lined shelves before, but one of my favorite daily blogs, iheartorganizing, always emphasizes how the added touch of shelf lining can just brighten up an area and make you feel good when you see it, so I decided to give it a try.  I had a love/hate relationship with that shelf liner and it was partly due to the uneven shelves that are in that closet, but in the end I think it added a nice finishing touch.

After looking at lots of shelf liner online, I ended up getting this adhesive shelf line/contact paper at Target.

6. Label It

I'm not a big labeler, but I knew that if this closet didn't get labeled, then nothing would get put back in its place and I'd be writing another blog post in a few months about my re-organization of the hallway closet.  It turns out, though, that I had a blast labeling.  I labeled in 2 ways:

The first way was to use mini clothes pins to attach labels to the medication, thermal devices, and odds & ends tubs.  To make the clothes pins pretty, I had originally planned to use washi tape, but then I came across the new patterned duct tapes and I really liked some of the patterns, so I went with duct tape to cover the clothes pins.  

Then I wrote the labels on business card paper that we've had forever, glued those cards onto pretty scrapbooking paper and tada...

The other way I labeled was to label the items that sit directly on the shelves.  I decided to buy chalkboard labels and a chalkboard pen to make the labels with.  They turned out pretty cute and Nick actually thanked me for labeling everything so that he now knows where to put things back and what is what (he could never figure out which towels were rags and which ones were the nicer towels).

It took me the whole month of March, but it is ALL done! 

BEFORE

AFTER

As I added that last picture, I noticed the tube of toothpaste that a certain 2 year old must have added to the closet as I was doing the finishing touches - that little sneaker!

It feels so good to have that space organized.  I keep opening up the closet and admiring the calmness of it!

Organizing Ideas

As baby M was peacefully napping in my arms and 2 year old B was sound asleep in her room, I spent a quiet afternoon engrossed in the Better Homes and Gardens website getting all kinds of fun organizing ideas.  I came across a slideshow of free printable storage labels and although I don't know if I'd label everything, I liked a lot of the organizational ideas.  I thought I'd share some of my favorites...

1. Magnetic Menu Board - Keep a list of dishes on magnetic labels under headings and then mix and match on a magnetic calendar board to plan meals.

This seems like a lot of work to make, but for a person who loves to plan meals ahead of time, this system looks like so much fun!

2. Shelf Labels - My next home project is to tackle our hallway closet so I was intrigued by the idea of labeling the places where items should be so that those items will always make it back to where they belong.

3. Weekly Wardrobe - Back when I was working full time I used to try and lay out my clothes for the week so that I could save the time searching for clothes in the morning and sleep a few extra minutes.  Once 2 year old B starts school I can totally see laying out a weekly wardrobe for her.  I love the idea of putting hooks on the closet to hang the outfits.

4. Clear Canisters for Beauty Supples - I not only love the clear canisters, but I love the idea of putting them on a cute tray to keep them in one place.

5. On the Go Bags - So you're never left scrambling for a snack or activity!

6. A Place for Everyday Things - I have already started to try and organize something like this in my house.  I'm not so much for the labels, but I like the idea of dividing items.  I have a tray I keep these things in and now I need to find a way to divide them.

7. One Basket Per Person - A great way to keep shoes, hats, scarves, etc. organized and easy to find.  Ooh, and I could designate one basket for the on the go bags (see #5 above)!


Not too bad of a way to spend a lazy afternoon!

Weekly Menu: Back to Normal

With things relatively back to normal around my house, I decided to pull out some favorite recipes that we haven't had for awhile and throw in a new one while I'm at it.  Here is what we ate this week:

1. turkey tacos and peppers
2. spinach and brown rice tomato soup (this was the new recipe) and paninis - So this one didn't turn out very well.  It has potential, but I followed the recipe to a T, even though Nick and I questioned its methods.  The recipe says to add the rice to the soup 5 minutes before serving.  Well, that made for some crunchy tomato soup!  If I try this again, I will cook the rice before adding it to the soup.  It was pretty inedible.
3. meatball sandwiches, Caesar salad
4. homemade fish sticks, kale, bread
5. spinach and chicken quiche, broccoli as a side

The things I love about quiche are that I can make them ahead of time, I can put whatever I want in them, they make great left overs, and they remind me of home.  Here is the quiche recipe that my mom still uses and that I now get to make:

veggies and/or meat of your choice
3/4 cup Bisquick
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
2 cups sharp cheddar cheese
2 Tbsp. butter

1. cook up any ingredients that need to be cooked (I use 2 chicken breasts, but my mom likes to use 1 lb of bacon)
2. spray the pan and layer the veggies and/or meat with cheese (I go... chicken, spinach, cheese, chicken, spinach, cheese)
3. beat the bisquick, eggs, and milk in a bowl and then pour the mixture into the pan
4. slice the butter and place it on top of the mixture...

5. bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes
6. let cool for a few minutes after taking it out of the oven to let it set completely

The final product...

Well there you go!  Hope everyone else had a relatively normal week!!