Closet Redo

Last Friday I had the whole day to myself. My mother-in-law kindly took the boys for the day because my original plan was get massages with my sister and then do lunch. Well, she got sick so instead I worked out and then spent 3 hours tackling John's closet. His closet is such a mess because besides having his clothes in there, it houses all our tot school stuff, old baby stuff, my craft stuff, and other random items. Needless to say, once one or two items are out of place, there is a snowball effect and his closet was a nightmare.

Here is what the nightmare looked like before I worked my magic.



Did anyone have a slight panic attack looking at that thing? It is terrible! Just junk EVERYWHERE!







I took almost everything out of the closet (and wish I had a picture of it because it was a sight to be seen!) I organized everything, tossed a bunch of junk, and moved some of the baby stuff to another room.

I was able to get rid of all this stuff...



...and now the closet looks like this!



So, you may be thinking 'It still looks mesy', but it is nice and organized and everything has a place. I didn't want to spend money to make it look awesome because we are hoping to move soon. I just wanted to make it more functional so that I could take things out and put things away without having to dig through the entire closet of contents!

I reorganized my tot school theme materials (farm animals, zoo animals, bears, apples, sports, transportation, fall, spring, etc). Then each theme went into a gallon sized plastic bag (or 2 bags) and I hung them on the rod with pants hangers. Now I have all that theme's material ready to go instead of hunting around in 5 different places in the closet for what I wanted. I am so excited about this because it is so neat and easy to use!



The Halloween bag is trying to escape!


Oh, pretty organized bags!


For some reason I had a TON of Valentine's Day stuff and Easter stuff. So, those went into boxes instead of bags and went above the bags.


Here are all the arts & crafts supplies. Matthew LOVES to color with markers so he is luck that we have a whole drawer full of them!





All the playdough was put in one box instead of 2 boxes and a plastic bag.


I put all the manipulative items in one spot (blocks, dry pasta, magnetic letters, etc).



What every boy needs at all times: back pack, sleeping bag, and breast pump. Wait...



I am happy with the results! I won't have a heart attack when I open John's closet and I am not afraid something will fall out onto my head. John can still get to his toys at the bottom of the closet but can't get into the tot schol stuff or make a mess with the paint supplies! Perfect...until we get the next house. :)






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Easy Thank You Cards

My sweet niece, Lilly, had her 1st birthday last month. If you recall, I made these invitations for her tea party and my sister did a fabulous job of throwing the party.

Well, I also made some super easy thank you cards. Here's how:

1. I used this sweet picture of Miss Lilly (take by Fancy Pants Fotos)



2. Using photoshop, I added the words 'Thank You' to the top corner. Genius, right?! You could also use Picnik which is a free site or any other editing program like Publisher.



3. Allison uploaded these to Vista Print when she had a coupon for 100 free postcards. Then she wrote the thank-you's on the back. Easy cheesy!

This takes a tiny bit of work, but probably not much more than driving to the store and buying a pack of thank you cards, and they are WAY cuter! This is one thank you card that won't be tossed in the trash immediately.


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Grocery Shopping with Toddlers

I always hear my friends say 'How do you shop with the boys? I can't get shopping done with my kids with me'. Well, I am no expert, but I found one trick that works with John (outside the obvious 'If you sit in the cart nicely, you can have a lollipop' bribe).

So, this is the oh-so-fancy trick. I make up different grocery list for John to keep up with while we are shopping. I am sure I am not the only one who does this, but I feel smart and that is all that matters! I usually make a list of 4-8 items and put little circles by each one. Then we take dot stickers with us and mark off the items as we find them. They aren't always items we actually need but it helps gives John something to do besides drive me crazy.

Here is an example:


I just get images either in word or on google and tada...a grocery list! I don't make this for every shopping trip but throwing it in every so often spices up our lives a bit. Guess we must have boring lives. :)

We also sing the 'Let's go to the Market, Let's go to the Store' song and practice signs for different foods. However, the signs I know is pretty limited, but it helps Matthew continue to be introduced to signs and John LOVES signing. I get a little embarassed that I sing at the store so I try to do it when no one is around.

So, what are your tricks to making grocery trips more bearable with kiddos?


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Banana Love!

Have you guys seen posts on several other blogs that showed you could write messages on bananas for your kids?

Well, today I thought it would be cute and easy to use cookie cutters to make a design instead of a message. I didn't have small enough snowflake cookie cutters (which would have been perfect for this week's tot school theme!), so I tried it out with a small heart.

I lightly indented the banana with the cookie cutter three times. (I only did it to the left banana, in case you didn't notice!)




And maybe an hour later, this is how it turned out!


This would be so cute to do for John's lunch around Valentine's day when he goes to pre-school. Of course I would make it prettier that my trial banana. Or I could make them for sweet Matty B's breakfast. Any small cookie cutter would work so I am excited to make their bananas more fun to eat!

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