My nieces birthday is this weekend so I’ve been on the hunt for something that she’ll love — she’s really into unicorns right now. Do you know how popular unicorn-anything is right now? I mean, unicorns are everywhere!
For example, I often refer to this graphic whenever someone refers to my ginger hair in a not-so-happy-way (think red-headed step-child, *wink*):
Happy Monday, I hope you all had a lovely weekend! We had a low-key weekend just hanging out at the house. Friday night was pizza and movie night — I introduced the girls to a classic Disney movie, Mary Poppins. At the end Grace told me that she wanted to watch the movie “every day.” That made my heart smile. We watched it again on Saturday night. *wink*
Even though we had a fairly uneventful weekend I seem to be dragging a bit this morning. It’s definitely an extra-large cup of coffee kind of day.
Speaking of which, grab your cup of coffee and settle in, because this one is for all the mamas struggling to keep their kids stuff organized — I know I’m not the only one. I mean there are about 1,000+ boards called “playroom organization” or something of the like. Between the crayons, legos, books, barbies, etc. it can get out of hand quickly. And can someone tell me why children love to dump out the entire bin of toys? Not just like one bin because they’re looking for something, but they empty every. single. bin. Why?!
Our playroom is an ever evolving task of mine, always a work in progress. I’ve scoured Pinterest boards for ideas and inspiration, continuously on the hunt for ways to make our playroom the cutest little put together space on the block. Funny little story…
When Grace was a baby I tied labels to all of the cubbies with pictures of what belong in them. I had seen it on so many Pinterest boards — it looked cute and I convinced myself it would help us keep the room tidy. WRONG! No one paid attention to the labels. When it came time to cleanup kids just put toys in whatever bin was closest to them — parents too! After everyone left I would go back and re-organize to put everything in it’s right place. *facepalm*
TGIF! Was it just me or did this short week seem long?!!
I have to admit, the house is looking fantastic!! We’re so close to having everything in it’s place and organized, but I have to admit, I’m starting to lose my motivation. We’ve been going so hard, but when paused to look around and admire the work, well, I got tired. It’s like when you come home from work at the end of the day, you’re going strong: making dinner, doing laundry, sweeping the floor, doing dishes, bathing the kids, etc. but you know you can’t stop until it’s all done because the moment you take 10 minutes to sit down – game over. You’re done for the night. That’s how I think I’m starting to feel. Luckily I’m committed to the Clear the Clutter Challenge which is just what I need to motivate me to finish the last mile of the race. We can do this!
Earlier this week I shared my newly de-cluttered linen closet and as promised I wanted to share a few pics of my newly cleaned-up laundry room.
We have a fairly small laundry room – there’s not a lot of room to maneuver. Here’s the room before…
Happy Monday y’all!!
I don’t know what it is about January that makes us all buckle down on the clutter (isn’t that supposed to be reserved for “Spring Cleaning?!”) but whatever it is, Michael and I have the bug. We’ve been crushing it since the holidays taking each room and getting rid of all the crap clutter and turning it into livable usable space again.
Over the weekend I tackled the laundry room and linen closet. I’ll share the laundry room in another post, today I want to focus on the linen closet.
I’ve always been most proud of our linen closet because it was the one area that actually stayed organized the longest, but lately it’s become a bit unruly and needed some attention…
Now for the after photos…
dear 2018 ,
I’m not one for making resolutions (because let’s be honest how many of us stick to them?!) but I am feeling very inspired by what may come of this year. Plus my motivation level is at an all-time high (probably due in part to me being at home full-time,) I would say my current status could be categorized as “crushing it.”
The past year (mainly the last 4-6 months) has helped me realize a few things that I need so for 2018 I have set some goals. Goals > Resolutions.
Happy Friday! Today is going to be a great day, not only is it Friday (T.G.I.F.) but yesterday they started playing Christmas music on 100.3 WNIC (Christmas all the time, wahoo!!,) plus it’s my birthday today and to top it all off I get to head over to Starbucks this morning for my birthday latte! This girl couldn’t be more excited.
Yeah, so, you read that right. Today is my birthday.
Today I woke up another year older and, perhaps, another year wiser (hey, I said “perhaps.”) Here I am, now 38 years old (shit, I’m on the downside of my thirties!?!?!!) Happily married. Homeowner. Mother of two beautiful, sweet and spirited little souls. How did that happen? I remember turning 30 like it was yesterday. I was convinced that I was going to live my life as an old spinster (maybe I watched a little too much Bridget Jones during that time of my life.) Of course, 3 short months later I met my now husband and just like that, all fell into place and made sense.
Happy November! The leaves have officially changed and started to fall in great big fluffy piles in my backyard. They’re so pretty to look at why bother raking them, lol.
This month I’m feeling great. I’m 3 pounds away from meeting my first goal weight (I have multiple goal weights to get down to my “happy” weight.) I’ve told myself I want to hit this first goal weight by Thanksgiving and yesterday morning I woke up thinking it was truly achievable – I even put on some old grey jeans that I haven’t worn since before I got pregnant with Rae! Unfortunately, I still can’t wear my rings. That’s a little depressing but trying to not get discouraged by it, and if I can hit this small goal weight then I’ll be thankful for that.
It’s also my birthday this week, Friday to be exact. I will be the big 3-8. Holy crap that’s almost 40! Wow, when did that happen? I don’t feel 38. Then again, I don’t feel 37. You know what they say, age is just a number. I just wish my number was 25 *wink*
This year I wanted do something special with the girls for Thanksgiving, a new tradition (hopefully) that we could carry on for years. Something to help teach them what it means to be grateful. So we made a “Thankful Tree.” Each Sunday night, after dinner, we’ll sit at the table and talk about what we’re thankful for and write it down on paper leaves to hang on our tree. We did our first one this past weekend and you know what Grace said she was thankful for? Her family. Melt my heart.
There’s still time for you to make your own Thankful Tree – I made this one in about 30 minutes.
Happy Halloween friends! I don’t know about you but October seemed to fly by for us. There are just so many activities from local fall fun festivals to trunk-or-treat and school parties we seem to have some Halloween activity every week. That and I probably signed us up to do everything now that I’m home and have “a little more time on my hands” (said no mom ever!)
This year Grace decided that she wanted to be a spider for Halloween – she was very adamant about it. So we got to work designing and stitching up her spider costume back in September. She’s worn it a few times now to some of the Halloween outings we’ve had and she absolutely loves it! Then yesterday I picked her up from school and she tells me she’s decided she now wants to be Elsa for Halloween and just wear her princess Elsa play dress. Seriously child, the main event is in 24-hours and you want to pull a game changer on me?!! (Insert tears of laughter/defeat here.) Luckily we compromised and she agreed to be Elsa for her school Halloween party today but still be the spider for trick-or-treating tonight. Whew, dodged that one! Thought you’d all get a kick out of that one.
Two months ago yesterday I left my job in the corporate world to “take a pause” and stay home with my girls. It was time to slow down a bit and hit the reset button. It also meant that the girls would no longer be in daycare 5-full days.
Now, I went into this with open eyes and what I thought were reasonable expectations of what life as a Stay At Home Mom would be (you can read about that here.) To say that the past two months have been a walk in the park would be, well, a lie. During the first month I think I text my husband at least once a week telling him that this wasn’t working and I was going back to work.
There were days that the kids wouldn’t nap at all (usually on the days that I desperately needed a nap myself, or a shower!) There were days where I would yell and give time outs (sometimes by 9:30am!) There were days where I had planned outings but because we couldn’t agree on what to wear, or to brush our hair/teeth/etc. we couldn’t even make it out of the house. There were even days where I felt like I was failing as a mother, the days where I sat on the floor on the verge of tears because that’s not the kind of mom I wanted to be.
I’ve made this recipe two weeks in a row now so I knew I just had to post about it because it’s that good! I found this recipe for a Taco Casserole (Weight Watchers approved) in my Pinterest archives and decided to give it a try last week for Taco Tuesday. It’s seriously delicious!
