A special reading nook

I LOVE to read! There is nothing like settling in with a great book and being brought away into another time or place. I've always wanted to encourage a passion for reading in our children and have had baskets with books throughout the house so there is always one nearby when the mood strikes.

Our new house has all kinds of fabulous nooks and crannies...it's a hide and seek dream! And I decided to turn one of those nooks into a special reading spot for the kids.

Step 1- Buy a couple touch lights...the LED ones were 2 for $4 at Wal-Mart and I was able to hang them up myself easily.

Step 2- Throw in a couple pillows, lovies or blankets to make it more cozy. I love that their nook has doors on it for privacy, but you could easily add a curtain too.

Step 3- Add books.

Done! It took me all of 2 minutes to give them a quiet spot of their own in which their love of reading can grow.

The long awaited Family Organizing Center

Warning- this post is not for everyone! Not that any of my posts are, but many of you may think that it's extreme to dedicate an entire wall to organizing your family's schedules/paperwork. I could probably use another three walls. :-) An entire family organizing room. Can you even imagine!?! Sigh.....Okay, snapping out of it.

Ta-da.....

Yes, it's not all hanging entirely straight and yes it's driving me crazy too. :-)

The magnetic calendars you'll recognize from here.

Other features of our organizing center include:

•Two cutesy dry erase To-Do lists, one for me and one for Jeremy. These are made by taking an old picture frame, spray painting it, scrapbooking a cute paper to go inside, and writing on the glass with a regular dry erase marker.

•A "mailbox" folder holder for each of our family members. I originally looked for these in the store, but all I could find were plain ugly clear ones and it was like $25 for three of them...and we needed four. Jeremy and I made all of these out of one $10 sheet of particle board and two 99 cent bottles of paint. Plus we have enough of the particle board left to make an awesome mailbox like this for Liliana for Christmas.

By the way, Micah is very disheartened that he has not gotten any mail in his "mailbox." When I get the mail from outside I divvy it up and usually it's all for mommy and daddy. During the school year, he'll put his folder in here but right now, he's been stuffing his bath towel inside because it drives him crazy that it's empty. And my attempts at giving him pretend mail for in there hasn't worked. So if you'd like to mail the kiddo something, it'd be much appreciated. Message me for our new address.

•A chore chart- this isn't something I was planning on putting up. I was trying to avoid the whole laminated-clip-art-looks-like-little-kids-live-here thing. But Micah insisted that he could not possibly help with chores without his chore chart hanging there. I'm hoping to redo this into a cuter something or other eventually.

•A menu board- done in the same style as the To-Do lists. My mom joked that most people who just planned out a menu for the week would consider themselves organized. I will say that we definitely don't adhere to it as much as I'd like to, but usually we end up making all of the meals, just mixing up the order.

•And finally, a little holder thing that has the pieces for the magnetic calendar and some pens, tape, etc. so I can fill out any forms I need to from school and put it right back into Micah's folder. Funny story- I was so excited to find this awesome holder thing at Goodwill for only $3! Score! Then a week later I saw it at Ikea for $2 new. Whoops!

So there you have it. We're officially organized. I will say that the thing we're enjoying the most is probably the To-Do lists. I keep finding little things throughout the day that I need to remember to work on when we get a chance. It's great to jot them down and put them out of mind for the moment. And Jeremy seems to work really well when he has a list of what he needs to do. Not all husbands do well with that, but he appreciates knowing exactly what I need of him and the satisfaction of being able to cross it off the list when finished.

Obstacle Course!

This is a GREAT activity to do on long snowy winter days stuck inside the house, and it turns out it works for long way-too-hot summer days stuck inside the house too!

Grab anything and everything you can use to do something physical with...(think hula hoops, jump ropes, masking tape put on the floor in a line, folding chairs with a blanket draped across them to make a tunnel, couch cushions, brooms held sideways as a limbo stick, you get the idea).

Line them up in any order. If you don't have a great big space, you can make the course run throughout your house, in different rooms and down hallways.

Show your kids what to do...hop off the kitchen chair, do a somersault to the couch cushions, hop on one leg onto each couch cushion, crawl under the blanket tunnel, do a silly dance and tip toe along the masking tape line. Keep it short at first and then you can add things on as they get bored.

After they've played for awhile, let them rearrange and come up with their own course. They'll love being the boss! Liliana's involved swinging while singing.

We are very blessed to have a large space with lots of large motor type toys for this kind of thing...we have a mini trampoline with bar, cube climber with slide, crawl through tunnel, swing and gymnastic rings in our basement. Liliana is a VERY physical child and plays with those types of toys more than anything else, but you can improvise with this idea with anything you have in your house. Creating the course is half the fun!

Check out Micah showing off his mad gymnastics skills...

This is also a fun thing to do outside and you could even incorporate water into some of the activities to cool off!

It's the Little Things

I'm easily pleased, as evidenced by my sheer delight in our new marker holder!

This is how we used to store our markers.

This is my new 25 cent marker holding solution.

It's an ice tray that makes long skinny ice cubes to stick in water bottles. I got it from a rummage sale for a quarter. Jeremy was like, "Really???" And I was all, "Yep."

Now you can sleep better at night since you won't be up wondering how to properly store your markers in a neat and easy to use manner. You. Are. Welcome!

Moving!

I'm baaaaaaaaacccccckkkkk!!!!! Our lives have finally gotten organized enough to return to blogging. Not too shabby considering we unloaded the moving truck three days ago. I can't stand chaos (shocking, I know!), so we worked like crazy to get boxes unpacked quickly. We still have a box here or there and everything isn't quite set up how I want it, but it's good enough to take a break. I'm very thankful to have someone from the church coming later this week to watch the kids while I finish getting organized!

So moving....

Moving day went VERY smoothly. Because we're in seminary, we know a lot of people who move a lot. I basically sat back on moving day while these geniuses managed to pack in way more stuff than should ever fit in a moving truck and left us room to spare. I joked about needing to go rummage saling to fill the space. Jeremy didn't find it funny.

We're very thankful for all of our friends who helped us out! The truck was loaded up in two hours and then we were able to finish cleaning the house while a neighbor watched the kiddos (thanks Amy!)

We "camped" out in the new house that night since our beds were still loaded and the next morning a bunch of church people came and helped us unload. I think they're going to have a difficult time finding people to help us load up next summer when it's time to leave now that everyone has seen how much crap we have, how heavy it is, and how we wanted all the heavy stuff up or downstairs.

The kids have adapted very well considering. They've been a little on the naughty side lately, but more because we've been too busy to spend time with them than that they're upset we're in a new place.

They also enjoyed all of the time spent with their grandparents during the moving process and we were GREATLY appreciative of all their help!

A couple of things that helped all of us transition better:

•We talked about it...a LOT! We read books about moving, we researched the new town and told the kids things like, "Wow! Our new library has quite the collection of Star Wars books! Micah- would you like to read those when we get to our new house?"

•We visited ahead of time and brought the kids and the camera with. When we went through the house I said things like, "And here is the kitchen where I'll make you macaroni and cheese." to correlate it to existing things we did at our current house. We took pictures and then showed them to the kids often, so when we actually got here, the house felt very familiar to us all. Plus, I knew where I wanted to put stuff then since I had been looking at photos for months.

•We included the kids in the packing process..."Do you want to bring your ponies with you or leave them here? Where should we put them at our new house? Let's look at the pictures and decide!" We also had them around for loading up the truck even though it would have been way easier not to. Liliana did NOT do well with this. I was really surprised since Micah was her age when we moved the first time and it was a great therapeutic experience for him to be involved. Liliana screamed because she didn't want her toys going on the truck no matter how many times we explained it to her. She was excited to ride her bike up the ramp though.

•Moving is a great time for transitions and "losing" items in the move. Any really loud annoying toys got "accidentally left" at our old house. It's also happens to be the law in our new town that you're not allowed to have sippy cups if you are over the age of 2. How convenient!

•We role played scenarios with our kids since our new neighborhood is MUCH different than living in seminary student housing. We pretended different people rang the doorbell and had them practice what to do besides shouting, "Come on in, it's open!" like Micah did at first.

•Not always possible, but Jeremy and I went for just the day the week before we moved and totally unpacked and organized the kitchen. It was AWESOME to be able to walk in and have one room completely set up and ready!

On a funny note- we asked Micah what he thought tomorrow was (the correct answer being Daddy's first day of work.) Instead he said, "Hmmmm....are we packing up again?!?!" Jeremy and I both simultaneously shouted, "NOOOO!!!"

"Celebrate Birthday"

The posts for the next two weeks or so will probably be very sporadic. We're in the middle of moving and it's not really worth blogging about...packing, unpacking, rearranging, repacking, wondering why we have all this crap....pretty much sums it up. Here's a photo of what our living room looks like right now.

Which explains why we have nothing fun to blog about...because all of our fun stuff is packed!

The problem with moving during the summer is that Micah's birthday is in August. So we're always in transition at birthday time. Because of this, we've gotten into the habit of celebrating his birthday twice...once when we visit our family anytime remotely near his birthday and once on his actual birthday. (This year, we're adding in a half-birthday celebration with his friends in February since he won't know many friends yet on his real birthday.)

Which means Micah got to have a "Celebrate Birthday" (as he decided to call it) this past week.

He wanted a store-bought cake instead of a homemade one, because store-bought cakes have a toy on it. I couldn't argue with that logic. Check out this perfect shot of sibling rivalry. Liliana was so disappointed that it wasn't her "celebrate birthday" as well, but she was insistent that she needed to be in the picture, even if she wasn't going to smile for it.

His cousins came over to celebrate with him. Both my kids have sooooo much fun with their cousins. The age range is perfect...the three boys are older, about two years apart each and the three little girls are really close in age, just 6 months apart each. Even though we don't see them very often, Liliana says Cailyn is her very bestest friend!

And of course, presents. We didn't tell him we were going to celebrate his birthday until the day before so he wouldn't be too obnoxious about it. He got Star Wars legos, a transformer and a new bike! He was sooooo excited that it took him two days until he asked how many more days until his real birthday and how many presents he'll get then. :-P We're working on appreciating the things we have. It's not going well.

All in all, a successful "celebrate birthday" was had. I'm thankful that we're able to experience these milestones with our family even when we live so far away from them!

3 Steps to a Good Time

Step 1- Set bowl of cheerios on table with some clean shoelaces.

Step 2- Sit back and read a magazine while your children concentrate on their project, building fine motor skills and hand/eye coordination through fun!

Step 3- Model your new necklace!

Our Fourth of July

I LOVE small town festivals! It seems like there is one every weekend around here during the summer, but our favorite is the one that's held annually the weekend of the 4th.

It kicks off with a parade. Parades are pretty much the best thing ever in my kids' opinion. Music, interesting stuff to watch, and FREE CANDY!

Liliana was really excited about the candy...but not so thrilled about the loud noises. Why is it that every firetruck needs to have the sirens on?!?! So she decided to wear headphones throughout the entire thing. It was cute stuff.

Silly Nana!

Micah wanted in on the candy...but he's just too sweet! He needed to be a little more aggressive and ready to pounce. Here he is with his hands behind his back.

Dude! Get your hands in front and get ready to move! (loud exasperated sigh) He still did okay...mostly because the kids next to us were really nice and left some for him.

After the parade, Liliana was excited to get up close and personal with the ponies! She LOVES horses!

Micah wanted to play all the games. Ring toss is REALLY hard for a four year old. Even with standing closer.

Our afternoon was filled with bouncy houses, ice cream, snow cones, water fights, and BINGO!

It was great to catch up with old friends and share some memories with our kids that we had growing up. I love the fact that they're looking forward to some of the same things Jeremy and I did as kids! We ended the night with fireworks, which both kids managed to stay awake for. It was a fabulous weekend and we look forward to doing it again next year!

Incredibly Awesome Magnetic Calendar

So a few months ago on facebook, I posted a picture of a family command center.

I LOVE the idea of having one place to organize all of our paperwork, schedules, to-do lists, etc. I started brainstorming about what our family command center would look like.

I ran into a problem with the calendar though. Jeremy and I both use iCal on our Macbooks and we love it. It's easy to repeat events, add and delete things, color coordinate, etc. I'm not sure I'd ever want to go back to a hard copy calendar. But what's a command center without a calendar?!?! So I gave up for a little bit and waited for genius to strike.

Turns out genius struck in the form of a 4 year old boy with incessant questions. "Is today a church day? How many more days until gymnastics? When can I have Colin over for a playdate? How many more night-nights until we get to go on our field trip? Do I have soccer this weekend?" He definitely likes to know what is going on and when. So I decided that the calendar should be mostly for the kids to keep track of what is going on and a bonus visual for us for when our laptops are not right in front of us.

I decided to go with a magnet board that had little pictures that could be rearranged. Easy for the kids to follow and understand, and quick and easy for me to update. I also really wanted it to be cute and look like something that belongs in a grown-up home, especially after doing daycare for two years and having a giant laminated sun calendar in the middle of our living room.

Here's the step by step:

•First, we used metal roof sheeting and bent it straight and glued it to a board. Make sure the metal you use is magnetic! They're actually bigger than what it looks like...I'd say it's about 10 inches by 28 inches maybe...I could be way off.

•Then I brushed Mod-Podge on the metal and laid scrapbook paper over it. I learned with the first one that you need to wait for it to dry before doing a top coat. Otherwise the paper bubbles up.

•I did 5 coats of Mod-Podge, letting it dry 20 minutes between each coat. (It was my first time using Mod-Podge and I was way impressed. You can get really creative with this concept! Mod-Podge over a dollar store magnetic cookie sheet to make an Advent calendar or a travel game, etc. The possibilities are endless.)

•Then I smiled really pretty at my darling husband and he framed it with molding and painted it.

We made two of them, so we can see two weeks at a time. When one week is done, we'll pull them off the wall and switch the actual calendars instead of having to switch the magnetic pieces. Then we'll always have the current week and the next.

I printed off clip art symbols for everything I could think of that we do as a family. Dentist appointments, swimming lessons, holidays, play dates, library trips, etc. and laminated the pieces. Then I attached magnet strips to the back.

Here it is with some magnetic pieces.

I LOVE the end result! It's not perfect,..there are a couple of smudges that are bound to drive me crazy every time I see them, but it's effective, pretty, and will certainly help the kids keep track of our schedule. Best of all...it only cost about $14 for both calendars!

Once we get settled in at our new house, I'll have pictures of the finished command center!

What a night!

So I had a post planned for tonight about the FABULOUS new organizer we made....but we had such a crazy night I have to blog about that instead.

It started off when we decided to take the kids into town to get their pictures taken. Keep in mind that "into town" means 45 minutes. Photo sessions in and of itself are crazy and I try to avoid it as much as I can...picking out the matching outfits, trying to schedule an appointment and keep the kids bruise-free and healthy until then, trying to keep them clean, forcing them to smile for a stranger...NOT FUN! But it had been a really long time since we had a professional family photo taken, so alas, into town we went.

The kids were ROCK STARS! I was in awe! They smiled and laughed. They held their poses. The photos turned out awesome and it was actually an enjoyable experience. On our way out of the mall, we got a phone call saying severe weather was popping up in the area and we should stay in town so we didn't get stuck on the way home with no place to stop. So we decided we'd run to Menards to return something since we had to stick around for awhile anyways.

When we got to Menards, it was about 5:00, dark and starting to lightly rain. It took us awhile to find what we needed and so by the time we were going to leave, it was raining really hard. Jeremy had to make a really quick decision for our family on what to do. On one hand, it's definitely more appealing to stay in warm, dry safety and wait it out...on the other hand, it was supposed to storm all night and being stuck in Menards with two small kids could get old fast. He decided we should try to go for it and we ran out to the van and pulled out.

The second we got out of the parking lot, it started monsooning (yep, that's a word). It. was. ridiculous. Jeremy isn't the type of guy to get rattled easily and we were waiting at a red light and he was starting to get really agitated. The sky was green with black clouds, the street signs were blowing back and forth, and it was raining so hard we could barely see. There was no way we could drive home in this. We thought we'd try to make it to the mall since we could entertain the kids easier there. Nope. We couldn't even make it that far. We pulled into Kohl's since it was nearby, parked close to the door and ran in.

I was wearing flip flops and a white t-shirt. Not exactly prepared to run through a monsoon carrying children. I thought we were going to get blown away, or I would lose a shoe, or something equally disastrous....instead we just got really really wet. I had the forethought to grab the diaper bag so at least the kids were able to change into dry clothes. We kept them occupied for a half hour looking at toys when we got word that it was mostly over and we could try again to drive the 45 minutes home.

So off we went. The kids were really shook up, but we had managed to avoid mentioning the big scary T-word because Micah is absolutely petrified of tornadoes. Like, he asks me to check the weather before he'll go outside, even when it's sunny out. So we'd only driven a few blocks, when all of a sudden we hear tornado sirens. So we pulled over AGAIN! This time at Fleet Farm, where they had shut down the store and were making everyone stand together up front for "safety." Apparently their idea of "safety" involves forcing everyone to stand by the big giant glass doors and watch the impending doom. I don't know if the weather had really gotten that much worse or if it was just a more anxious group of people, but they were all VERY loud about their concerns. "I just got a text that there's a HUGE tornado coming right OUR way!!!" "Well my uncle's cousin told me that they had baseball size hail and that this is the WORST storm they've EVER seen!" Thanks guys. So much for keeping our kids calm. When the sirens started sounding off again, they told everyone to head into the bathrooms and take cover. Micah was really concerned about this but I told him that it was just in case we needed to go potty. Which they did. So convenient! After about 20 minutes of waiting and constant updates from everyone's phone...thank you technology...they freed us and we tried again to make it home.

This time successfully! We're now dry and warm in our pajamees (as Liliana calls them) and chalking it up to a great adventure. I have no doubt that Micah will have nightmares tonight, but at least we were safe and there wasn't any actual tornadoes. Micah said that he is "very proud of himself." And I am too.