Organizing those Baby Toys

Toys can get overwhelming, we don't have that many toys yet but I anticipate over the years accumulating a lot more. For now we have a large leather toy box and in there keeps all Eli's toys. Along with a bucket of things he plays with often, both upstairs and down. 

In the leather box I have small Dollar Store tupperware containers to hold pieces of things like:

-Little People
-Train Set Animals
-Puzzles and Pieces
-Blocks
-Balls

When Eli is done playing with those they all go back in there designated container so that they don't go missing.

One of the families that I babysat for when I was young had a wonderful way of organizing their toys and I plan to do this in the future. The idea really avoids all the clutter and mess of the crazy amount of toys kids have especially when you have more than one child.

They used large totes and separated everything into their own spot: 

Barbies
My Little Pony
Tractors and Trucks
Little People
Kitchen Play Food
Action Figures
Games and Puzzles

As well if there is special toys the kids get that are their own toy. A box labelled with their name on it for their special toys would be a good idea as well. 

All the totes were lined up in the toy room and if we played Barbies we would haul out the Barbie tote and play. It kept everything together and helped during those meltdowns 'ohhhh dear where is Princess Barbies pink skirt' you don't spend half your day searching for it because everything is kept in one place. 

Eli has a book case in my craft room where all his books are and I love how clean and neat the books look in there. He spends lots of time on the floor in there looking at books

In my craft room I have a shelf designated for Kids Craft Stuff

Paint
Kids Play
Learning Books
Coloring Books
Markers and Crayons

FYI I got a lot of cute Sesame Street dry erase learning books at Dollar Tree, they offer a lot of cute Cookie Monster, Big Bird, Elmo etc. learning books for ABC, Colors, and all sorts of things. I have also got a lot of board books and colouring books from there for 1.00-2.00. At Walmart colouring books can be over $10.00.

I can't wait for the day to have a room designated to toys and organize and decorate a fun space for the kids to play. For now I just have spots around the house for kids play activities. 

Sentimental Things

Do you have special items that you could never part with. I have a few that I will share with you today.

These blue rose petals were once a Valentines bouquet from Aaron in 2006. Yup thats right almost 8 years ago. I had never seen blue roses before and loved these I hung them upside down to try for probably close to a year and then put the petals in tall vases. Although getting pretty dusty they remind me of our First Valentines. 

Purple Ring Box. One day while looking through some of my Grandma's things I came across this velvet purple heart shaped ring box. A note inside that said My Engagement ring box July 5, 1952. It meant so much to me that it was my Grandma's and how neat to be purple our wedding color. On the day of our wedding it held our wedding rings. This box sits on my jewellery stand and holds my wedding rings when I am not wearing them.

Welsh Love Spoon. My Grandparents gave this to Aaron and I on our wedding day. The spoon came all the way from Wales. Where my grandparents and dad are from. The spoons are hand carved and decorated with symbols of love. A special thing we hang in our home from Wales and from my Grandparents.

Wedding Vase. This vase was on the guest book table at the wedding. A In Memory Vase full of flowers dedicated to the people who were not at the wedding but defiantly there in spirit. This vase sits in our home office now.

Promise Ring and Necklace. This I received from Aaron on the day we graduated high school and the ring was from him on the Christmas we celebrated in our first apartment almost 7 years ago I hope to pass these down to a daughter one day. 

Journals

If you havn't noticed there are two things I really like. Lists, and memory keeping!
I have too many journals and books dedicated to this sort of thing but you know there are worse things. I almost dream of sitting in the nursing home when I am 90 and looking through all my treasured Project Life books and journals. I bring this up to Aaron everytime he chuckles at me for taking a PL picture. You will enjoy looking back at these books when your older! 

Here are a few of my favourite journalling books:

My Daily Book

This is a plain 5.99 journal from Walmart that I spiced up with some calenders and frilly's this book is more or less a book I can sit down on the couch with and write down blog post ideas, shopping lists for the City, goals, recipes I see on tv. Just misc things. I have had this book since 2011 and it is still not full its not something I write in everyday honestly I don't think I wrote in it the whole time I was pregnant.

Q&A Book
I seen a friend posted about this book on Instagram and instantly had to have it what a good idea it was. This book is a 3 year journal for you and your partner to fill out each day it has questions everyday and a spot for each of you to write down the answer. It will be fun to see each year how your answers have changed.

Q&A Book for Kids
They had this book for children as well so I had to buy that to have on hand. I am still thinking of the perfect age to start this. I am thinking between 10 and 12. There is room in the book for 1 or more kids to write down their answers.

My Quotable Kid 
I am most excited about this book and to have somewhere to write down all the silly things kids say and do. After babysitting a friend of mines 4 year old this past year, I realized how funny kids can be. 

So, I think I love you book
I got this book several years ago at Target mostly because I liked the way it looked. I still don't know what I will do with this book but most likely a journal for the children to write in. But I like the school paper look of the inside of the book.

Our Meals for the Week

Monday- Honey Garlic Slow Cooker Ribs with rice and steamed snap peas

Tuesday- Pork Chops with Mushrooms and Roasted Potatoes and Carrotts

Wednesday- Spagetti and Meatballs with Asparagus 

Thursday- Salmon on Noodles with Green Beans 

Friday- Crispy Chicken and onion Salad with Garlic Toast

Saturday- Breakfast, Sausage, Eggs, Shredded Hasbrowns

Sunday- Roast Beef Diner Mashed Potatoes, Peas 

Our Florida Trip

We are back from 10 days in Florida, and it was perfect wish we could have stayed longer! Isn't that always the way

Eli is a fantastic flyer and slept all of our flights 4 in total. I get upset when people give you the glares when you walk onto the plane "oh great a baby" what are we not supposed to fly because we have babies, but we are lucky and Eli is good on the plane.

Quick Story Eli has learned to say bye and it says it to everyone he see's it really is the cutest thing ever as he yells BYE and waves. He did that to most everyone as we walked through the aisle to our seats as we got to our seat he said BYE to the lady ahead of us and she turned to her husband and rolled her eyes 'oh great there is a baby behind us' I just about bopped her on the head, but I held it in and sat down. Eli was standing on my lap looking through the seats and he said HI. She turned around and said 'oh you don't look sleepy' in the snippiest voice ever at that point I hoped he screamed the entire flight why do people have to be so rude. I admit before having children I might have cringed at the thought of a baby beside me on a plane but for real babies are cute and fun! Eli fell asleep as soon as we were in the air and woke up 15 minutes before landing. As the seatbelt sign went off and everyone bursted out of their seats she turned around and gave us another glare like as if we had the worst baby ever. I gave her a nice smile and Eli said hi again...some people just need a chill pill.

Sorry my quick story turned into a long story! but while we are on flying stories these things just boggle me

1. Wanting to be the first one on the plane, everyone just falls over themselves as soon as they page boarding for flight 1458, Spoiler alert your going to be on the plane for the next few hours why make it longer

2. Why do they board the plane front to back? Does back to front not make more sense? Now I am in seat 17 but I have to wait for 3A to get his oversized carry on in the overhead bin.

3. Seatbelt sign is off ya I like to stretch my legs like the next person but lets all just lose our minds trying to get up and in the bin first, and then stand all squished together while breaking your back. Better try and get a few rows ahead you know cause I will only meet you at baggage claim where oh yes we will wait again! 

4. Im not sure if I am the only one who has thought of this idea but if everyone just took 2 steps back from the baggage conveyer we would all be able to see the belt and quite possibly get your bag faster. I get a real kick out of the 6'8 guy who has to be right up front practically on the belt. 

Anyway the holiday we had a great time in Florida. A pool 100ft from our back door and a large pool with kids pool and sand just a short walk away. We walked every morning which was so nice.

One of the best things we did was bring a small blow up paddling pool we put water in it and sat it beside our chairs and Eli splashed and played in that alot. He loved the water and to my surprise the sand he doesn't like a mess something like his mom but he really enjoyed the sand. 

We did some site seeing but mostly just pool and beach. Florida sun is hot! but you don't realize it till the night when you are as red as a lobster. 

Ate at Cracker Barrel twice it is my favourite, especially the chicken noodle soup. Side Note: not proud of this but when I was pregnant we were in Bismarck racing for the weekend I was craving the soup so bad I went by myself and ordered two bowls of chicken noodle soup. I didn't want to seem desperate so I kept checking my phone and watch so people thought I was waiting for someone not just a big pregnant girl dining on two bowls of soup by herself which I was.

At the beach I brought a flat sheet instead of a blanket it was much easier to shake off at the end of the day. We also brought the pool to play in. One guy walked buy and thought it was hilarious 'you see that they brought a pool to the beach' I wish we would have done the beach more as Eli loved the sand and he could crawl anywhere where as at the pool he couldn't crawl around. 

We are back to routine now and I am in a huge declutter mode. While in Florida at the condo you don't have all that jazz that clutters up your closets we only had the things you actually needed. You don't have a hundred tupperware lids crowding up the cupboard  6 spatulas and a pantry full of junk you have what you need. We did perfectly fine that week with one basket of toys and not five.

So for the next week I am going through each part of the house making piles of keep, toss, sell, donate. I will post about my cleaning journey as well as my Spring Cleaning List I do every year. Also next week a tour of my home office.

Have a great weekend everyone! 

Post Secret Books

I realize lots of you will have probably already heard of these books but I thought I would talk about about them today. While browsing Chapters one day I came across these books, at the time there was just one edition out.

The books are all about secrets, people anonymously send in their secrets a regret, fear, confession, childhood humiliation anything. 

The author of these books first began by leaving postcards in random places asking them to write down a secret and mail it back to him anonymously. All apart of an art project he was putting together. A lot of postcards came in and he began posting them to a website the website was viewed by millions of people and he now has published 4 different books of all these different secrets. 

I have read the books over and over again they are very interesting, scary, shocking, I have kept these post card secrets pretty low key. Check the books out for some real secrets!

Headband Holder + How To

My friend Mallory was looking for a way to hold all of her daughters head bands. I don't have any cute frilly headbands but I do have a million Whippy Cake's that I needed to do something with.  We came up with an idea using an old formula tin.

What you will need:

Coffee or Formula Tin
Fabric
Hot Glue
Candle Holder
Black Headbands 


I used an old scarf to cover my tin. Hot glueing all of the edges I wrapped the fabric tightly around. 
We got these crystal candle holders from the Dollar Store and they worked great and really classed the whole thing up. I hot glued it to the bottom of the tin.

Then wrapped these black head bands around the tin making rows to hold the clips I was going to put on there. 

I kept the lid off the tin and now is extra storage for things that won't fit on the rows. 

I love how it turned out! 

Pregnancy and Baby Memory Keeping

These are two of the books I used to first document my pregnancy and then to document the first year of  babies life. I got both from Chapters 

The Belly Book
By: Amy Krouse Rosenthal

This book is a month to month journal to keep track of your growing belly

A section about mom and dad and family when you found out you were pregnancy, cravings, quirks and week to week journalling with spots for pictures of your baby belly. It is really neat to look back on the things you did while pregnant and for me will be interested to see how pregnancy compares from one to the next. Each week has different prompt questions so it's not boring or your not searching for something to write about. The book has lots of room for keepsakes and ultrasound pictures as well as a place to track doctor appts. 

The Baby Book

By: Amy Krouse Rosenthal 

A 12 month book to document the first year 

Same idea as the first book but on a month to month basis instead. Each month has room for a picture and weight and height recording. As well as simple questions to write about.

It takes you through all the firsts. Mother's Day Fathers Day Chirstmas. Spring, Summer and all those fun firsts teeth, crawling and food.

I like these books because they give you the questions so it's easy to document, plus give you a modern book. I have these books displayed in Eli's room and have books awaiting in the closet for a new pregnancy and first year so the kids can have the same books!

This author also has a few other books. That I would like to get

The Birthday Book- Keepsake Journal from Baby to 18 on Birthdays
Grandparent Book
Sibling Book- Journal a sibling would make for a new baby coming into the house. Baby's first Year According to Me! 

Also books found on Chapters Indigo online from 12.99-18.99