How To Make Your Room Feel Larger

I get SO many emails a day about how to make a room feel larger.  Paint ONE wall red, mix up textures, pull all the furniture OFF of the walls so you feel the room behind them (yeah, that one only works if your resulting furniture configuration doesn't leave every piece TOUCHING because your room is so small), etc. etc.
I have a GREAT tip that REALLY works:

Open up your ironing board and put it right in the middle of your office/bedroom/dining room/living room.  Leave the iron on it for a couple of days. (You can actually iron something on it if you want, but it isn't neccessary.)  Make sure to pile up anything you can't find a place for that you happen to be carrying as you walk by.  Make sure it is good and covered.  If you are feeling REALLY energetic, you can pile of a couple of boxes under and around the ironing board.

Leave it all there for at LEAST a week, longer if you really want this to work.

Now, as soon as you get a call that someone is coming for a visit/playdate/they-are-on-the-porch-NOW run into THE room, and grabbing as much as you can carry, shove it all into ANOTHER room, preferably one with a door.  Close the door.  Walk back into the original room, AND:

Take a spin in your NEW GIANT room!!  Who Knew you had so much space?!
Great, right?

A Fun Little Summer Incentive

I've been stewing an idea for a summer "incentive" chart and wondering how to draw swirly lines and how many steps I would need to get us through the summer, when inspiration hit.  Okay, my husband hit - as usual (and not in the "he only hits me when I deserve it" creepy kind of way from Natural Born Killers that I'm still too afraid to watch) - he said, "oh, you mean like an old Chutes and Ladders game board?"  Genius!  Chutes and Ladders turned out to be way too rectilinear and in fear of his head growing *too* large, plus the idea of having to hit a chute and slide back to the beginning after working so hard to get ahead defeating the purpose, I thought Candy Land would be the perfect path for our summer to follow.  I found this image of the original board online, and thought it was exactly what I was looking for.  I edited it up a bit, replacing the dancing kids with ours, and adding our prizes along side the yummy candy spots.

We have a Lego fanatic in our house which translates to giant abandoned piles of the little plastic shards around our house like the churned earth tailings that are left after gold mining.  This Lego fanatic is now old enough to handle cleaning it all up himself, but could use the help of a goal or two.  We are also working on speaking nicely to each other, not interrupting, focusing and a myriad of other typical child / parent issues that could be smoother.

The apparently now defunct Didj is a *huge* obsession with our kids, still, and during one of Leapster's ginormous sales, I scooped up a bunch of 75% off games and cases and covers and have them in a basket as the incentives.  These along with a movie out, an ice cream shop visit and the "big, big surprise" (which means I couldn't think of the final goal) will hopefully entice the kiddos into perfection.  No, I'm not holding my breath, but it will give us a goal!  The kids will move their markers along the customized Candyland gameboard every day as they clean up, or do something without being asked, or will have to move backwards if they slip up.  Hopefully it will be fun, and we'll all be cleaner and nicer by the time school starts.

*update* sorry for the spelling mistakes.  I really did fix them once - somehow they were lost in cyberspace - thank God for spell check!

Pregnant? Just Get This Now.

You need a changing table.  Okay, you don't NEEED a changing table - you CAN change a baby on the floor or on your bed, or on the bathroom counter at your kids' school... anywhere really, but OH a changing table makes it SOOOO much easier.  We didn't have one with number 2, and I kept a pretty little canvas bin thing with me, complete with diapers, wipes, etc.  It was fine, but a changing table is better.  NOW we have a changing table and we went the "put a changing contour pad on top of your existing dresser" route.  It works fine.  Our dresser is only a teeny bit bigger than the pad, though, and so Baby O. kicks anything and everything at the end right off.  This is usually the dirty diaper I have just removed.  I have been using it for 20 months and I curse it.

If you are pregnant, save yourself the hassle.  Don't go searching around for the best one.  You've found it.   Buy this GORGEOUS changing table!!  If you are going to have more kids you will use it and use it and use it. 

Not only will your husband turn into a cool, "I'm still a skater punk at heart" kind of a dad, but you'll be able to keep everything together, and change that kid with plenty of room.  If you aren't going to have any more kids, make it a nifty desk for your one kid:

And, hey, while you are out, BUY THIS CHAIR!!!  I've wanted one for our kids for over 7 years now.  USE yours for those seven years.  JUST BUY IT!

If you want all the cool details about how this is the best highchair / kids chair / adult chair ever made check out their website.

New Year's Resolution: Feed My Family

I've never been one for New Years' Resolutions. I've never understood why anyone would wait for ONE time of year to make changes in their lives. This year, however, it coincides perfectly with what is going on with us. There's been a natural break in our schedules and it is a perfect time to start. There are SO many reasons this is so important to our family: we need to save money, we need to eat healthier, I need to get my head on straight. That last one is the biggie - the last thing I need right now is to try to figure out what to feed everyone at the last minute. This is when I give up and tell my husband to bring something home for dinner!

This is a before shot of just a tiny bit of my recipe books piled high with little corners bent over on the pages of yummy recipes I'd like to try. Let's just say I haven't opened one of them since I bent the little page over!I sat down and ripped out every recipe I think would work for us, put them in plastic sheet protectors,and made a binder for all of our family meals. I can take them out and move them around by the week or by dish or by season - anything I want.

I bought this darling little calendar from Clementine NW (LOVE THEM!!)

It stays in my recipe binder and every Sunday night I'm sitting down to plan out the week's meals. If I can swing it I go grocery shopping for the week on Sunday, so far it has been Monday morning. This will work!!!

I know tons of you plan out your menu's for the week ahead - do you have any great tips to help me!?

Summer Chaos Help From Everyone

Even Baby O. is in on the checklists!

Summer Chaos - Controlled?

We've been working with the large calendar on the left since Mr. H. was in school, but this is our summer control center. We have it all hanging between the kitchen and the dining room right at the kids' eye level. The top checklist in the middle has everything kids are responsible for doing every morning: make their bed, brush their teeth, get dressed, eat breakfast, put dishes in the sink, etc. The bottom checklist is what they have to do before bed.The dry erase board on the right is our daily note that the kids read to us each morning. H's teacher had this in his classroom, and encouraged us to continue it to help with reading, days of the week, scheduling our day, etc.

Since we have started using the checklists, the kids are SO GREAT in the morning!! The run downstairs to check things off, and buzz around making sure everything is checked off. No more nagging them to do this and do that, and asking them if they've brushed their teeth or not... I LOVE IT.

Every morning after they've finished everything on their checklist, we sit down and do these Summer Skills Daily Activity Workbooks by FlashKids. They really love to do them, but just to ensure enthusiasm, we picked out all of these stickers to go in their sticker books. After each day's activity, they get to pick out a sticker (or five...). Their sticker books are just spiral bound sketch books that they can draw or paint in as well. (the bottom photo is Miss Mae looking through an entire book of LISA FRANK STICKERS!!!! Oh how I remember how my heart would pound at the thought of a new Lisa Frank sticker when I was young!

I can't tell you what a difference our little scheduling has made in our mornings! Everyone knows what to expect, and what will happen next. I REALLY hope we can hold on to this into the school year!

Helping Our Kids Schedule Their Time

I've made these checklists for our kids to help organize our morning and evening routines. Ours has two boxes - one for Miss Mae and one for Mr. H. I've laminated ours and hung two dry erase pens right next to it, so they can check off each item as they complete them. I'm going to try to attach them here so you can download them and use them, too.
I'm having trouble getting them on here so you can print them out full size.... I'll figure it out and post them in a bit. If anyone has any pointers I'd love some help!!

New Year's Resolution: ORGANIZATION!

This year, I'm really going to have a place for everything, and have everything in its place. We were all playing together, and I was explaining to the kids what resolutions are, and how you RESOLVE to do something, and I said our resolution was going to be to put everything away in its place before we start a new project/toy/contraption/etc. They all nodded, nodded, and then Mr. H. said, "that is GREAT mom.... but that isn't MY resolution!"

It IS going to be our goal, though. I started with our art supplies. We spend a lot of time with these supplies, and I had them all scattered around, and with two main plastic tubs that were overflowing. Every time someone asked me for tape, or glue, or scissors, I had to go digging through these little bins knocking paints on the floor, and finding markers with no caps.

Now I have

• all of the paints in one basket with the paint brushes in a Ziploc bag tucked in.
• All of the markers and crayons in one basket - separated with Ziplocs.
• all of the glue, scissors, and tape in one basket
• a basket of unfinished projects - right now they are decoupage creations that are all painted but not yet decoupaged.
• all of the misc. stickers and adornments in one basket.

Then I cleaned out the closet in our office/kids STUFF room (which was overflowing with stashed items from having friends over) and put the baskets inside.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE! Now the kids can reach what they are looking for, and it will be much easier to put things away because they can just drop them in. I've finished the rest of the closet since I took this picture, and now the games are organized, the playdough is organized (yikes), and all of the "projects" they got for Christmas are on the top shelf ready for the "what should we do today?" that is SO hard in this water locked season of ours.

I feel like I can breeeeaaaath. aaaaahhhhh.