my blog

what’s in a bag.

ETA: Hi Ladies! Sorry about not answering the comments, as I've been on a bit of a blog break. The grey colored back is from Skip*Hop and the black polka dot bag is from one of those home purse parties, and I cannot for the life of me think of the name and Google has failed me. Thanks for the sweet comments! 

After my experience with Grey (water breaking, very un-expectedly and hastily packing a hospital bag at 4 in the morning) I learned my lesson, be prepared, pack ahead and take some pictures too!

So, want to know what’s in my bag?

Well, I’m going to tell you…

First of all, I pack VERY, VERY light when I have my babies. I have two bags, 1 for baby and 1 for me. They are both average size and filled with only essentials.

First up, the little mans bag.

All those yummy little baby things tucked away neatly into little pockets… I am getting SO excited to meet this little guy!

Lets take a closer look shall we.

The hospital will provide diapers and wipes, baby shampoo etc. But I have my own things that I prefer to use. (don’t worry, of course I’ll load up on the free diapers when we leave)

The little knit cap was the same one both Hunter and Grey wore, so it’s really special to me. The hospital will give this little guy his own hat too, but I love the idea of my boys all wearing the same one.

The hand sanitizer is for quick wash ups after the millions of diaper changes a newborn baby goes through, and of course a quick spritz of their hands when the kids come to visit their new brother.

2 different kinds of soothers. I think we went through about 5 different brands before we found one Grey would take.

The blanket on the bottom (blue with boats) is another receiving blanket that I’m bringing.

It was so hard to choose only 4 outfits to bring, especially since we have no idea how big he’s going to be. (gestational diabetes baby's are usually bigger) But finally after some careful consideration, these are the four I picked.

I am so excited about my baby wipes/washcloths that I made. I hate using cold wet wipes on my new baby. (they usually hate it too… LOL)  I would buy a package of face cloths and just use those for the first 4-6 weeks or so; wet with warm water and wash. But this time around I figured why not make my own. They are double thickness and the exact same size as a wipe, so they fit in a wipes container perfectly. I sewed a simple border all the way around the edges. I know they’re going to fray once they get washed a couple times, but who cares, they wipe up poop for goodness sakes. Anyways, I got to pick adorable fleece fabric prints and they worked out costing the same as the store bought face cloths.

My must haves for a new baby. Nail clippers, comb, Vaseline and a nasal aspirator. (Which actually is an ear aspirator, but the nasal ones suck, no pun intended… this is the BEST baby item you could EVER invest in. I honestly believe it saved Lily’s life… but that’s a whole ‘nuther story)

The Vaseline is perfect to just cover the baby’s bum with after diaper changes, then when they have those nasty meconuim, black tar poops, it just wipes right off, so easy and simple. I love it!

The nasal aspirator is perfect for getting those tiny little boogers out of their tiny little nostrils. Stuffy noses are a thing of the past. Plus sometimes they just don’t suction all that gook and stuff out good enough after delivery (which was Lily’s case, who stopped breathing at 6 days old, luckily we had this aspirator, and we sucked mucous out of her like crazy, thank goodness we had it)

Comb and nail clippers… self explanatory.

Last but not least diapers and undershirts. I packed a handful of newborn diapers, since the hospital uses size 1’s and again, not knowing how big he’s going to be, sometimes the size 1’s are HUGE. So it’s nice to have a couple of smaller diapers on hand. I’m not much of an undershirt Momma, but it could be quite cold here (well, as cold as Sarnia gets in September… haha) so I packed a couple just in case the room is chilly or for coming home.

So that’s baby’s bag. Other than throwing in a plastic bag to bring home the dirty, soiled clothes that’s it. Does it seem like too much to you, or are you going crazy thinking I didn’t pack nearly enough?

Think you can stand another bag tour?

This time it’s mine.

Before I un-pack this and show the world my stuff… might I remind you, there’s gonna be girly stuff in there. I will say bra, there will be maxi pads and guess what, I have no shame in showing you these things. Should I?

So, warned.

Alright, lets start with, quite frankly the best part of my bag tour.

Flip flops for the shower and for walking the halls, or even just chillin’ in my room. Easy to slip on and off. The socks were a gift from my Mom, they are infused with lotion and all sorts of yummy smelling stuff.

The chocolate!!! The Mars bar came all the way from England and is patiently waiting to be consumed by yours truly the second the cord is cut. (that literally is when the diabetes will disappear) Snacks for Daddy if he gets hungry. Also I forgot to take a picture, but I have a zip lock baggie of coins for the vending machine for Darren in case he gets hungry or thirsty.

Okay, no need to explain this stuff, but the reason for the sports bra is for when I get into the birthing tub, so I can at least keep some of my dignity.

My going home outfit is a really, really comfy pair of stretch pants (just in case I end up with a c-section, I don’t want anything pressing against my incision) and a long flowy top. Comfort is key, right.

My after delivery outfit is some fresh new lemon pj’s and a really big white shirt that will make breastfeeding easy.

I’m a germ phobic, so the wipes will help to make sure things are clean and sanitary. (bed rails, phone etc.)

Gum is a MUST during labor and delivery. For you, your hubby and even the nurses. (right Nic!)

Our list of phone number of family and friends who will be looking after our children. So we can call once the little guy gets here.

Pretty basic stuff. Love the travel sized bottles. They take up so much less room and can be easily discarded after. I forgot my toothbrush last time, so I bought a new one this time, while I continue to use my current one. ☺

Last but not least, I have a list that is sitting on my fridge of the few last minute things to grab. They are things I use everyday, so I can’t let them just sit in a bag waiting.

I will keep adding to the list as I remember things.. such as my camera. goof.

And that’s it. Everything you wanted to know about me and more. Whatever right. I’m not the first woman to give birth, and definitely won’t be the last.

I have one other bag packed too, but I’ll spare you those pictures. It has the hospital outfits for the children (they have adorable matching shirts…) Okay, one picture…

Hunter and Grey’s

And Ava and Lily’s

Can’t WAIT to see them wearing these and take pictures of our new family together.

4 more days until BABY!!!

yard clean up.

When my Mom and Dad were here, they worked very hard to un-due all of mine and Darren’s neglect to the backyard. (Don’t they know how long it took to grow those weeds? Jeesh) But in the process ended up giving me the gardening/outdoor bug and now I’m more determined than ever to get this backyard into tip top shape.

Our backyard is set up into 3 tiers. The deck, the patio and the pool. The patio has become the children’s play area/dumping ground. Not exactly a place they want to go out and play in, so that was our first project.

First up, dumping the moldy old, mildew, bug infested sandbox sand. (advice for next year, dump sand at end of season to avoid vomit inducing smells that kept me at least 30 feet away at all times) So Darren got to work pressure washing that.

Guess what…even after all that, it still stunk, really, really bad.

So I got out an arsenal of cleaning products; bleach, a magic eraser, an SOS scrub pad and the hottest water hands could stand to touch.

Guess what, I scrubbed it for 15 minutes, and it still stinks. So we filled it with 2 bottles of bleach, and left it in the sun for the next two days. (smells okay, but we’ll see)

Anyways, once we got all the weeds, garbage, tools and various random things put back in their homes. It was really starting to shape up out there.

We pressure washed the whole patio.

Shaping up quite nicely.

We started putting all the kids toys back into their places.

I really want to make parking stalls and signs on the fence for their bikes. How cute would that be??

Grey loves to ride down this slide on his stomach, so I added some foam padding to the bottom, to “cushion” the fall.

When he woke up from his nap, he was more than thrilled with the new play space. He chased his blue ball all over the backyard.

I didn’t take any final pictures, cause I’m not done yet. I have visions of hooks pilled high with hoola hoops, buckets with balls, Frisbees and sand toys. Also, we’re not too sure what we’re going to do with the sand box this year. I might fill it with colored water and give them some fun outdoor “tub” toys to play with. Plus, along the neighbors garage (the big white wall- plug your ears Mom), I was thinking about planting lots of bright fake flowers so the kids could pretend to water them and weed it all summer long. (It’s concrete along there, so nothing would grow.) Anyways, projects on the go, so I’m sure there will be more updates to our outdoor play space soon!

Hope everyone is enjoying the warm summer weather wherever you are. Have a great weekend!  ♥

‘creative’ chore charts.

ETA: List of chores as per request. :)

Morning Chores:

• pack your lunch kit and backpack
• get breakfast
• make your bed
• get dressed

Afternoon/Evening Chores":

• help fold laundry
• load dishwasher
• help clean bathroom
• wipe down bathroom
• recycling
• put away your toys
• clean living room
• tidy shoes
• put away backpack, jacket and shoes
• mop kitchen floor
• dust living room
• put away laundry
• do homework
• unload dishwasher
• clean bedroom
• set table
• clear table
• sweep kitchen floor

I tried to add chores that I knew they weren’t old enough to do yet, but needed to learn how to do eventually, like help clean bathroom. Come watch me, learn how to wipe down a sink, toilet etc. and then eventually I can make a new tag that says clean bathroom sucker. ;)

ORIGINAL POST:

For whatever reason, I decided to take some comments made about my blog personally, and to punish the world, I stopped posting. Now really, in the grand scheme of things, people who use words to hurt don’t matter, so I decided to pull up my big girl panties and move on. Plus, I kinda need my blog friends for something really cool.

I need your votes in a contest my friend entered me into. Now don’t you feel loved. ♥

The contest is a search for the Most Creative Mom, and well the prize is a $1000 shopping spree at Michael’s. Which I want, bad.

Okay, so to pay you back for your daily, diligent voting. (which you will do, pretty please) I’ve decided to fill my blog this week with projects galore. If I have to prove to you that I’m the most creative mom alive, then I will die trying.

So here’s the link. VOTE FOR AMY!! You can vote once a day.

Onto the good stuff. So as you know, a year or so ago I introduced the token system on my blog that we started using as our chore/reward system. And it worked, wonderfully, but after awhile, the system just seemed too complicated (for the kids) and took too much of my time (which is precious with 4 kids running around) So I needed to come up with something else that would work for all ages and something I could change and adapt as our kids got older and more responsible.

So I came up with this new chore chart for our kids.

I started by buying 3 frames from Wal-Mart. I chose ones that had a plexi glass insert instead of real glass, just in case they got knocked off the wall or something.

I used the 3M removable adhesive hooks and put six evenly spaced apart onto the plexi glass of the frame.

Next I made the chore chart tags.

Mine are 3x3 inch squares cut out of various patterned scrapbook papers. I printed a list of our chores, cut them into squares and glued them to the front of each tag. I cut a hole in the top and laminated them all. I think I have about 50 tags total. (Some duplicates for each child)

And really that’s all there is to the preparation of the chart.

We’ve broken our down into 2 sets, morning and afternoon chores.

The morning chores are things they have to do before they leave for school. They get the same 4 chores every day (except Saturday and Sunday)

I hang the chores onto the hooks from the punched holes on the cards.

Once they’ve completed the chore for the day they can flip the tag around so that I know they’ve done it and visually they can see what they have left to work on.

When they are in school for the day, I take off the morning chores and replace them with their afternoon ones. The chores are a little different everyday, depending on what I’ve worked on during the day. If I cleaned bathrooms that day, I won’t assign that task, or if there is laundry to be put away etc.

The great thing about it to, is that it’s totally customizable. For Lily, she doesn’t have homework, so it’s a tag she won’t get assigned, but the big kids always get that chore.

I decided to hang them on our kitchen wall, that way I can see what’s been done for the day and it’s easier for me to change the tags daily. Eventually I would like to cut some vinyl names to go above, but just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

These were about as easy and cheap to make as you could imagine. All the paper was from my scrapbooking stash, and the hooks and frames were a minor expense. I’ll tell you how we decided to reward them in a later post, it’s a really fun idea, but eventually we would like to do bank accounts with allowance, spending money, tithing and college savings.

And that’s it. Cool huh.

So a small reminder, to VOTE FOR AMY!! It’s so easy to do, and tomorrow I will reward YOU with another creative idea. So check back soon, and vote, vote, vote!

♥ ♥ ♥

our other toy storage.

So I promised to show you how I store our other toys that aren't allowed to be played with in their bedrooms. They are strictly a dining room table toy. And they know they can't take them down without permission. It works really good for us, but then again, I have really good kids.

Now, I'm sorry these pictures aren't anything special. No pretty blue walls and pink heart shaped mirrors. Heck, most of the pictures are blurry. But you get the point right?

This is the hallway closet in our upstairs. Lucky for us, even though this house is 100 years old, the upstairs is either an addition to the house, or re-done in the last however many years. So there is tons of storage space. (rare in an older home) I don't need to put any towels or bathroom storage in this closet, because there is another huge closet in the bathroom for that.

Alright, so here is the closet.

 

The printer sits on an old table I picked up at an antique store awhile ago. (I had planned on using it in the the girls room, but it was too small) Anyways, we don't use the printer much, but when we need it, all we do is pull this little table out and plug in the printer. On top is extra paper, disks and a basket with the cables and cords we need to plug in our various computer components like my ipod and camera.

 

My vacuum sits in this convenient spot, and our little ironing board hangs off this hook thing. (don't know what it is, but it was here when we moved in) And our emergency flashlights sit in the basket. They HAVE to have a home, because there is nothing worse than searching for lights, when the power goes out.

 

(I don't keep my iron in this closet, because I have this strange phobia that my kids will plug it in and burn themselves or the house down, or something drastic like that. LOL! I keep it on the top shelf of our bathroom closet)

Onto the toys.

The buckets are these amazing, awesome great snap lid containers from Walmart. I love them very much! I store a lot of my craft supply stuff in them too. They stack perfectly, and are just the right size for almost any storage need.

 

Now, I'm sure some of you don't care what is in the buckets, but I'm one of those people that like to know what other people got. So I'll show you each bucket, okay?

This one has coloring books, crayons, markers, paints and smallish coloring projects.

 

This one has Ava's perler beads.

 

These ones' hold Hunter's puzzles and the Light Bright.

 

You're probably thinking I'm crazy for locking up the light bright, but when you've picked up your 1076th little peg, you might change your mind.

These last two tubs hold Hunter's Martian Matter set and the playdough.

 

The last couple shelves of the closet are kinda boring, but these hold all our sheets and extra bedding.

 

And the very top shelf has all our board games.

 

 

As enlightening as I'm sure this post has been, I'm glad you read it through. And stop feeling guilty if your closet doesn't look like this... pregnancy is wonderful when you hit the nesting phase and everything has to be perfect. If only you'd seen this closet before this picture was taken.... LOL!

play room.

Goodness, two posts in one day. How will you ever keep up.

Since I've been unable to do much housework around here lately, my girls room seemed to have gotten way out of control and needed some time and attention paid to it today. And I figured since it was all clean that I would share with you my organizing tips that I've used in their play room. It is the best thing that I ever did.

Okay we have to start at the beginning. When we first moved in, this is what the closet looked like.

right side.

 

left side.

 

You can see there is a whole row of holes along the wall there, where they had a shoe rack or something. Plus all the shelves and brackets etc. So I ended up taking out all the shelves and filling and sanding every hole. (that seriously took forever)

When we were trying to figure out what color to paint our living room, I had bought a couple of little quarts of paint and one of the colors was this brighter blue (almost turquoise, or as Nicola describes it mint toothpaste color) Since I already had it, and as luck would have it, it matched the girls bedding/room perfectly. So I painted the closet and decided to leave the door off it's hinges. I could just see little fingers getting jammed in the door. I thought about using fabric curtains to frame the doorway, but again, another expense that really wouldn't add or take away from the play room.

Okay, so are you dying to see what it looks like now?? I guess I should disclaimer that this really actually isn't a "play room" more of a toy storage room, but I like the way play room sounds better okay. AND it is big enough that they do play in there sometimes. Does that count?

Oh, alright I won't keep you in suspense any longer.

left side now.

 

right side now.

 

Okay, so this big yellow unit. I found it in the basement when we moved in, and I begged Darren for weeks to take it off the wall and bring it upstairs. It was even painted this sunny yellow color, which again matched perfectly. (I think it was part of the original kitchen at some point, some of the matching units are out in our garage) Anyways, where the doll house is, the previous owner had cut the shelves out. But that just made me happy. It fit the doll house perfectly.

The bins on the yellow unit, hold different play sets.

(food/kitchen stuff, polly pockets, tini puppini accessories, tea set.)

 

(felt play food, ABC set.)

 

I keep the toys that aren't played with often, on the higher shelves and the ones they love to death down lower. Like the Little Pet Shop. Not played with a ton, so it's the highest on the shelf.

(little pet shop and accessories)

 

The buckets on the top shelf have play sets that I like to know when they are playing with them. One holds a puzzle set and the other one has stickers and notebooks. I'm kind of crazy when it comes to pieces and I have major OCD about making sure puzzles are complete etc. So if they want to play with those, they have to ask and I can supervise.

Barbie doll house. (more on that later)

   

The colorful plastic buckets are from Target. Now, the reason I don't label these buckets, is because they usually end up being on more of revolving system. These are the first things that get dumped when they are playing and I would find it crazy to continually match bucket to toy. Plus, when they get new toys, I will put the new toy in a bucket and rotate an older toy out to be played with a couple months later. And I would constantly be making new labels.

The ones I do label, however are a firm fixture in our play room.

 

These toys are often the main "mess offenders" in our house, and usually have a lot of pieces that go with. So they need a permanent home with a large container to house it all.

The labels I made in photoshop, with pictures of what each drawer holds and the name too. They are 4x6 and I laminated them to make them last longer.

When we're cleaning up, I don't have to tell them where anything goes, they have the picture/word reminders. That way nothing is just getting tossed around. They know their toys have a "home" so to say, and that is where they belong.

(barbies- dolls and clothes, barbie accessories, books.)

 

 

(just a little side note, I rotate my books every three months, it seems like we read the same stories over and over again at night, so if I change them out, then I don't get bored and the kids feel like they get a whole new set of books)

(dolls-clothes, bottles blankets, doll house furniture, dress up clothes.)

 

 

On top of these drawer units, we have a tub for their Barbie carrying cases, and Ava's Tini Puppini case as well.

 

The yellow bucket is kind of a floating bucket. It usually has odds and ends pieces, or things that don't really have a home etc. Right now we've been using it for our McDonald's toys. (until I get around to throwing them out. I hate McDonald's toys)

Because we have two little princess' who clearly love dressing up and all things girlie I added a mirror and hung a 3 hook hanger for some of their play clothes. The mirror is at their height, and they absolutely adore it. (I got it at Walmart about a year ago, but they still have them)

 

(The little double swing for dolls use to sit at the bottom of Lily's bed, until she got her new doll bed, so now it just hangs out in the play room.)

 

Okay, so I said I would talk about the Barbie house a little more so here it is. So as I mentioned before, I have OCD when it comes to pieces. I hate when things are missing pieces, so I am overly (probably obnoxious) about it and I take extra care and attention to make sure everything is all there and has a place to go.

So within my labeled storage tubs, I have additional storage. This is the Barbie accessories bin. I have two snap containers to hold all the little tiny Barbie sized things.

 

Container one, holds all the Barbie house things, like food, dishes etc. It also hold the pieces to the beach set and photography Barbie, pooping dog stuff etc. (yes, I said pooping dog)

 

The second container holds all the barbie shoes, purses, jewelry etc. (Sorry Lily had snuck it away from me and was playing on her bed with it.)

 

(if you notice, every shoe has a mate. And it makes it so much easier for them to play too, when they don't have to get frustrated about missing things etc.) And if everything has a home, they know exactly where to look for it. Which equals less time for Mommy to sift and sort looking for Barbie's beach ball and surf board.

Phew, well I think that about covers it. We have a big green bucket with handles that sits just outside the play room and it holds all their stuffed animals. It's an easy clean to just toss them in there.

 

I also have another storage system set up for toys that are not allowed to be played with in their bedroom. I'll take some pictures tomorrow and share that with you too. Since we're sharing I may as well tell you all my secrets. (ha!)

Hopefully you found something that you can use in your organizing and toy care from this excessively long blog post. I love organizing, but I know it can get expensive. Containers and tubs cost $$$. But if you just get a little bit at a time, eventually you will have enough that you can do a really decent system.