On my radar

1. Angela has the most amazing Disney ABC's on her blog. You have to go check them out. She is one talented lady! I hope she sells these, I would LOVE a set for Ella. Check out some of her other projects, you will be blown away.

2. Creature Features for Families - Family Fun has compiled a great list of Halloween movies. This whole month we are having "Friday Night Fright Flicks" at our house. What's better than friends, popcorn, Halloween treats, and scary movies. We'll be watching Mr. Boogedy, Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice, Ghostbusters, Gremlins and of course It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. I'm going to run out of Fridays!

3. Have you seen what this man did to his basement with $10 worth of Sharpies. Unbelievable. I wish he'd come do mine.

4. Love, love, love this post by Mrs. G at Derfwad Manor.

5. Fall consignment sales are here! Last week was my favorite biannual sale. We packed up and tagged a bunch of our less played with toys and too small clothes for the sale and then I got to shop! I bought the kids more toys for now but I also was able to get most of Ella's Christmas shopping done and some of Spencer's. (I got Ella a three story wooden doll house with all the furniture for $20 - it is practically brand new). It is crazy how many brand new/still in the box toys and dolls they have. We've done this sale for 3+ years so the kids are used to going through their stuff and deciding what to give away. Not only is it a great way to go through the toys every six months, but I love the lessons it helps to teach the kids. Along the same lines, I think about this post -Why do with Less quite often. We are looking for more sales these next few weeks to pick up some baby girl clothes so if you know of any great ones in the metro DC area let me know!

6. One last thing to point out. Check out this
organized fridge. I am so jealous. Would anyone like to come implement this system in my house???

WFMW - Kitchen Management Tips

This idea has literally saved my sanity this year. I wish I had done it years ago. It was originally a Works for me Wednesday post but I thought it would be perfect to share here. I'm excited to read everyone's tips on taming clutter. Here's mine . . .

As the kids get older I have noticed that more and more school clutter ends up in a certain spot in my kitchen. Permission slips, fliers, fundraisers, etc. seem to multiply here, along with all the paperwork that I get from their after school activities. Before school started this year I came up with a solution that so far has been working great.

When you open up the door to go down to my basement you see this:

Here is a close-up of the bottom of the clipboards:

Each kid has their own clipboard and file box. Any paperwork I get for the kids goes into the box. Once the paperwork is filled out/forms are signed/or I have stuff that needs to go to the teacher, coach, etc., I place it on the clipboard.

It is the kids responsibility to check their clipboard before school to see if there is anything that needs to go with them out the door. I check the kids "inbox" nightly to see if there is anything that needs to be done that night so I'm not hectically filling out forms or writing checks before school.

This has worked wonders for us. It is not technically in the kitchen but it has freed up one of my kitchen counters so I figure it counts for kitchen management!

(To the left you can kind of see my chore management system (under the calendar) that has also been working well - I will post more about this soon hopefully).

For more fun kitchen management tips head on over to Shannon's blog where she hosts Works for me Wednesday every week.

My previous WFMW posts:

Sweet Spinach Bread
Library Bags
Letterboxing
Curling Ribbon
Safe Plastics
5 Ingredients or Less
Laundry Tip
DIY Lip Gloss
Tips for Clothes Shopping with girls
How to teach a child to swallow pills
Removing old stickers, adhesive, etc.
Easy Hair Bow Instructions

Organizational Outsourcing

Conversation with Spencer yesterday after school:

Me: Is your desk staying organized this year?

Spencer: Don't worry mom, I've got it covered.

Me: What do you mean by that?

Spencer: I'm paying some girls to do it. :)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I almost burst out laughing. In Spencer's class this year the kids each have to own and operate a business (or they can combine in teams). It is a year long program where they have to maintain business records, prepare items to sell, pay taxes, and prepare their own income taxes. Every Monday is Market Day where they can buy and sell items.* Apparently, some girls started a desk organization business. So Spencer has been paying them every Monday to keep him organized. Bless those girls.

* They have their own currency in the 5th grade GT classes. They are paid hourly for going to school and get overtime for homework.

More love for Nie Nie

I should be packing right now but couldn't leave without letting everyone know about more super fabulous auctions going on right now for the Nielsons. Kim from
Today's Creative Blog (one of my all time favorite blogs) is the hostess. Go check it out, there is some amazing fun stuff by very talented women. If I wasn't leaving soon, I would be obsessively stalking the site.

You can see the auctions here.

Blogging Break

We are packing up a storm and heading over to Disney World for the next week (YAY!). The kids are so excited I think they are going to burst. I can't wait to see Ella's face when she sees Cinderella. I, of course, am doing 3 million last minute things. Hopefully we remember everything. We'll be back on the 22nd with tons of photos to share!

My boy

So I was going to write a post documenting the first day of 5th grade. I had big plans. I was going to show you all the size of his backpack (ginormous!), the "mom please stop taking pictures smile" in front of our house, pictures of him walking to the bus stop while I followed from a block behind him so as not to embarrass, and the moment of ultimate mortification - the pictures as he came off the bus after school. But then, while I was browsing which pictures to use, I saw this:

My boy. Isn't he handsome? He's growing up these days. I find myself obsessively clinging onto his childhood lately (see beginning of post). While I am doing so many "firsts" with Ella, I am also right on the edge of doing so many "lasts" with Spencer as he leaves childhood behind. It is a fun, exciting, new, intimidating place to be as a mom. Hopefully by next year, I will have matured enough not to follow him to the bus stop with the camera . . . but I'm not making any promises.

WFMW - Backwards Edition

The theme this week for Works For Me Wednesday is - WHAT DOESN'T WORK FOR ME. I'm excited for this because I hope all you wonderfully wise women (wow - how many W words can I use in a row??) can help me figure out some solutions to what is not currently working in our house.

Our current dilemma involves my oldest son Spencer. I asked him today if he was okay with me posting this because I didn't want to embarrass him (which I do enough inadvertently already). But apparently posting problems on my blog for a lot of people to read is not an issue, it's just taking pictures as the kid steps off the bus that is mortifying. But, I digress. Anyway, Spencer started 5th grade today. We had our "Back to School Dinner" tonight and talked about goals and expectations for the upcoming school year. Spencer's number one goal is to be more organized.

Spencer is so incredibly smart, but his Achilles' heel is definitely organization. He would ace every single test, pre-test, whatever you threw at the kid last year but would get low grades in some areas because he could never find any work that he had already completed. His teachers would have to give him papers to redo 2 to 3 times. They would tell me that "they knew he did the work and did it quickly, but then could never find it." Some days I would check that certain papers were in his backpack before leaving the house and by the time he was at school, they would be missing. Because he aced everything big: tests, projects, quizzes - his final grade didn't suffer but we know that as he gets older this lack of organization will really hurt his grades. I remember at the intro to the Gifted and Talented orientation a couple of years ago, they said that the number one problem gifted kids face is organization and that will determine if they succeed or fail (but they then didn't go on to explain what we could do if our child had that problem).

To make a very long story short, we need ideas. I have been going through the house making sure things are more organized on our end. I tend to be a bit of a clean freak so part of me is surprised that this is such a struggle for him. I am trying to get a homework station for him at home finished this week before they start assigning homework. But I'm not sure if this is really going to help with organization at school, IYKWIM. There were a couple times last year I'd have to go to the class and clean out piles and piles and piles of stuff that he had in, around, and on his desk. He also really struggles with procrastination - which I think feeds into the whole organization thing.

If you have any ideas please share them. He is looking forward to hearing any possible solutions. By the end of the school year last year I could tell that he really felt bad about this - there were tears a couple times. He really really wants to figure this out - I just need to somehow find the tools to help him succeed. This is our #1 priority this school year.

Thanks in advance!

PS - If Uncle Scott, Corey, or Ed read this please disregard. Spencer was fine with aunts (because they are moms) and internet friends but was hoping his uncles don't see. He's got to stay cool - you know :)

My previous WFMW posts:

Sweet Spinach Bread
Library Bags
Letterboxing
Curling Ribbon
Safe Plastics
5 Ingredients or Less
Laundry Tip
DIY Lip Gloss
Tips for Clothes Shopping with girls
How to teach a child to swallow pills
Removing old stickers, adhesive, etc.
Easy Hair Bow Instructions

A Friend in Need

This past week has been amazing watching the efforts of bloggers all around the world collaborate to help with Stephanie Nielsen (of the Nie Nie Dialogues) and her husband's recovery. I have been blown away seeing the amount of love and generosity that people have shown.

In case you are unaware of the situation, fellow LDS blogger Stephanie Nielsen and her husband were in a plane crash on the way home to Mesa, Arizona. Their flight instructor passed away but both Stephanie and her husband survived. Stephanie has 3rd degree burns covering 70% of her body, her husband's burns cover 30% of his body. They have four children under the age of 6.



I was drawn to Stephanie's blog for many reasons: her amazing decorating style, her love for all things vintagey, her obvious love for her husband and her love letters to him, but most of all her absolute incredible joy of being a mom.

Design Mom declared this past Thursday to be Nie Nie Day. Bloggers everywhere joined in a mass effort to help this dear little family by hosting online auctions on their sites with all proceeds to go to the Nielsens. The original deadline was tonight but because of the sheer volume of auctions (and more popping up all the time) there are still MANY that are ending in the upcoming weeks. There's jewelry, paper goods, artwork, photography services, baked goods, clothing, toys, big ticket items, etc. being auctioned off for a GREAT cause.

Head over here and check it out. The ones labeled "LIVE" in red print are the ones you can still bid on. Just don't bid against me! JK - please bid against me and make me donate more. Anything to help them . . . the whole situation breaks my heart. Please add Stephanies family to your prayers.

Spanx PSA

This is a public service announcement for all you Spanx lovers. Say you were having a party and at the last minute decided you needed a little help keeping your tummy in. And say you bought your pair of Spanx last year when you were 125 lbs and obviously suffering from some type of body dysmorphia because you thought you needed Spanx back then. Don't, and I repeat don't, make the mistake of cramming your now voluptous body into a teeny tiny pair of Spanx. If the Spanx are too small they do not help hide your tummy, instead everything you are trying to hide comes up and spills out over the top of your Spanx now giving the appearance of a very odd placed roll of fat around your middle section thus drawing attention to the very thing you were trying to hide.

I'm just sayin'.

Mad Hatter Tea Party!!!

We celebrated Ella's 4th birthday this past Saturday. Yes, our kids parties happen a couple weeks after their birthday. We made a decision awhile ago that because they share the same birthday that week would be reserved for a joint family party. We have been on a marathon of parties ever since. The weekend following the kids bday the kids had a couple different parties to go to. Spencer's party was held the next weekend and Ella just finally had her birthday party - only 3 weeks late :) The past couple of weeks have been a lot of fun - the kids really got into helping plan each others parties. BUT - Thank goodness we are done for awhile!

Ella was so excited for her party. For weeks she talked non-stop about "her girls" that were coming to her tea party. We never really got an answer who exactly these girls were as 90% of her friends are boys. Nevertheless, the party was a hit!

We interpreted the Mad Hatter theme loosely -

We started the party by having brunch with some of Ella's favorite treats:

Cake pops:




If you haven't tried Bakerella's cake pops Bakerella's cake pops you must immediately - they are worth every pound! I usually make the cupcake version but Ella wanted the cake lollipops.

Natalie agrees:



We had tags attached to toothpicks on the croissants that said "Eat Me," attached to the straws that said "Drink Me," and on our giant lollipop favors that said "Take Me."

After brunch, the kids decorated their Mad Hatter hats:






We then went to play croquet (I had a puzzle with picture clues for the kids to put together to find the croquet course, but the natives were getting restless so I decided not to get it out):




Spencer and Madison:

Sara:



After croquet we came back in for cake and presents. I realized we didn't have an actual teapot (except for toys) when I was planning the party so I made a teapot cake:





We finished the party by decorating royal princess frames and giant heart shaped sugar cookies to go.

Instead of party bags, we did lollipops. I forgot to take a picture at the party. This was set in our entry way full of lollipops with tags that said "Take Me."



I think the best part of the party was watching Ella's face. I decorated everything the night before while she was sleeping. She loves pink and everything girlie so when she came down in the morning her whole face lit right up. She didn't know I was making a teapot cake - you could literally see the amazement in her eyes when she saw it. For Ella, the whole day was full of wonder and magic. Exactly the way a birthday should be.

WFMW - Easy Hair Bow Instructions

I love making bows for Ella's hair. These are some of my favorite sites:

Posh n Pretty has the easiest instructions I have seen for basic bow making. Their free tutorials are great for getting the technique down for forming the bow. If you are new to bow making, I would start here. What they do not show is how to attach the bow to the clip but they are such a good resource for learning new bow techniques.

Girly Things has step-by-step free tutorials on bow making from start to finish. They also have tutorials on making cute bow holders and ribbon boards and they give advice on how to sell your bows. At the top of page is all of the links to the photo tutorials.

The Ribbon Retreat has some of the cutest tutorials for bows that I have seen, as well as how to make ruffled socks, ribbon covered barrettes, etc. All free on their site.

Honey Mommy has a free tutorial on making the cutest hair clips. You can see it here.

I need to take some pics of the bows I have made. Here are two very basic ones that she wore this past week:

(The part looks weird from this angle but cute head on!)


From the back:





I have added a new WFMW post that focuses on how to do cute hairstyles for little (and big!) girls. You can see it here: Easy Hairstyles for girls

Easy and fun bow tutorials are what is working for me this week, for more wonderful ideas visit Works for me Wednesday hosted by Shannon at Rocks in my Dryer.

My previous WFMW posts:

Sweet Spinach Bread
Library Bags
Letterboxing
Curling Ribbon
Safe Plastics
5 Ingredients or Less
Laundry Tip
DIY Lip Gloss
Tips for Clothes Shopping with girls
How to teach a child to swallow pills
Removing old stickers, adhesive, etc.

Muffin Tin Monday

(Back row left to right: Popcorn, peanut butter candy apple, half croissant, black grapes; middle row left to right: yogurt, strawberries, honeydew melon, ham; front row left to right: black grapes, ham, peanut butter candy apple, popcorn)

This definitely is not a new idea, but it is such a fun one! Muffin Tin Monday has added spice to our boring lunches. I divide up the tins, the 6 on the left are Ella's and the 6 on the right are Spencer's. There is something special about eating food this way. We usually do it at lunch time, but it is great to do breakfast foods, or snacks that are left out for grazers. It also is a good way to use up leftovers from the previous week. I do my grocery shopping on Tuesday so Monday works nicely for this. I'm not sure why but I can also sneak in foods that they won't usually eat and they will try it most of the time. Maybe the smaller portions look less intimidating?

A house full of boys

This year Spencer chose to have a sleepover for his birthday party. I pushed really hard for an alternate location, i.e. laser tag, bowling, Tae Kwon Do, or anywhere I could pay someone to do the party for me . . . but to no avail :). We had a family party on his actual b-day and then waited to do his party on August 15th so we could take the boys to see The Clone Wars on opening night.

It was a lot of fun planning the party with Spencer. He definitely is growing up. Balloons and decorations were out as they are no longer "cool." We had the boys come early so we could order pizza before the movie. It was funny, we didn't tell any of them to bring their Nintendo DS but within 15 minutes of arriving all the boys had them out and were playing. After the movie, the boys spent the night playing Wii and DS, building Lego ships, playing air hockey (Spencer got a table top version for his bday), and EATING. I had no idea how many root beer floats 10-year-old boys can consume. It was so much fun watching the boys have such a good time.

I wish I had taken more pictures on the sly. It is hard with 10 year olds - I definitely wanted more pictures, but I knew having your mom come in the room with a camera is definitely embarrassing. Here are a few while opening gifts:



(Quick side note: One of Spencer's friends gave him Wii Ski. It is so much fun for the kids, even Ella loves it - just in case anyone is looking for any more Wii Games :))





I still can't believe he is 10. I definitely miss my "little boy," but am very excited to see the person he is becoming.

A little late to the party . . .

I have loved seeing the different photo mosaic memes. Here's mine:



The pictures answer these questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you attend?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. What is your favorite drink?
7. Where would you go on your dream vacation?
8. What is your favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. Choose one word to describe you.
12. Your Flickr name?

HOW IT'S DONE:

Answer each of the questions.
* Surf over to Flickr (set up an account if you don’t have one — it's quick and easy) and type your answers (one at a time) into the search bar.
* From the choice of pictures shown only on the front page, click on the one that moves you.
* Once the page with your picture opens, copy the URL.
* Surf over to the Mosaic Maker, set up your mosaic, and paste your URLs.
* Click "Create!"
* Post on your own blog, etc. (and I dare you to try and figure out what all of my answers were ;)

WFMW - Removing old stickers, adhesive, etc.

This is so awesome. If you have any old stickers that aren't coming off easily, just dab mayonnaise all over them - leave 30 minutes - and wipe the suckers off. The mayonnaise does all the work for you.

So far this has worked on:

- Old adhesive left on the window by the previous owners of our house.
- Stickers my kids have put on doors, walls, etc.
- Sticker that my son put on his Gameboy a couple years ago.

I haven't found anywhere this hasn't worked.

I saw this tip on some BBC cleaning show. They used it on a dresser that was completely covered in stickers 30+ years ago. The stickers wiped right off like magic.

Easy household cleaning solutions are working for me this week. Shannon from Rocks in My Dryer is taking a break from WFMW for awhile. You can check out past WFMW ideas here Works for me Wednesday.

My previous WFMW posts:

Sweet Spinach Bread
Library Bags
Letterboxing
Curling Ribbon
Safe Plastics
5 Ingredients or Less
Laundry Tip
DIY Lip Gloss
Tips for Clothes Shopping with girls
How to teach a child to swallow pills