Hot Tip!!!

Michael's had all Halloween and Fall items clearanced at 70% off today! An employee told me she is pretty sure they will be 90% off tomorrow. I love hitting good clearance sales.

I got some wrought iron pumpkins for approx. $2, a large witches broom for approx $1.50, NICE Wilton's cookie cutters for .20 (the comfort grip ones with the nice rubber top), and a bunch of Halloween crafts for the kids - most to be saved for next year (all under .50). They also had a bunch of awesome candles and the Martha Stewart Halloween stuff clearanced.

I realize I've been neglecting my blog lately - a bad cold completely knocked me out this past week (combined with tons of Young Women's stuff). I hope to update more regularly again starting this weekend.

In the meantime, head to Michaels!

Princess Hair

One of my favorite hair blogs is doing tutorials on how to do Disney princess hair for Halloween. So far she has Belle, Cinderella, and Tinkerbell up. She is adding Sleeping Beauty and Ariel today. You can check it out here.

I couldn't resist adding a picture of Ella from Disneyworld. Michelle did a fabulous job on her hair!

Speaking of traditions . . .

Every family vacation we go on, we buy a cookie cutter as our main souvenir. It is a lot of fun to hunt with the kids for the perfect cookie cutter to represent the trip (plus it keeps the kids from buying a lot of junk - you know the stuff that seems cool when you're on the vacation but just becomes clutter once you get home). The best part about the cookie cutters though, are the memories they inspire whenever we make cookies. The kids love pulling out each one and talking about different parts of our trip. So easy and fun!

More Cox Farms Pics

Climbing up to get to the rope swings:

Can you spot Ella?

The "BIG slide." You go down this one on a potato sack:

One of several other slides:

Ella jumping down the haystack:

WFMW - Fall Traditions

"Wholesome family recreation is important in building successful families"

I watched a show this past Sunday that focused on the value that traditions have to our families. Professor William Doherty (director of marriage and family therapy at the University of Minnesota) shared four reasons why our traditions are so important:


1. Family traditions help make family life predictable. In a world where life is often unpredictable having a family ritual helps make life more secure for both parents and children.

2. Creating new family traditions gives families a chance to reconnect and share their lives. Traditions cultivate connections between immediate family members and between generations.


3. A family identity is formed through rituals. By establishing family traditions & rituals we give children an identity, a group to belong to, and a sense of who they are.

4. Family rituals teach children values. Children learn what their parents value by the rituals that are observed such as attending church, giving service, and visiting elderly relatives. Rituals give children a set of values that they can take into adulthood and use in their own families.




Family traditions are the "we always" of family life. For example, "we always go out to lunch on the last day of school," "We always go to Cox Farms every fall." Traditions are meaningful time spent together as a family.

The show focused not only on yearly traditions, but weekly ones as well (attending church together, etc.). An idea I am going to try and incorporate is taking a family walk on Sundays. It is the one day of the week I know we all will be together - cheap, fun, easy - LOVE IT!

OUR FALL TRADITIONS:

The pictures above are from our yearly Cox Farms trip. We surprised the kids by taking them yesterday. In addition to Cox farms we have a couple of fall traditions - Friday Night Fright Flicks, Trunk or Treat at the church and trick or treating, baking Halloween cookies and pumpkin bread, and of course Halloween parties.

I would LOVE to hear your family's fall traditions. Please share!

Cox Farms - October 2008

Creating meaningful family traditions is what is working for me this week. For more fun tips, visit Works for me Wednesday hosted by Shannon at Rocks in my Dryer.

"Scarycrows"

Ella keeps asking me when we are going to see "scarycrows." I've pointed out to her a couple of times different scarecrows but when she sees them she says "no they are farmers - they not scary." I wonder what image she has come up with in her mind. So if anyone sees any scarycrows, please let us know - we are on the lookout!

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. :)
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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'.