Chip It! with Sherwin Williams

This is what I would Chip It! It's an all time favorite of my daughter.

how do you organize your planner?

just thought i'd share this in case it helps anyone else. we have three kids. the sports are endless as are trips to the ortho for all three. whenever people see my calendar they laugh and then they realize what a great idea. each of my kids has their own color. i know cole is blue, brock is green and sophie is pink. my husband and i are gray/black. this way when i use color to identify each child, i don't need to also write down their names. sometimes i do out of habit, but most times i just write time, event and location.

i keep all the pens handy in the back, along with important phone numbers. i've had this style of planner for the last 5 years and purchase it from barnes and noble.

leftover candy canes = valentine's day treats

thanks, crystal, for reminding me what to do with all those leftover candy canes. i had seen the post in prior years but always forget.

think i have enough for 2 classrooms. my 5th grader's last valentine's day party. :(

a big surprise ...

my husband bought me this for Christmas ..... [love him] very surprised i was. he was tickled i thought it was a crockpot. the stinker even put it in a big box and weighted it down so i would think it was a crockpot. little stinkers were able to keep it a secret from me too, even more amazing.

now i'm a pc girl. learning curve, absolutely. the kids use macs in school. my 8 year old is showing me how to do some things, pretty amazing. so of course i'm hauling this baby to hockey games and lacrosse games so i can play and learn. that absolutely necessitated a bigger purse. thank you marshall's for having the perfect and reasonably priced purse for me and my new buddy.

Just got a little more time on my hands

So I quit my part-time school year job. Got a little more time on my hands to finish up house projects. With the kids in school, I am enjoying the quiet hours of getting things done without interruption. Okay, well maybe I haven't quit started that list yet as I did just quit three days ago, but I did make a list. Here's what I hope to accomplish by the end of the year.

• Clean and rearrange my closet [later post]
• Curtains for the family room
• Curtains for the lower level
• Spray paint Pottery Barn desk [find a chair for said desk ~ refinish?]
• Finish mudroom decor [already did board and batten] just need to finalize
• Paint walls, touch-up woodwork, trim
• Paint stairs and stain landings
• Design foyer architectural detail [thinking board and batten]
• Wallpaper powder room
• Sort and rearrange gift wrapping closet
• Sort and rearrange boys' linen closet
• Sort and rearrange storage area in lower level

Looking at my list, I feel like I didn't do anything over the summer! Lots of organizing and shuffling around, hopefully not spending too much money since I'm not working and all.

Iced Coffee ~ homemade version

I don't pay Starbuck prices for drinks. I think it's ridiculous; however, I do love their stuff. Take 1 pound of coffee, any flavor, any brand, and add 1 gallon water, stir and let sit overnight or at least 8-10 hours. You want this to be really strong.

Carefully strain the coffee through a coffee filter or paper towels into a pitcher. I used a collander to make the straining easier.

Fill cup with ice, add Coffeemate to 1/4 of the cup and fill the rest with coffee. YUMM-O [and cheap]. I'm addicted.

pantry makeover

it all started here. oh, that mrs. smith, she did it to me. made me realize i needed to do this too. just look at her pantry.

so here's mine. blah, blah, blah. the shelves were all silver from cans being slide across them. the shelves had finger and toe prints from my monkey climbing them. it had to be painted.

{before}

i also realized i needed to clean/rearrange/find a better storage solution for one of my cabinets.

old storage containers with white lids, just didn't use my space well. i took measurements, went to walmart and found exactly what I needed, introducing the 3 new containers with red lids. see how nice they fit on my shelf below?

perfect for grab and go. okay, done with that cabinet, onto the pantry.

take everything out and put it on your dining room table and live like that for a week.

oh, lovely new silver/blue paint. i did the shelves in a light color i had leftover.

here's the wall color - yum

in order not to have my pretty shelves get all scratched by the cans again, i lined the shelves with clear contact paper.

i used everything i already had on hand except the flour and sugar jars [walmart]

i've actually had my pantry like this for 2 months. i wanted to live with it for a while to see if we could really keep it look nice and neat. i did add one metal basket from hobby lobby to store my bags of lunch size chips, but other than that, everything has stayed the same.

love, love, love that mrs. smith and her jar labels. you can buy them here at wonderfully wordy. thank you shelley for your inspiration.

the messy mudroom

home from vacation, the suitcases don't even make it upstairs. 9 loads in one day and still going. does this happen to anyone else?

for the birds ....

2 packages of gelatine to 2 cups of water; bring to a boil until dissolved

add birdseed, left over cereal, nuts, dried fruit to gelatine mixture

put mixture into tins, sprayed with pam or something similiar. I put a small cup in the middle so I had a ring design as I wanted to hang with a ribbon. I set in the freezer for several hours.

sometimes it's the little changes

before ....
after ....

doesn't paint on a table do wonders? and a new rug and new curtains and a new lamp from homegoods?

1~1~11

New Year

Fresh Beginnings

Winter Smells & Sounds

Embrace & Enjoy

Surrounded with Love

talking to your kid about sex

We have a 10 year son who will soon be 11. He has been asking about sex lately. He is so excited to be starting puberty and cannot wait until the 5th grade film at his school which discusses changes taking place within his own body, but not sex. I love that he wants to ask us all kinds of questions and feels no embarrassment talking to us. I love that he wants to learn from us and not his friends. I want to keep that line of communication open; but I have to be honest, when he first approached me about "the talk", I did panic. I quickly picked up half a dozen books from the library. None of them talked to us like the one below. I ended up buying it from Barnes & Noble.

Is your child ready to begin the talks? I strongly recommend this book. It's easy to read, and is just an all round great guide.

Selling Boys Size 8 Clothes ~ Ebay Gap Kids

Anyone looking for boy size 8 clothes, mainly from Gap Kids? Go here to buy.

Tons of cute shirts:

Lots of jackets and coats:

Lots of pants:

100% boy outfits [Gymboree]:

tupperware ... by a drag queen

North America's No. 1 Selling Tupperware Person

4th Year in the Row....

Miss Dee W Ieye

Went to a tupperware party last night like I've never seen. As Dee says: "this isn't your grandmother's tupperware party." Miss Tennessee puts on quite a show. Hey, you never know, she might be coming to an area close to you.... or contact her to see if she'll come to you.

Dee is on facebook too.

I happen to know Dee personally, I graduated from high school with him. He's an actor, by trade, and you can read more about "him" here. He is also pitching a TV reality show based on this character. Good luck Kevin. You are fabulous.

whopping cough

a friend of mine acquired whopping cough. she got it from her son, who didn't have as severe case as she did. Yes, he got vaccinated. She's battled it for a month now and is still coughing. Did you realize you need to get immunized again for whopping cough as an adult? At one point, whopping cough wasn't even around the USA, but now with all the immigrants coming into our country, most of whom haven't received the Pertussis vaccine, it is a major concern. Watching my otherwise healthy friend battle this disease, calling 911 two times because she couldn't breathe, spending the night in the hospital is very scary. I have asthma and cannot imagine going through what she has just gone through this past month.

Whopping cough is severe in California, Michigan and Ohio, and most likely coming to a state close to you. Please get vaccinated, if not for yourself, for your family. And for all those non-believers in vaccines, mercury is not in any vaccines for childhood diseases.

flipping out - season 4

Do you love FLIPPING OUT as much as i do? I cannot wait, cannot wait for the season to begin on August 10. Check out a video here. Get ready .....

paint swatches

I found a handy way to keep paint swatches. I paint a wood door hanger [found at any craft store for less than $1]. I like looking through the hole at the fabric to see how I feel it's going to work in a room. I feel having the ability to look at the color all the way around a fabric is really essential for me.

On the back of the door hanger, I write the paint information.

Here's another hanger which is my house's primary color. I have this color memorized, but wrote down which areas of the house were painted with this color.

Yea, it's pretty much everywhere.

I keep all my swatches in one drawer and if I need to look for a match, I can easily grab the swatch [door hanger] and go.

my baby is growing up

She declares that this is too babyish for her in all of her 7 years oldness. Soft baby pink walls, darling patchwork quilt from Pottery Barn Kids in soft greens, blues, pink. Cute, floaty butterflies. We built our house when Sophie was 1 1/2. This was what I did her room in back then, so I guess it's time for a change.

I still picture her sweet head upon these pillows all of 2 years old with bouncy curls and a whale spout on top of her head. So tiny in this big bed.

And change we did. She should wake up happy every single day with this color on the walls. Turquoise and fuchsia. She actually picked out the paint color. Ah, a decorator at heart.

Quite an impact color, but yet quite feminine and pretty too.

[More to come]
sweet daddy making all her wishes come true

4th of July on the 3rd

I jumped on the 4th of July red, white and blue cupcake bandwagon. These were super easy, super cute and super fun to make. I made red [white chocolate] stars earlier in the week and just kept them away from the kids hidden in the refrigerator.

One white cake box mix, divided between three bowls, food coloring in each. The red looks pink in the photo but it was really darker in person.