Great Giveaway!!

Visit Toni over at A Bowl Full of Lemons for her awesome giveaway. You'll be entered to win an organizing utility tote from Michelle's Thirty One site.



Friday Favorites

As a mother of three I'm always looking for ways to make my life a little easier. That's when I stumbled upon these great fruit purees. 



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Ok, I know you're probably thinking "thats baby food!". Yeah, I guess you could look at it that way. It is a fruit puree. However, it's in this fun package that allow children (or adults!) to suck the puree out. They are super convenient and great for healthy on the go snacks. 

You can buy them pretty much everywhere now. At first, I was only able to find them at Babies R Us. However, more recently I've seen them sold at Wal Mart, Target, and our local grocery stores. Most stores have them next to the baby food, however, my local Wal Mart had them in the produce section.

This is definitely one my favorite snacks for my children. And something you'll always find in my pantry!! 

Check out this blog for more information on the sqeezable fruit revolution.

{Weekly Challenge} The Home Management Binder

Week One Challenge

I love this challenge! It's just what I needed in my life. I'm a big list maker, so this is a great place for me to keep all my to do lists and better manage our finances.

Here is what I gathered for the challenge:

3 ring binder

Dividers

Label Maker

Hole punch
Printables I found online

I created this cute cover page :)

This is our weekly schedule. I got this free printable here.

And behind the weekly schedule I have a monthly calendar. You can find this calendar here.

These are my colorful dividers. I labeled my tabs as follows:

To Do

Menu Planning

Cleaning

Bills

Misc.

My weekly chore checklist. I found this printable here. I decided to pull from this weekly list to make my daily list. My daily list still stays on my fridge. It's easier for me to keep my daily list there. I also have a Party Planning Worksheet to help me plan my son's second birthday that is coming up. I found the party planning printable here. It's very helpful.

I printed out weekly and monthly menu planners. It's easier for me to sit down at the beginning of each month and plan out a whole months worth of meals. Then transfer that over each week. That way I can go back and make changes or move things around if need be. Because who knows if on February 15th we're going to feel like eating Spaghetti! I also have new recipes I've printed offline here too. Once I make the recipe and decide we like it or not I'll store it in my cookbook to reference it later. I found my weekly menu planner here and my monthly menu planner here. 

I created a Monthly Deep Cleaning List in Word. I don't really have a need to keep a daily one here. There are only a few things that I do EVERYDAY (sweep, vacuum, dishes, counter tops) and the rest get pulled from this list and put on my weekly chore list.

I sort of copied what Toni uses for her Bill and Payment checklist. I created this simple checklist in Word. I also created a spreadsheet that has all of our account numbers and information. That way if I need to call the cable company I don't have to search for a bill to locate our account number. I pay most of our bills online, so I included our log in ID and password in case my husband should need the information.

I'm so happy to have this binder in our lives now! I made it last night and just today I've been in it three times!

 

The Desk

I love love love our desk. I saw it last year at Ikea and just HAD to have it! It's a great space saver.

The bench slides underneath the desk when not in use. AND the bench lid opens to reveal a filling cabinet! Cool, right?

However, once you open those doors this is the mess you're hit with!

Disaster right? You can tell I had good intentions to keep things neat and organized. I bought those cute green bins and magazine holders from Ikea when we purchased the desk.

 AFTER

Excuse my crooked picture. lol I pulled everything out. Dusted the entire thing. There was about an inch of dust built up. I used one of the large bins to hold extra computer paper and the other to hold envelopes, blank CDs, and calculators. The small bins hold USB cords, my camera battery charger, and extra office supplies. In the magazine holders I have my Parent magazines and in the other some paperwork. I also dug out my old wire desk organizer (I found it in the upstairs closet!). In that I have note pads, pens, pencils, scissors, tape, and other office supplies.

Keeping this area tidy is a challenge. I use this work station almost daily. So at any given time there are papers scattered about, glasses of water sitting around, and bills that need to be filled away.

It looks good now, though!



My Everest: The Upstairs Storage Closet

We have a large walk in closet upstairs. It has shelves and a lot of storage space. In the year that we've lived in this house it has turned into a catch all for EVERYTHING! Don't know where to put it? Put it in the upstairs closet!! My four year old refers to it as the upstairs basement. LOL Not exactly sure why but it's funny. Cleaning this closet out has been on my 'to do' list for oh... A YEAR! Pretty much since we moved in. The state of this closet really is embarrassing. I'm sure once my Mom sees these pictures she'll hang her head in shame and say "I didn't raise her to live this way." So.... here are the pictures.

BEFORE

So full of stuff that you can't even open the door all the way!! Eek!!

DVDs and board games. I would LOVE to put all these DVDs in on of those binders that only holds the disk. However, my husband refuses to let that happen. He's SO proud of his DVD collection that putting it in a binder just wouldn't do it justice. You know what I say to that? "Whatever!" ((eye roll)) haha

More games, arts and craft supplies, and photo frames.

This closet is also an extension of my linen closet. Our actual linen closet is very small. There is only enough room for bed sheets and towels. I keep our blankets here.

AFTER 

LOOK! The door can open ALL THE WAY!! We basically pulled everything out and went through it all. My husband gather all his Army gear and put it in his duffels. He also pulled out all his old college text books to either resell or donate. A lot of stuff ended up in yard sale/donation boxes but even more got thrown out!

I organized the art supplies into separate bins.

Markers and Crayons

Play Doh

Paints and Brushes

Stickers and Coloring Books

Extra School Supplies

Hot Glue Gun

I also put all of our photos and photo CDs in bins. Organizing photos is another task on my to do list. But that will be another day.

All of our board games and puzzles organized neatly. Now we can actually see what we have!

I meant to take a picture of the DVDs organized all neatly but my camera battery died! So you'll just have to take my word for it- they're nice and neat!! Promise ;)

This was a HUGE organizing project for my husband and I. So much so that we actually arranged for childcare for our two oldest children while we did this. We couldn't risk any distractions! haha The baby wasn't much of a distraction. I only had to feed and change him once during the cleaning.



The Medicine Cabinet

Like most people, I try to keep our medications in a central location. The first location was in a bin on the top shelf of my closet. I figured it would be the best location to keep my little ones out of it. However, as time progressed half the meds ended up in the kitchen and the other half in the bathrooms. So when I needed to give one my boys Tylenol I found myself running all over the house just to find it! And don't even get me started on the oral medication syringes. Those things were literally all over my house!

I walked around my house and collected all of our meds. I searched high and low for those syringes and found a lot. I got out my handy little bins and label maker. Here are my before and after shots.

BEFORE

The majority of our meds found their way into the cabinet above the sink were we keep the glasses and stemware. As you can see it was a big mess!

AFTER

I moved everything to the cabinet above the stove. It was pretty much empty aside from my cookbooks. I used one of the clear bins to hold mine and my husbands meds. The other has all the kids meds (including the thermometer). The white bin holds all of our OTC (Tylenol, Tums, etc...) and daily meds (allergy meds, vitamins, etc...).

Soooo much better!



The Downstairs Bathroom

The down stairs bathroom cabinet is a catch all for random things. Living in post housing you don't really have the option to personalize your home as you would if you owned it. So I'm always having to find new places to store stuff. I keep things in that cabinet that most people may not. For example, we store batteries and light bulbs under there. Weird, I know... but it works for us! haha As you can see from the picture below this cabinet needed some help!

BEFORE

The medicine cabinet- EEK!

 AFTER

I pulled everything out and wiped it all down. There were a lot of things I threw away or added to my yard sale pile. I containerized the batteries, light bulbs, and odds and ends. I used another wire shelf to give me more room. You can't see it very well but I have a blue bin under here now with all our sunblock and bug spray. It will be easy to find come this summer! As you can tell I keep cleaning supplies under here too. I like to keep disinfecting wipes in every bathroom for quick counter and toilet wipe downs. I started doing this after I potty trained my first son-- he didn't have very good aim! He's also really good at leaving dirty finger prints all over the counter top.

The medicine cabinet is so bare now! I moved the meds that were in here to the kitchen with the other medications. I put my nail polish where it belongs and moved the sunblock to a bin below the sink. I used a small wire basket I purchased at The Dollar Store (came in a pack of 2) to keep the dog's flea and heart worm meds together.

An organized potty is a happy potty! :)