Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Tackle it Tuesday: The To Do List

Tackle It Tuesday Meme
Rather than tackling one thing this week, I am tackling my massive to do list. I'm just picking ten of the many things that need to be done. I will finish them today!
  1. Do laundry
  2. Put away laundry
  3. Go to the post office and mail our postcards*
  4. Finish making Jeff's Halloween costume
  5. Get craft project prepared for Amelia's preschool Halloween party
  6. Clean the kitchen
  7. Sweep and Mop
  8. Vacuum
  9. Clean up all the junk outside from Ant's party
  10. Organize my coupon mess
What are you tackling this week? Visit 5minutesformom.com if you want to see more Tackles. If you played, leave me a comment and I'll visit your site.

* I signed Amelia up for postcrossing.com You send postcards out to places all over the world, and then you get some back from other people. The kid loves getting mail, so I think she'll enjoy it.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Halloween Crafts


Amelia was sick on the day that her preschool class had signups for the Halloween party. Apparently no one wanted to do the crafts, so that's all that was left. I need two craft ideas. It's a group of ten to twenty children, all of them are four or five.

I found one that looks really cute, it's sparkly spiders. But, I still need another craft project. Anyone have any ideas? I'll post more craft projects as I find them.

Edited to add: I found another cute craft that I think might be a bit simpler for 4 year olds. What do you all think?
It's a paper plate pumpkin. I thought it was pretty cute.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Tackle it Tuesday: The Clothes are taking over!

For this weeks project, I went through all of Amelia's clothes. Her dresser, the closet, the bins of too big and too small clothes, and even the items she hides under her bed were subjected to scrutiny. (Yes, my daughter hides clothes under her bed, usually for one of two reasons. One is she doesn't want to part with them, so she doesn't want me to wash them. The other is she's too lazy to walk five feet to the hamper and throw them in. God help me when she's a teenager!)

I'm also participating in Laura's monthly roundup at orgjunkie.com. The roundup for this month is to organize a drawer, so my task fit right in.


Here are the before pictures of her dresser. I didn't take pictures of the closet. Look at all those clothes on her dresser! That's how she puts clothes away. Yes, they are all clean.




I'm pretty sure my Mom would tell you that my drawers looked like this when I was little too. Although I didn't have a little brother that I needed to hide plastic screwdrivers from.






Here it is all empty. You can sort of see the containers I put in the top drawer to organize her bathing suits, tights, leotards, undies and socks. Once everything was out of the dresser, Amelia and I sorted all of it together. She played fashion show and tried things on. Too small stuff went in a plastic bag to be given away. She also had some stuff in there that was still too big, so those went in a plastic bin. Those go up in her closet and when she needs more clothes we check there before buying her new things. We also pared down the amount of clothes she has. I tried to keep it to 7 of each thing (tshirts, dresses, warm shirts etc. )






And we're done! The drawers are all organized and no longer overflowing. The bin went up in the closet and the bag of clothes have been passed on to a friend for her daughter.








This is a closeup of the top drawer. It seems like this drawer is usually the biggest mess, and Amelia can never find her tights for ballet, or a bathing suit when she needs one. So now everything has it's own area. Hopefully that helps when she is putting her clothes away and when we are getting ready to go somewhere.

Go visit orgjunkie.com for more organization, and 5minutesformom.com for more Tackle it Tuesdays. Leave me a comment if you participated too!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Skirball Center

A few weeks ago a couple of friends and I took our kids to the Skirball Cultural Center in LA. They have a large museum there, and a huge Noah's Ark exhibit. The kids had an amazing time. I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked because even with 3 adults and 3 kids, there was a lot of chasing going on!


Amelia and Sydney out in another part of the Center. it was really beautiful up there.



Waiting for the animals to drop out of the ark. Sydney was somewhere else turning a crank that carried the stuffed animals up into the ark.

In this room there was all sorts of stuff the kids could touch and turn and make noise with. Many of the cranks and levers made noises or winds to represent the great storm.


Anthony was making it rain.



More noisemakers, Anthony loved these!


A small part of the Ark that the kids could climb in and out of.

This was one of Anthony's favorite parts. It's a model of the ark, with a plethora of animals to play with and move around.


Amelia really enjoyed it too.



Anthony's favorite part though was the poop. With all of those animals there would have been a lot of excrement right? So they had a basket full of rubber poo from all different animals. The kids could dump out the "treasures" and they they used brooms and dustpans and mops to clean it up. It was really cute, even though it sounds gross.


In one of the rooms there is a net tunnel. The kids climbed up in it, and the could go all around the top of the room.




In the last room they had a little jam session.


The kids got instruments to play and the employees played some drums.




After we were done inside we went outside and the kids got to participate in an archaeological dig.



A couple sitting next to us had a little boy about Anthony's size. The father asked me if Anthony was also 3 ( like their son.) He was a little surprised when I told him no, the little man is 1. He's getting close to 2 though!



And the parting shot. In the stroller, with his bluh bluh, Ant was ready for a nap!

Monday, October 12, 2009

Amelia has the day off of school today for Columbus day. So I had to do my workout with two kids. (I've been doing a modified version of the couch to 5k. Yes my f@t @ss is running for short amounts of time. Amazing huh? ) I usually just have Anthony with me, he rides in the stroller, eats a snack, plays with toys and randomly throws things out onto the pathway. I figure it's an extra workout dodging the sippy cups and bending down to pick up his blankie without stopping. Anyway the point is I had Amelia with me today. We brought her bike and went to a different spot today. There is a trail by my house that is paved for bicyclists (and sometimes horses) but it's car free. She had a great time riding with us, and she loved it when Anthony would drop something, she'd get all excited, turn around and ride back to get it. I actually had a great workout and didn't spend as much time thinking about how much my feet hurt, or how tired I was by the 10th running session. Maybe I should bring her more often!

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Who does this kid belong to?

Earlier today Amelia asked if we could bake something. I said yes and gave her a few options. She picked cookies. We're out of Peanut Butter (her favorite) so we made chocolate chip cookies. When we were finished I asked if she wanted to try one. Her answer? "No Mom, I don't want chocolate. Can I have an apple instead?"

Who does this kid belong to? She's definitely not my daughter!

Monday, October 05, 2009

Future Tackle it Tuesdays



I always have a bunch of organization projects that need to be done. But when I decide to do a Tackle it Tuesday, I can't seem to think of what I wanted to do, or I don't have the supplies I need. So I'm making a list for myself so I remember what I need to do.

Organize Amelia's clothes
Organize Ant's clothes
Go through toys in Amelia's room
Go through toys in Ant's room
Organize front hall closet
Organize back hall closet
Organize linen closet
Sort stockpile* stuff
Sort craft closet in office
Go through and put away contents of boxes in the office.
Organize master bathroom closet

This should give me a good start. :-)

Sunday, October 04, 2009

Menu Plan Monday:

Have I mentioned how much I love having a kitchen again? lol It's so nice to just cook things, and then wash dishes without using the bathtub. Woohoo. :-)

The Sausage and Potato Soup from last week was a big hit, so I'm going to make it again this week. It was pretty quick to prepare, and everyone liked it.

Monday Sausage Potato Soup, rolls, salad
Tuesday Pasta, veggies, salad
Wednesday Hamburgers, guacamole, asparagus, salad
Thursday Easy Pot Roast Recipe
Friday Pork Chops, veggies, salad
Saturday left overs
Sunday Grilled Cheese, soup,

Saturday, October 03, 2009

My kids

My children are totally cracking me up this morning. They are having a tea party on a shelf in the living room. Amelia is in pajamas and high heels, Anthony is naked except for his diaper and his high heels. LMAO Jeff keeps complaining that we need to get the poor boy some more manly dress up stuff. Anthony doesn't really care what the dress up stuff is, he just wants whatever his sister has...

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Disneyland!

We went to Disneyland today. The kids had such a great time. We are so lucky to live close enough that we can be there within an hour. Having an annual pass is pretty nice. I didn't take pictures today, but here are some from a couple weeks ago.

This one is where Anthony explains to me how he really feels about cotton candy.




Amelia of course adores the cotton candy. She begs for it every time we go. Once in a while I actually say yes.





She also loves to go play in the Bug's Life water area. It's really cute, the area is set up like a yard would be if you were bug sized. There's a garden hose nozzle that has to be at least 12 feet tall. Amelia has a great time chasing the water drips.










Unfortunately, she tends to chase the water away from me (no matter where I sit) so I get lots of shots of her backside.









Anthony isn't as crazy about the water area, so he usually sits with me on the benches and watches the other kids play. This particular day he was so ready for a nap. I think this was actually Anthony saying cheese for me. Ha. He's a funny guy!




I love this picture because all that's really in focus are her feet, which are at least a foot off the ground. The girl likes to jump. A. Lot.