Occupation Housewife

Friday, February 3, 2012

$5 off $5 Purchase at Michael's

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Potty Training: Day One, Part I

Do you remember back in high school and college when you took notes in class and they always looked like this:

I. blah blah blah
     A. blah
     B. blah blah
          a. blah bitty blah
               i. blah boo boo blah

So on and so forth...

That is how I feel my day is going and how the next week will unfold. Yes, potty training (I can already tell) is a series small bulleted points that need to be read in all the right order. If not, nothing will make sense and no one will have learned anything.

Even though I am only on Part I, I can see that it takes incredible patience, on both parts, and incredible kindness. I know it has only been half a day but I have enjoyed hanging out on my bathroom floor with both my boys talking about bowel movements.

I mean really, how awesome is it to be a Mom of two boys, getting to discuss crap all day. Win!

I had David pick out colors for my toes while we waited for some potty action.

Since 8 am, we have had 3 messes and 1 potty. Even though it doesn't seem like much yet, the first hour there were tears even mentioning anything about a potty. So, getting David to actually sit and go potty is a feat in my eyes.

I have read so many things about not pushing him too much to potty and being supportive and encouraging instead of trying to make him go. It all makes sense.

I figure he will just sit on the potty until he goes.Within a reasonable time limit of course.

After lunch I tried to have him potty again with no luck so I slapped a pull-up on him and we will do a repeat of the morning when he wakes up.

Here's to hoping!

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Life in Reviews: The Grandma Project

Ellen, blogger at Life in Reviews and owner of Word Couture Consulting, is taking submissions for her "time-tested" and "real food" cookbook.

I know in my family, Grandma N. is famous for her Lebanese cooking and her chocolate chip pancakes at the cabin. Grandma G. knocks your socks off with her Tuesday morning monster cookies and anytime buns!

We all have enjoyed those semi-secret recipes and now is the time to share your stories with the world!

Flyer Credit // Life in Reviews

Good luck, Ellen!

Friday, January 27, 2012

31 Days to an Organized Home: Day 2 - Master Closet Part I

Please visit the 31 Days to an Organized Life blog post to learn more about my goals!

Let me start by saying, I am only on Day 2 (and technically haven't organized anything) and I don't feel like doing any cleaning today.

The boys got up at 7 a.m., we played all morning and had breakfast. Then, I took them to see Great Grandma and stayed until 1:30 or so. With both boys sleeping, I am pooped out! All I want to do is sit in the chair with my diet coke and look at cloth diaper stuff on the Internet.

Sigh.

But, this is why we set goals for ourselves right??

The master closet in our bedroom is packed full...of only my clothes. Yup, I get the whole thing to myself. I know this luxury of solo storage space will come to an end someday but that day, is not today.

I keep my hanging clothes pretty well organized as such (from left to right):
Maternity (which I have vowed to stop wearing now that James is 3 months old and I am only 9 pounds from happy weight)
Old Sweatshirts (which aren't my favorite but I keep for outside/bonfires or sweatshirts that have sentimental value like my Bennie ones)
Pants/Jeans/Skirts
Jackets/Sweatshirts
Cardigans
Empty Hangers
Scarves/Jewelry Rack (I never use any of the jewelry in there!)
Tops
Dresses (most of the regularly worn dresses are closer to the tops & the more fancy occasion or not my favorite-but can't get rid of dresses-are to the far right)

Now that is said & done, the 2 shelves include 4 storage bins separately containing (from left to right):

Pajamas (there is also a pajama drawer in my dresser...)
T-shirts (your basic tee with some print on it like 'California' from our honeymoon or 'Race for the Apples 5k' sports shirts)
Tank Tops
Swimsuits

As you can see they are so jam packed full of crap.

Above and next 2 these 4 bins is about 40 pairs of shoes.
There is also a cubby full of shoes, a hanging shoe organizer and a Coach bag full of flip flops.

Yikes. That hurts a little bit writing that out.

As I started stacking and sorting shoe boxes, right to left, I feel like the Egyptians building the pyramids of Giza. That is how many shoe boxes there were.

And as I decided which t-shirts to keep and which should stay, I decided the 5 Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon shirts could stay but, the lime green 'save a horse ride a cowboy' baby-tee had to go.

I also came across my old Nike jogging shoes. I thought to myself, I should save these, I might need them for extreme outside sports...like running the Warrior Dash. Then I laughed out loud and put them in the 'give away' pile.

After the shoes were organized and I had gotten half way through the clothing bins, the boys woke up. So I had a 30 minute break. Then David played with the 'Warrior Dash' shoes and James sat in his bouncy seat entranced by the ceiling fan while I quickly finished the last bin full of itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikinis...

In the end? All in all it looks very nice. I still feel I don't wear a lot of what is at the top of my closet. However, there is tons more room to put more storage up. Maybe some items from my dresser or maybe to buy a few more pairs of shoes...

Next up? The bottom half of the master closet....

David is Turning 2 & So is Zulily!

I have to say, I could break the bank at Zulily. To many good things for Mama, baby & home. I am super careful with how much I pay for things & most of the time, it seems like Zulily can beat almost any price out there.

While, David is turning 2 in March, we already decided not to throw a big party. But seriously, after seeing such extremely cute things on Zulily to celebrate the websites 2nd Birthday, how could I not?