yesterday we had banana berry baked oatmeal for breakfast. it was hard to wait the forty minutes until it was done, but it was worth the wait. i got all the ingredients ready the night before so i could just mix them up in the morning and pop it in the oven. i made it with frozen blueberries and simply served it with milk drizzled over it. we found it plenty sweet without anything added.
our book study met at our house last night and someone mentioned that they had holes in the socks they were wearing. someone else said, "that's okay - everyone has pairs of socks that have holes in them!" i was able to say that i know for a fact that i don't have any socks with holes in them, and neither does anyone in this house, because in my crazy nesting i have even gone through all of our socks and gotten rid of all the pairs that are worn out. that launched a conversation about my crazy nesting habits and even included jeremy giving several people a tour of our recently organized kitchen cabinets. when they asked if i got out the ruler to measure a perfect distance between each jar in the cupboard, the conversation quickly turned to teasing, which i didn't mind. hey - at least we are the ones who don't have any holes in our socks!
i am pretty much finished sorting every nook and cranny of our house (and i mean every drawer, cupboard, closet, and corner!), except for the basement which jeremy and i will go through together next week during a couple of nap times. the basement isn't too much of a mess, so it shouldn't be too big of a project. i think that after the basement is done, i will move on to deep cleaning every room and touching up the paint. this nesting...it's just crazy.
as of just this last week, i am starting to feel quite eager (even impatient at times!) to meet this little one who is growing inside of me. of course, i want to wait until he is ready to come out, but i am so excited to see his little face and be able to hold him.
our little one has had a cold for a few days now. i have been feeling under the weather today as well, so we laid low today. except for driving out to the farm to get our milk, we stayed home. we read books, built with her train tracks, she took a good nap, i rested, and then we made pancakes for dinner. she does a great job dumping ingredients into the bowl and loves to mix them up. i made her a special teddy bear pancake with a chocolate chip mouth and eyes. when i put it in front of her, she got a big smile on her face and said, "thank you mama!" it makes me so happy to do little things for her that bring simple joy.
daddy is currently giving her a bubble bath and she will soon be headed to bed. we are (supposedly) due for a big snow tonight, so after the little one is in bed, i think we will hunker down and watch some netflix while we wait for the snow to appear.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
some thoughts on toy storage and other things...
i stepped in vomit shortly after getting up this morning...our daughter's, not mine. except for that little incident this morning, she seems fine.
i made buckwheat pancakes and blueberry syrup for breakfast. i really didn't like the syrup, but the rest of my family did! (i have been forever spoiled by the yummy foods my mom makes, including delicious fruit syrups. mine was no where near as good as hers - i will have to ask her for her recipe).
we have a new toy storage solution at our house that i've been meaning to write about for a while...
shortly before christmas, i became quite aware of the fact that there always seemed to be toys spread all over our main floor. i was constantly stepping over or on toys, pushing them out of the way with my feet, or tripping over them. we have been intentional about our daughter's toys and i think the amount of toys we have is on the small side compared to the average family with one child...but still...there seemed to be too many! christmas was coming and i knew that more toys would be added to the collection (including all of the little cooking utensils and pieces of food we were going to be giving her!), so something had to be done.
our play area is in part of our living room and it looks like this:
the red shelf is from a thrift store (i bought it when i was just out of college and living in my first apartment). we get lots of comments on it because it is so unique. i love that it's perfect as a toy/book shelf! the little table and chairs are from ikea, and the letter cards (i love them!) were in a box of kid's stuff given to us by some friends (thanks guys!). her toys used to be in all the baskets on the red shelf - some of the baskets were overflowing, and it was hard to find specific toys in the midst of all of them.
my solution was nothing amazing or clever...i just got some bins on sale, sorted out her toys (got rid of some of them), and put them in bins, grouping like toys together. i have plans to sew some drawstring bags to further organize her toys in the bins, but i don't know when that will actually happen. my first plan was to keep the bins in the basement and bring up a new one every so often, but i knew that i wouldn't really enjoy lugging toy bins up and down the stairs, especially as i become more pregnant. so...i found a spot for three of the bins in the corner of our dining room, and the other three fit perfectly in our main floor bathroom. i purposely chose bins that are clear so that we can see what toys are in each one.
this solution is working so well. we take one or two bins out at a time to play with, and i like that the toys are on the main floor and that our daughter can see in the bins to choose a specific bin to play with. when she is done playing with a toy bin, we put everything back in and she can choose another one. i have noticed that she is much more engaged with her toys and she doesn't seem overwhelmed with knowing what to play with like she sometimes did when she had access to all her toys. i love that there aren't so many toys strewn all over the house. her red shelf still has a few toys on it...her colorful scarves are in one basket, some of her kitchen toys are in one, and her tea set is in another...but i really think that we could put all of her toys in the bins and she would be fine with it.
anyway...it might just be all the nesting and de-cluttering i continue to do, but i am so excited to have found a system that works so well for us!
how do you deal with toy clutter?
i made buckwheat pancakes and blueberry syrup for breakfast. i really didn't like the syrup, but the rest of my family did! (i have been forever spoiled by the yummy foods my mom makes, including delicious fruit syrups. mine was no where near as good as hers - i will have to ask her for her recipe).
shortly before christmas, i became quite aware of the fact that there always seemed to be toys spread all over our main floor. i was constantly stepping over or on toys, pushing them out of the way with my feet, or tripping over them. we have been intentional about our daughter's toys and i think the amount of toys we have is on the small side compared to the average family with one child...but still...there seemed to be too many! christmas was coming and i knew that more toys would be added to the collection (including all of the little cooking utensils and pieces of food we were going to be giving her!), so something had to be done.
our play area is in part of our living room and it looks like this:
the red shelf is from a thrift store (i bought it when i was just out of college and living in my first apartment). we get lots of comments on it because it is so unique. i love that it's perfect as a toy/book shelf! the little table and chairs are from ikea, and the letter cards (i love them!) were in a box of kid's stuff given to us by some friends (thanks guys!). her toys used to be in all the baskets on the red shelf - some of the baskets were overflowing, and it was hard to find specific toys in the midst of all of them.
my solution was nothing amazing or clever...i just got some bins on sale, sorted out her toys (got rid of some of them), and put them in bins, grouping like toys together. i have plans to sew some drawstring bags to further organize her toys in the bins, but i don't know when that will actually happen. my first plan was to keep the bins in the basement and bring up a new one every so often, but i knew that i wouldn't really enjoy lugging toy bins up and down the stairs, especially as i become more pregnant. so...i found a spot for three of the bins in the corner of our dining room, and the other three fit perfectly in our main floor bathroom. i purposely chose bins that are clear so that we can see what toys are in each one.
this solution is working so well. we take one or two bins out at a time to play with, and i like that the toys are on the main floor and that our daughter can see in the bins to choose a specific bin to play with. when she is done playing with a toy bin, we put everything back in and she can choose another one. i have noticed that she is much more engaged with her toys and she doesn't seem overwhelmed with knowing what to play with like she sometimes did when she had access to all her toys. i love that there aren't so many toys strewn all over the house. her red shelf still has a few toys on it...her colorful scarves are in one basket, some of her kitchen toys are in one, and her tea set is in another...but i really think that we could put all of her toys in the bins and she would be fine with it.
anyway...it might just be all the nesting and de-cluttering i continue to do, but i am so excited to have found a system that works so well for us!
how do you deal with toy clutter?
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