Beck's Birthday!

This year, celebrating Beckley's birthday provided us with our first trip to Marbles Kids' Museum, a great museum in downtown Raleigh that we've wanted to visit for awhile! We've heard everyone with kids Kenna's age talk about how amazing this museum is and what a fun experience for the kiddos. Unfortunately, Matt had a weekend class, but Kenna, Finn & I packed up and headed for a fun day downtown celebrating Beck's big day!

We started with cake and muffins at 10 am- what better way to start the day?! Happy 3rd birthday, Beckley!
Marbles was everything people had said and more. Kenna had a blast checking out all the kid-sized real-life play spaces, such as the pirate ship, grocery store checkout, veterinarian, and bank!
Her absolute favorite was the Wake Med sponsored mini-ambulance! I poked my head in the back several times to see her on the kid-sized stretcher, defibrillating the hearts of other kids and even herself! Actually, I was pretty amazed that she even knew that the defibrillator went on her chest, I'm not sure where she would have seen that anywhere else.
She was also very familiar with how to swaddle up the babies in their little kiddo-sized hospital buckets thanks to visiting the hospital when Finn was born!
Speaking of whom, Finn made it super easy on me by napping in the stroller the entire time we were there!
Papa just happened to be in town and was taking Evan on a special Papa/Evan trip to Marbles, so we met up with them to play for a little while in the Home Depot building area, and the matchbox car area!
What a great time! We can't wait to take Daddy to see Marbles, and it will be extra fun when Finn is big enough to play... and a very happy birthday to our Beckley boy!

Fun Little Firsts.

This week little Mr. big boy hit some fun little mini-milestones such as sitting up in the big high chair and snacking on his baby banana puffs and strawberry yogurt drops (which Kenna calls "flowers" and "strawbedees"). She loves to feed them to Finn and will sneak a few for herself as well.
He also wants to crawl in the worst way, and has been getting pretty frustrated that he's not quite there. Every time he's on the floor playing toys now, he's up on all fours and rocking around- getting the general idea but not yet sure quite how to put it all together for forward motion.

After seeing Matt and I paint a piece of furniture over Labor Day weekend (our bedside tables) and seeing me painting a pile of hairbow holders for my upcoming craft show, Kenna has been asking constantly to paint! So on a quick run to Wal-Mart I remembered to grab a set of Crayola washable paints for her, and she was so thrilled! We set her up a little corner in the basement while we painted the furniture, stripped her down to her diaper, and let her have at it. She kept running over to us and saying "I'm just painting, guys!" which was pretty funny.
(Look at those curls- can you tell it was a rainy day? She looks like I hot rolled them!)
Such a big girl! I think she inherited the crafty bug and I see lots of fun in our future!

Sink Baths!

Kenna has obviously seen me do this to her little brother quite a bit:
because this is how I found two of her babies, two different times this week:
Like Momma, like Kenna. It's pretty sweet (and a little scary) to see how much my big girl imitates me. Anything Momma is doing is something to be joined in with me and then emulated later on her own. I'm learning quickly that my kids will probably remember very little of what I say, but the things they observe me doing are becoming part of who they are. It's so amazing to be such a big part of their learning and growth, but also a sharp conviction to me that I need to be constantly at work being the kind of person I want them to become.

And speaking of sweet, this little man is almost too big for his bath in the bathroom sink anymore! It's almost time for kitchen sink baths (where he can sit up but still be mostly contained) and he has even sat in Kenna's big bath a handful of times now (with lots of help!)
I love his silly grunts and growls and little boy noises, and little thoughtful faces. And I'm SO thankful for that fatter, healthy little belly in the bath! Such a sweet boy!

Little Visitor!

A few days ago, I was putting the kids down for a nap and just as Matt was headed out the door to class, he told me there was a little green frog near our front porch, and that I should show it to Kenna when she woke up. Well, I forgot all about it and when we let the dog out this morning, the little frog was back!
This time, Kenna got to see it, and spent all morning checking on the "turtle" (we kept reminding her it was a frog and eventually she remembered to call it the "fwog"). She was equal parts fascinated and terrified by this cute little bright green tree frog, asking us over and over if we wanted to go see the "yittle fwog."
When Daddy got home and decided to touch/hold the frog (after Mommy spent all morning trying to teach the difference between animals you touch (pets) and animals you do not touch (wild) hah!) Kenna was so excited. She did not want to be too close to the frog, and did NOT want to touch it herself, but she didn't want to leave it on its own, either.

Excited.

Freaked.

(And those two pictures are within about 10 seconds of each other.)

The frog was nice enough to sit on the window for a little while so that we could observe him from indoors, and even check out his little belly and cool little 'hands'!
Here's a quick video of Kenna and her little friend- don't miss the part where she calls him "berry yucky" at the beginning. Hilarious.

(PS- sorry it's sideways, I always forget that you have to film it the other way in the camera or else it's stuck like that forever. Grrr. Let me know if anyone knows how to change the orientation!)

Organization!

I was inspired by my friend Tara's post on organizing your home to share some of our organized spaces. I am an organization junkie- i literally get a little high from purging out unused things and making a neat and tidy home for the things we do use so that we can find them when we need them! When it comes down to it, what we all need is not more storage, but less stuff! I heard it said once that you can't put something away if it doesn't have a home, and I think that's true. I have to fight the urge to be a pack rat, and sometimes that means I get rid of perfectly nice things, but I want our home to be a comfortable, peaceful place that is as free of the stress of lost things and junky piles as possible. I also enjoy seeing how others organize, and thought it would be fun to let you peek into our home too!

I guess my organization style can be summed up by: baskets, bins, & buckets, and use what you have! An organized home doesn't have to mean expensive custom-made shelving units- I use many bins and buckets from inexpensive places like the dollar tree or the $1/$2.50 area from Target that work with the furniture and cabinets we already have!

Our kitchen and pantry, like for most people, need to be a functional place so I try to keep them tidy. I use plastic bins, the size you would put a pair of shoes in, to store loose things like spice packets, jello boxes, bags of coffee, and extra lightbulbs, etc. They were very inexpensive (actually a hand-me-down, my mom had all her shoes organized in them) but you can usually find them at the dollar store, and they are clear which helps you see when you are low on/out of something.

I bought these little green baskets from the dollar store for my craft room and then discovered they were the perfect fit for my kitchen cabinets! I have one big extra cabinet that I don't need for dishes, so I used the green baskets to hold fun things like party supplies, the kids' little bubbles and playdough jars, and one holds my glue gun & extra glue sticks to have handy. I also use this spot for jars of baby food on a big cake plate (use what you have!).

A typically tricky kitchen spot is the appropriately named "junk drawer" which is usually where random stuff goes to die. This is a place where I used to lose things and then have to buy another because I didn't know I had it! I bought two little wire baskets ($ store) for pens and small things like scotch tape and glue, and then used two small plastic tupperware cups for different sized batteries and even half of an egg crate to sort tiny things like paper clips, spare keys, and outlet protectors. This is one of those small projects I tackled in an afternoon (took me maybe 30 minutes) and I was thrilled with the result! Everything in its place, and it fits tightly so that nothing slides around when you open and close it.

I also use baskets under the changing table (from Walmart and Babies R Us) in Finn's room for little baby things like diapers, bibs, socks, and hats. Easy to clean up/put away, and easy to access! The changing table itself we bought at Goodwill when pregnant with Kenna for something crazy like $15, added beadboard trim to the shelves (makes the baskets slide nicely) and painted it all white. Maybe I should do another post on all the crazy furniture makeovers we've done over the years!

Dollar store baskets are also hard at work in our linen closet! These ones are blue and also fit amazingly well! There is one for sunscreen/summer stuff, one for extra baby shampoos and powders, one for other small items like extra toothbrushes and travel toiletries, and one for extra TP rolls! This is super helpful since our second bath doesn't have a lot of storage. We also store our medicines and first aid in more of those plastic shoe boxes up on the top shelf, away from little hands.

My favorite and most recent storage solution are these teal buckets I found in the $2.50 section of Target for our toy storage! They have little handles to carry them around, and fit perfectly in our storage shelves! I looked for quite awhile for just the right thing that would be durable but inexpensive, and I just couldn't beat $2.50 so I was thrilled to find these! I drove to 2 different Targets to get 8 of the same color. The top ones hold things like play food and dishes (that can be pulled out and taken to the play kitchen), and the bottom ones have small soft toys/biters/rattles for little crawlers to reach. These buckets also make it easy to have cleaning up be a fun sorting game... "Kenna, let's put all the wooden food in this bucket!"

And one more hardworking basket in our house: Matt's mom gave us this beautiful, tall, sturdy basket for Christmas one year. It is the perfect size and shape to fit right behind our front door and, believe it or not, holds an umbrella, the dog's leashes and collar, and several pairs of each of our shoes! It is so convenient and a pretty way to store functional items right where we use them. Kenna loves to pick out a pair of shoes when we go on a walk (most of her shoes live in her closet, but I keep 2-3 pairs that fit her right now here for convenience).

The next space I'm working on organizing is our home "office" (a small desk and bookshelf). This space gets used daily and is one of the first parts visible when you walk in the front door!
(These photos are proof that there was absolutely no sunshine today.)

Here is a fun blog with LOTS of inspiring budget-friendly storing and organizing ideas... I was overwhelmed reading it... and I get lots of ideas from the photo boards on pinterest.com. And just for fun, here is a quickie craft project from my craft blog that used $1 Target buckets for a little bright organizing in Kenna's room.

What are some of your favorite organizing tricks or trouble spots in your home that could use a little help?