Craft creations and long lost stuffed things

I was recently asked by a fellow homeschool mom how I keep my girl's room organized. She too keeps 2 daughters in one room and didn't feel her 'system' was working well. I sympathize. This plea was exactly mine a year ago. My older 2 share a room and for the life of me I couldn't stomach the mess! While I am not the cleanest housewife, I hate clutter! I am already famous for purging multiple times a year but between b-days, Christmas, and generous relatives the toys stack up! Here are some tips for how I run my humbled ship and made some changes:

Step #1. It has to be a mind change. NO CHILD NEEDS THAT MUCH CRAPP! The more toys they have the less they play with all of them bc it's impossible to put your hands on a million toys at once! :) I have asked all relatives to purchase "education worthy/homeschoolish" gifts like puzzles, books, games, science kits, learning DVDs, etc so it's not just one more toy that needs batteries. Plus, it helps me spend less on my homeschool supply budget :)

Step #2. Acknowledge that your girls LOVE their stuff, but limit their toys to 3 or 4 categories.

For instance, my girls have all their barbies in THIS. If it doesn't fit in there, we purge. It slides right under their bunk bed and out of site! We also have one of THESE in their room. 3 cubes are used for books, the other 3 have those pull out buckets in them that hold random little toys (one has polly pockets in it, the other 1 has a few random figurines, and the 3rd is empty.... told you I purge a lot!) And lastly, they have 2 Rubbermaid containers in their closet: 1 for dress up clothes and 1 for baby dolls and accessories.

**Barbies, polly pockets, dress up and baby dolls are the extent of my girls toys. We have a separate homeschool room I stash craft stuff, coloring books, more reading books, puzzles and games- but I keep it out of reach and they have to ask permission to use it bc of how messy that stuff can get.

Step #3 - I would advise sitting down with your spouse and evaluating the "stuff" versus the mess. Once my husband and I came to agreement that our girls are blessed beyond measure and that relationships are what we want them valuing not how many "toys/gifts" they receive it made it so much easier to justify getting rid of it all! My stress level is down and it's easier for the girls to clean up their room too with less stuff- now it does get trashed from top to bottom, but it's a quick "You clean the barbies, you pick up the dress up clothes, and VOILA it's done!"

Step #4- Clothes! ARG! As if we aren't washing, drying, folding, tucking away enough as it is, enter HAND ME DOWNS! *insert pulling out hair as we sort through bags of half stained clothes* Don't get me wrong I am always very grateful to receive them, but my standards have gone up and it helps me keep the cluttered closet in line. Basically this is my hard and fast rule.... If I can get it in better condition and brand new on the clearance rack at Target I don't keep it. There I said it :) I am an avid clearance shopper and my personal belief is that if I shop smart enough I can get current style clearance priced clothing that my child will have first dibs wearing for 2 seasons or more, plus I control how stained they get and the condition they stay in to pass down to my other children. My girls have maybe 2 or 3 dresses each for church, 2-3 pairs of shorts, and several shirts for the summer season. I have to stop myself from buying clothes bc they don't NEED an entire closet full, just enough to make it about a week or so then I do laundry. If I'm going to buy something it should be for next year and up to a size and a half bigger! *Please don't stone me over this step, to each her own, this is just how I keep my sanity**

Step #5- Stuffed Animals- I hate them. My oldest swoons over stuffed plush objects and I have to control my tongue every time she bats her pretty browns at me and asks to buy ANOTHER one. The girls have 1 laundry basket full of them. They are allowed to sleep with one animal (they will play in bed if not) and most of the time it's a rotation of 2-3 truly loved animals. All the rest, stay in the basket- until mommy sneaks into their room like a thief and pulls out 1 or 2 unloved animals and sends it off to Goodwill. I have been known to ship animals off to Grandma's house so they can be loved over there... again it's the same principle as the toys. The more animals they have the less they can play with all of them. Send a few to Gma's and suddenly a trip to her house is a magical experience enjoyed with long lost loved stuffed things. (Hope you aren't offended by my sarcasm ::wink::)

Step #6- Cluttery Junk i.e craft creations :) Do you have an artsy one too? My oldest will glue anything to anything. literally. Her latest fiasco was cutting up empty toilet paper rolls into microscopic sizes then mincing pom pom balls into fuzzy accessories to make polly pocket sized animals. I about died. And this is where mean mommy comes in. She is allowed to create, color, draw, imagine away for about 2 weeks. All her creations and pages go into a 3 drawer plastic cabinet. She can pull them out, add to them, recolor, whatever. 2 weeks later, I have a small panic attack bc there are craft pieces/bits/random glue thingies everywhere and I haul into the room, empty the drawer, tell her she can keep 5 "projects" and the rest will get thrown away. I do keep a FEW original pieces of art throughout the year, only the extraordinary ones to keep as a progress journal for her creativity, but the other 99% of it goes in the trash, or the fire pit- depends on how my mood is :) IF the mess happens to spill out of the cabinet within those 2 weeks, we have a friendly mother daughter confrontation and the purging happens earlier. I STRONGLY encourage my girls to use both sides of the paper and to FINISH coloring/drawing each picture before moving on. I hate waste, money doesn't grow on trees.

Barefoot and sweaty, it's hot today!

Ashley

Father to 3 and a bike accident

Happy Father's Day! Especially to my amazing husband who is now Daddy to 3 girls :) Lorilei Juliet was born June 6th, 8 lbs 15 oz and 22 in long! It was fast and intense but we am so excited to have her part of our family <3 

Father's Day started off with this for breakfast, super yum, and healthy for you, imagine that?!? Then we headed off to LC for another powerful message from Ephesians. Good stuff :) Afterwards, the girls and I headed to a friend's house for a bbq and left Daddy at home for some alone time (aka video game time without any interruptions!)- hey, it's his day!


It was looking like a pretty good day until this happened.

Poor Kylie wrecked her bike and after about 30 minutes of tears, prayers, gauze, band aids and a tube of neosporen - she was up for our Father's Day activity. It was so sad :( But she gladly hobbled to the garage to make tye-dye t-shirts with Daddy. This was everyone's first time attempting tye-dying and I must say they turned out pretty fantastic :) 
Overall the day was a bit exhausting but I am so very thankful for my husband and the father he is to my children. I love you honey! xoxo

Barefoot and so in love with my man!

Ashley

Blog addiction and picture envy

...are two things I am struggling with this week. First, every chance I can get to surf blogs I do. And the best part is that if you find one type of blog you like most of the time they link to other "like" blogs and it's just a nasty mess after that. I waste spend SO much time jumping from one blog to another, stalking, perusing, making mental notes of recipes, crafts, decorating ideas..... I need an intervention. NAHHHH!!! Who am I kidding? I'm 40 weeks pregnant, can't see my feet, and labor is inevitable. Very painful body part tearing labor! I deserve to have couch time with my laptop right? Thank you for agreeing :) Reading all these blogs is in part of what inspired me to finally start mine. I admit that reading through other people's lives really inspires me to want a record of all the fun things we do. Ok moving on to #2 issue: picture envy. While I am reading said blogs I can't help but envy how PURRTTYYY the pictures are! Obviously taken by a nice camera and WOW! what a difference clear pictures makes! Now I feel the need to add camera to my Christmas list :)


Barefoot and now overdue and kinda cranky about it,
Ashley

Time to trash the scale

As I near my 38th week of pregnancy, it has occurred to me that I am in bondage to my scale. I probably weigh myself 4-5 times a day. Why? I have always struggled with my weight and am a huge yo-yo'er and being pregnant has just added the extra pressure. Unfortunately, this 3rd pregnancy has been a rough one from conception. I have little-to-no appetite but if I can muster up the courage and energy to cook a meal, I'm usually gagging my way through it or dry heaving in the bathroom. Long story short, I have gained around 10 lbs total. Don't freak out on me- my OB is not worried about this and I am assured to have a good 7 pounder when the time comes. Herein lies my problem however.... In the past week, according to my home scale I have put on 5 lbs. OUCH! This terrifies me. I have scooted by oh so carefully in gaining 2-3 lbs a month (well that is after I stopped puking my brains out at month 7) and now that I'm reaching the end and have patted myself on the back for setting myself up to have no postpartum weightloss depression- my body starts packing on the pounds! What a cruel sick joke (insert several &%#* choice words)!

But it has got me thinking. I am a slave to my scale. It rules my day, my thoughts, my self confidence. In lieu of this discovery, I am taking immediate action. While I am in the hospital pushing my 7 something pounder out of my lady parts, I plan to have my closest friend retrieve the *scale of self-pity* dun dun dun, and hide it from me....wait for it..... a YEAR! That's right a year. No known addiction cures itself over night, or week, or month or sometimes years. And since I will be at my weakest coming home from the hospital, the most anxious to see how much weight I dropped during delivery, the best strategy is for me not to have that option. And even further so, I want to get to a place in my life where my health determines how I feel about myself. Where the way my clothes fit and how my pre-maternity jeans will look as I put them on determines the smile on my face- not the number on the scale. If I focus on eating for energy and nutrition for myself and my new bundle (ie breastfeeding) instead of worrying about whether or not I will drop those 5 lbs this week maybe I will finally SUCCEED at my weight loss goals and lose the weight without the nasty scale battle.

So here is to my last few weeks (days? fingers crossed for early delivery!) with my scale and to the path I CHOOSE to take without it!

Barefoot- bc weighing yourself with shoes always pack at least 2 lbs on you- and fighting heartburn:
Ashley

Eek! First blog post- no pressure!

The purpose of this blog was to help me jot down my life and have somewhat of a record/journal for my kids to look back on. I am a horrible journal-er (is that even a word?) and typing goes alot faster, so I thought starting a blog would be a great way to collect all my life tidbits into one place. Well now that it's up and running, I'm feeling the pressure to write something worth while. Like I should have something monumental to share. But really, I'm just excited to hop on this pony and start! So bear with me while I first and foremost figure out how to work this blog and second compose my life into words and pictures!

Barefoot and heading to bed,
Ashley