Our L.A. Trip - The Outtakes

In the airport on our way to L.A. last week, the kids were so entertained by the moving sidewalks that I joked, "No need to go to Disneyland now, this is all the excitement we need!" 

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In perhaps the epitome of my frugal tendencies, I may or may not have had my daughters bring the stuffed Mickey and Pluto we already had at home with us on the trip, to ward off them asking to buy more stuffed Plutos and Mickeys in Disneyland!

Instead we ended up with a bow and arrow set from Brave (the 8 year old's choice) and a Minnie Mouse set that included a little Minnie and various outfits you can dress her in (the 5 year old's choic).  But, I was successful in limiting the kids to the rule of "We will spend $25 on each of you for souvenirs on this trip, so choose wisely!"  The $25 part worked out, but not sure about the wisely, the boys came home with action figures and realistic toy swords.  I didn't realize we were bringing back an arsenal of weapons with the 2 swords and the bow and arrow set until I was packing the luggage for the flight home -- "Hmmm, maybe this stuff needs to go in the checked bags!"

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Do you know what happens when your husband cannot handle rides that go 'round and 'round in a circle?

You find yourself crammed into one flying elephant with the 2 youngest of your children that need to be accompanied by an adult on the ride.  (That is a picture I took of us with my cell phone, hence the up-close view.)  There was no extra space in that elephant, I tell you!

The 8 year old enjoying an elephant all to herself:

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The weather was gorgeous the whole time we were in California, but the smog in L.A. was terrible and had me happy for where we live even with our rainy days and our muggy days, at least we don't have that kind of smog!!

Please notice the smog in the background of the picture of my kids on Mulholland Dr. and not the sign next to them that clearly reads, "NO parking, stopping, standing any time"

We are rule followers if nothing else!

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Last, the look on my older daughter's face in this picture of my kids with Mickey Mouse cracks me up and reminds me of McKayla Marone's "Not impressed" face at the last summer Olympics.

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Happy Friday! 

Cloth Napkins for Kids

We made the switch away from paper napkins a couple years ago and I have really liked it.  It is not hard to throw dirty napkins in with a load of wash I'm already doing every day or every other day.  And I like not having to buy paper napkins at the store; one less thing for my grocery list makes me happy!  Also, it's something small our family can do to better care for the world God gave us.

For dinner we use cloth napkins, and for lunch I was using old baby washcloths for the kids to wipe their hands and faces.  Several of the washcloths had gotten holes, but instead of spending money on new ones, I thought of an idea while cleaning out.  We had several soft flannel baby blankets around the house, but no babies anymore (sigh, that phase leaves so quickly, doesn't it?).  So, I cut the blankets up into small cloth napkins just the perfect size for the kids to use!

I love how soft they are!

I could have/should have gone the extra mile and sewed up a hem around the edge, but I knew adding that step would likely mean the blankets would never turn into cloth napkins, so I just cut around the edges with pinking shears.  Good enough!

Find more Works for Me Wednesday here.

Stuff Overload!

Several months ago we renewed our membership during a trip to the zoo, and a couple weeks later my husband was reading the mail and said, "If we'd renewed our zoo membership with this offer we could have saved $10.00 and gotten a free backpack."

My response?

"I would pay $10.00 not to get the free backpack!"

Because that's the point we've gotten to, folks.  There is so much stuff coming into this house on a daily basis that I can't even shovel it out fast enough before more comes in (not to mention the difficulty getting the numerous packratish people who live in this house to agree to part with anything)!  And we had too much to begin with!

The longer I manage my home and the more children I have, the more I've realized, LESS REALLY IS MORE!  Less is better.

My 4 children can have 28 coloring/workbooks or they can have 4.  

Let me tell you what happens when you have 28.  They overflow the drawer so you give it all another drawer (by cramming the contents of that drawer somewhere else that is already overflowing with stuff), the children strew the activity books all around and have to be reminded often to put them away, the books will stick around for months, years even, with a handful of pages colored/completed.

Or you can have 4, 1 for each child.  The workbooks easily fit into 1 drawer.  There are only 4 books to scatter and the children are more likely to put them away because hello?  THIS IS MY ONLY COLORING BOOK, I'd better take care of it!  And the entire book gets filled up/used and can then be thrown away and replaced with another!

Really, it is so obvious I have no idea why I've had so much trouble with this concept!  And this is also why I'm blogging about this topic because I'm hoping to preserve this wisdom for my children and they can start off as grown-ups better than I did.

But, it happens pretty innocently and only in hindsight can you see that the clutter is a result of millions of daily decisions (or lack of decisions).

For example, a couple years ago when at the end of the year the school secretary stopped me in the halls and offered to give me many free unused workbooks, I wish I'd thanked her, loaded them into my car and driven them directly to a shelter or children's clinic or somewhere besides thinking, "This is great, these will keep my kids keep busy over the summer!"  And then stacking them in my under-the-stairs closet where they sat for TWO YEARS as clutter!

We are a family of 6 people and 1 dog living in 2576 square feet.  That ought to be doable.  Certainly compared to the majority of the world, our house is huge!  But if we don't stay on top of our stuff, it is going to take over the house and squeeze out all hope of peaceful life! I do not want a bigger house.  I want less stuff in the house we already have!

With that rant and background out of the way, let me say simply, I've been cleaning out. . .

for the past 5 years since we moved in here 6 years ago!  But, really, truly in earnest this time!  With a "nearly everything has got to go" mindset.

I'm at the point now a few weeks into this mission where I've lost count of the bags and boxes we've donated, the bags we've thrown away, yet there is still too much!  It's frustrating.  Last week I went through bins and bins of baby and toddler clothes we'd saved for hand-me-downs.  Only I saved way too much!  "We could clothe an entire orphanage of kids!"  I exclaimed over and over to my husband as I sat amid piles and piles of clothes. (Note to my younger self: When a house has a separate storage room it is not really a positive thing.  The storage room will just allow you to put off dealing with your stuff.  You'll casually move things out to the storage room and create a clutter mess that will eventually have to be dealt with.)

I sorted and sorted - to sell, trash (spit-up stains multiply in storage!), to donate, to keep.

I thought I'd finished all the boy clothes and then I went outside and found 3 more bins -- NOOOOOOO!

The trouble with these cleaning out/organizing projects is that there really is no time for them amid the laundry, cooking, cleaning, parenting, driving kids places, etc. that needs to go on every day.  But, I'm trying to plow through that and "make time".

I haven't had the soundness of mind to take "before" pictures, most of my organizing projects have been heat of the moment I-can't-take-this-messy-drawer-one-more-second kind of episodes.  But, I need to savor in some of the results, the "after" pictures:

An organized drawer!

Look!  I can see my sewing table again!  Notice how there have been no sewing projects featured here in a very long time?  That's because my table was piled with fabric/half finished projects/to-do mending.  And really who can work with that?  So, I just didn't!  Funny how this clear space gives me the will again!

 

And some organized stacks of pretty fabric really helps, too!  These were pitifully folded and wadded and crammed in before.  By the way, I'm not allowing myself to buy any more fabric until I've used up nearly all I have -- whoa this is hard when there's so much cute fabric out there on the Internet!

There's progress.  Slow, imperfect progress.  But, progress none the less!

Find more Tackle it Tuesday here and Works for Me Wednesday here. 

If we build it, she will come

About four years ago when my 3rd child started walking and wearing actual shoes, it became very clear very quickly that we needed a system for managing the shoes or we'd never actually get out of the house with 6 feet in shoes (10 including our own feet)! So we got the shoe shelf/locker system I blogged about here going in our breakfast room (our laundry room is too tiny to be a mudroom but the good news is that our family is too big to use our breakfast room for it's intended purpose so we eat all our meals in the dining room, leaving the breakfast room free to be a mudroom in addition to a homework and arts & crafts center) and it worked beautifully!!! Really it has been a sanity saver!



But there were only 3 locker sections and we will hopefully have 4 children living in our home pretty soon, so a new system was needed. Also, we really liked that the hooks were low in our old shelf when we got it because our preschool-aged kids could reach to hang up their own coats, but fast-forward 4 years and now my 8 year old's jackets are nearly too long to comfortably fit.

I didn't want to spend a ton of money so at first I tried talking my husband into building one from Ana White's plans (Have you ever been to that website? I wish I was good with woodworking because oh the things I'd build!), but I couldn't sell him on that idea. (He had all kinds of logical reasons it wasn't a good idea, but really I think he just didn't want to.) So, I went back to brainstorming, our adoption slowed down, and it wasn't a high priority project. But, just as things picked up with us becoming a 4 kid family, and outgrowing our shoe shelf, I came across this blog post on The Polkadot Chair and I thought it was brilliant!

So, we headed to the Ikea (not coincidentally on the weekend kids ate free in the cafe) and bought 4 of the narrow Billy bookcases. We came home, my husband and I built 1 shelf and then my husband and my 8 year old built the other 3 shelves and it turns out the 8 year old is old enough to be a real helper for these types of projects, now (I've finally been replaced as the Ikea furniture co-builder around here! I gleefully turn over that title!). We left out the middle shelf during the building to have hanging space for coats (in the instructions the middle shelf seems important but our shelves worked fine without it). Then my husband screwed the shelves together so all 4 became 1 unit. We adjusted the height of all the interior shelves where we wanted them to best accommodate shoes & backpacks, secured the whole thing to the wall (this is a very important step 'cause you never know which crazy kid is going to climb the thing and wouldn't want it toppling over on them!), and then my husband drilled holes for the hooks and screwed them in. The Polkadot Chair put her hooks into the back of the shelf by adding some plywood reinforcement to the flimsy backing material, but we thought that sounded too hard and our old shelf had the hooks in the sides so that seemed fine to us. It worked great and actually allowed us to put hooks on both sides so there is double the hanging space in each locker. And we hung one side's hooks of each locker down a bit lower and the other side higher so we can accommodate both preschooler height and 3rd grader sized jackets!

I love how it turned out! So functional!

I searched the Internet for buckets/baskets that I liked to hold random kid stuff in the shelves, but I couldn't find anything I liked for less than $20 each (multiplied times 4 kids = $80 = too much!). I did, however, find sewing tutorials to make my own fabric buckets! The project definitely seemed out of my league, but I was excited to try.

I ordered Amy Butler Lotus fabric in cherry from Etsy.com (make sure when looking for fabric there you search on "supplies" rather than the default "homemade" which will just find things made out of the fabric). That fabric I used for the outside, for the lining I cut up a vinyl tablecloth I bought on sale at TJ Maxx for $2.00, of course when I bought it I had no idea what I'd use it for, just knew you can't even buy waterproof material that cheap! And now if anything nasty gets inside the bucket I can wipe it clean.

I also saw the idea somewhere I don't now remember to use chalkboard fabric (oh the genius of the person who invented chalkboard fabric!) for the labels -- that way in case we decide to change a child's name we can just erase the old and write the new. Kidding! But the chalk labels are easier than monogramming since I don't have a monogram machine. Plus I like the look of the chalk labels and I have a chalk pen that writes a bit brighter than typical chalk and doesn't erase as easily but can be erased with a wet rag. The kids' names are written on the labels, I just took the picture before writing the names since I don't like to put their names out here on the blog.

I combined this Internet tutorial with this one to get my instructions to make the fabric buckets. And then I wanted my own specific measurements so I tailored the instructions for what size I wanted, but I figured out halfway through my first bucket I'd made a terrible mistake in my geometry calculations! Thankfully, I was able to fix it and I'd only cut out my material for the 1 bucket so far, so the mistake could be corrected for the other 3 buckets. And that wasn't the only instance I had to use my seem ripper in this process but through trial and error I was able to do them and I'm really surprised at how good they turned out! It was a fun project and I'm so glad to get rid of the plastic beach buckets we used in the old shelf, I never liked those!

So, never mind that we don't have her bed set up yet, we have a place for our new little girl to put her shoes and really that's most important right? NOW can she come home?


Find more Works for Me Wednesday here.

First World Problems

I've been talking with my 8 year old about first world problems lately. In the past couple years as we've become more aware of the acute problems so many people living in 3rd world countries face every day, it's definitely changed our perspective on many of the "problems" in our American lives.

Which is a good thing, unless you happen to be one of our children!

Real life example of what I'm talking about:

The 8 year old son needed some new jeans and one evening this week I announced that he was coming with me to the Old Navy to try some on because what with all the choices -- 8 slim, 8 regular, 10 slim, 10 regular, boot cut, skinny, loose fit -- I had no idea which ones would fit him. He immediate began the whining (remember this is a new lovely phase we're in with the 8 year old), "Do I haaavvvve to go?"

To which I responded with a very exaggerated whining routine to mimic him that went something like this: "I cannot believe I have to get in the car and drive to a store that has tons of clothes to choose from, clothes my parents can afford to buy for me, stand in a dressing room in air conditioned comfort and TRY ON some jeans! I mean, seriously, does life get any worse?!!! Nevermind the fact that there are lots of children in this world with only one set of clothing to their name. A set of clothing they didn't get the luxury of trying on to see how it fit; it doesn't matter if it's too small or too big, they wear it because it's all they have!"

I'm not really sure if my little routine changed his perspective on his life, but he was laughing by the end of it, so at least the whining was put to an end!

Then tonight after the kids were in bed I found this little gem of a YouTube video. So hilariously convicting and illustrates exactly what I've been saying (by the way my smarty 8 year old of course wanted to know who are the "second world countries" when I was explaining about 1st and 3rd world countries)! I can't wait to show this video to my 8 year old tomorrow! (Double click to view it in full screen)



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Speaking of first world problems, it seems like we're in a streak of several household appliances/gadgets having issues all at the same time. The other night my husband was mowing when the lawn mower suddenly gave up, halfway through the front yard! He announced he was going to the Home Depot to buy another and I was all, "Really? You're going to just go buy a new lawn mower, just like that? Are you sure it can't be fixed?" I know, I know, you're glad I'm not your wife! And yes, there are cons to having a thrifty wife!

But, he was all "Fine." And he spent the rest of the night rebuilding the thing.


I did cheer him on and snapped this picture of the taken apart mower. He got it working and was pretty proud of himself. I was proud, too!

But our neighbors? Probably not too happy about it because he proceeded to finish the other half of the front yard at 10:45 pm using this light:


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The swim team season is over! No more 7am workouts!!! We spent a combined total of 11 hours at 2 different swim meets this week, but it is a short season really lasting just May and June with meets only in June. And we did come home with some medals. I really don't complain too much about being a swim team mom because I love the sport and am thrilled my kids do too! But now the relaxing/restful part of summer can begin!!!

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And on that note, I'm taking a break from the blog, really unplugging from all technology (which is completely crazy considering all the checking of emails, blogs, Yahoo Groups, etc. we've been doing so much of lately monitoring Ethiopian adoptions) for the next week to enjoy a bunch of uninterrupted family time! I may schedule some reruns to appear on the blog during the break.

Happy 4th of July! Happy Birthday America!

Find more Finer Things Friday and Friday Fragments.

We really scream for CHEAP ice cream!

Want to know what works for me?

Nearly free ice cream!

Wednesday, April 27th is 31¢ scoop night at Baskin Robbins.

I will probably let my kids get 2 or 3 scoops!

And I may even call it dinner!

Find more Works For Me Wednesday here.

Make Your Own Easy Theme Cakes

Trust me this is easy.

You can make a theme cake for pretty much any occasion.

The hardest part is finding the right template, but just search the internet for pictures then print it (I had to resize mine a few times to get it right) and cut it out.

Once you bake your cake (I even used box cake mix, then iced with homemade icing) and it cools, dump the cake onto a cutting board, set the paper template right on top of the cake and cut around it with a large knife.

And you have a super easy fun shaped cake to ice!

Here are the cakes I did this past weekend for my oldest son's bowling birthday party. And the bowling ball cake I didn't have to cut at all; it was just a regular round cake! But the bowling pin was a 13 x 9 in cake that I cut out to the shape of a bowling pin. Both cakes were 2 layers.
Here's a link to other shaped cakes I've done:

Cowboy boot cakes

Lightsaber cake

I'm grateful to be able to save money without having to buy the expensive bakery cakes but still have cute, fun cakes to celebrate my kids' special days!

Find more Tackle It Tuesday, Gratituesday, and Works for Me Wednesday here.

Our New Friday Night Hang-Out

Those are my 2 little kids during our Friday evening outing to Ikea.

Yes, their shoes and my daughter's coat are off and piled on the floor, so they can really relax in the display living room!

We've been to Ikea with the kids many times before, but I guess it's been a while because it all seemed new to them. And they were in love!

"I wish we could live here!" My daughter squealed as she tried out all the display rooms.

And then they were entertained with the little pencils and paper provided to write down things you want to buy. My 7 year old and 5 year old began making their lists.

The best part was that all three of my kids were eligible for the store attended play area/childcare (kids have to be within a specific height range and out of diapers and pull-ups). So when they got annoying (you know running around, yelling so we couldn't really shop), my husband and I checked them into the play area and got 45 minutes (there is a 1 hour maximum) to shop through the store without kids! We were even were able to begin and finish a few conversations!

All for free!! I have no idea why we haven't taken more advantage of this before!

My oldest only has another inch or so before he'll be too tall for their restrictions, so we are definitely going to have to capitalize on the magic window of free babysitting again soon!

Also we had a really good laugh about the childcare, because they give you a plastic bin to put your kids' shoes, jackets, hats, etc. in, then they stamp each kid with a number (to match the number stamped on the parent dropping them off). And when we got back to pick them up, the lady stood at the door and called each of their names one by one, checked their numbers, and gave them back their "belongings" from the bin as they exited. I whispered to my husband that it was like they were getting released on parole! But the childcare was not jail-like other than their procedures, the place was pretty fun with a ball pit and other cool things for the kids to do.

After that we ate dinner at the Ikea restaurant for the cheapest amount our family of 5 has ever eaten out -- around $15!!! And the food is a notch healthier than fast food. The kids had mac n'cheese, applesauce, and milk. My husband and I shared a huge plate of the famous Ikea meatballs with a couple side items and two drinks (the Ligonberry drink -- if I ever make it to the real Sweden and they do not serve the Ligonberry drink, I'll be disappointed). So a lot of food and drinks for more than half what we typically spend to eat out!

I think we found a new Friday night hang-out. And no Ikea has not/is not paying me to say that except with an hour of free babysitting (which is available to anyone whose kids fit the criteria) and all moms know that is, well, pure gold!

Cute, Comfy, Cheap Jeans for My Girl

My little girl doesn't really like regular jeans, says they're uncomfortable, mostly because of the whole snap or button at the waist. Typically I'm great with that, I love dressing her in skirts and dresses anyway, but there is a practicality to jeans, especially in the winter, so I made my girl some ruffle pants out of soft denim material.

She's a fan of the elastic waistband (and if we're being honest, who isn't?)

I love that they're cute, a durable fabric, and practical for times when skirts or dresses are not best!

I bought the denim at my local Joann's Fabric and followed this tutorial for ruffle pants.

They really were not hard to make, and I ended up spending way less than if I'd bought her some jeans!

Make It Yourself Monster Shirt

I saw this shirt in the Mini Boden catalog with the monster applique and thought it was cute and something my boys would be excited to wear, but I didn't want to pay $28 per shirt, so I decided to try to make my own.

Here's how I did it and I've said it a million times, but believe me, if I could do it, you can, too!

1. You need a plain t-shirt (between $2 & $5 at Old Navy, Target, or Michaels).

2. Create a monster shape template (Click here to get to a pdf version of the monster template I made: Monster Template).

3. Cut out the monster shape from some fabric and use Heat n' Bond or something similar to iron the fabric onto your shirt.

4. Sew around the edge of the monster shape with just a basic straight stitch, go slow so you can follow close to the edge (the raw fabric edge will fray a bit when washed but that adds to the character of the monster).

5. Use felt or fabric scraps to embellish the monster with eyes and a mouth. Sew these on with the sewing machine or hand stitching for small pieces.


Then you're done!!

I really like how they turned out and best of all, my boys did too!

Buy It and Change It!

I've been challenging myself lately to cut down on what I spend on my clothes, and with my new (still very basic, though) sewing skills, I've been able to get more creative.

My latest love is buying cheap clothes and altering them just a bit to be more stylish or a better fit for me.

For example:

I bought this dress on sale at Target a few weeks ago from the girls department in a girls size X-large.

**Here's a hint, if you are a woman who typically buys sizes 2 or 4, you can sometimes fit into the little girls' extra large size clothes and save some money because the girl stuff is usually priced cheaper than grown-up stuff(I've done this at Old Navy, Gap, and Target).**

When I bought the dress I knew it would be shorter than I'd want to wear alone, but I thought maybe with leggings it would be cute, but when I tried it on I didn't love the way the top looked, so I cut it off just under the arm holes, straight across, leaving a band of knit to become the skirt waistband. Then I folded under the fabric to create a casing for elastic, sewed it, cut elastic to fit my waist, threaded it through using a safety pin to guide it through, sewed up the small hole left in the casing, and it was done! Seriously easy (even with beginner sewing abilities)!
A super easy, super cheap (around $8.00 including the elastic) skirt that I have loved wearing the past few weeks! Those are pockets on either side that I think just adds to the interesting/cute factor of the skirt. I've gotten compliments, it is really comfy (who can argue with a soft, knit elastic waist!), and it's the perfect length for me -- just below the knee.

My New Sewing Corner

Wanna see one of my latest favorite projects?

I love this one even more than the chalkboard paint!

I recently took up sewing as a hobby, but I didn't have a dedicated space for my sewing machine, much less all the fabric, thread, ribbons, bobbins, scissors, elastic, etc. that go along with sewing. I would set up my sewing machine on the breakfast room table when I was working on a project. We don't use the table to eat on (it's too small for our family of 5 so we eat all our meals in the dining room), but the table gets tons of other activity in the form of homework, snacks, playdough, kid crafts, etc., so I could never leave the sewing machine up for long and with it right in the middle of family life, my kids were always messing with it. The fabric was stacked in a corner of my bedroom and the thread and ribbons tucked into random drawers.It became obvious that I needed to create a sewing area.

I first began looking into Ikea shelves and desks, but I really hated to buy anything because we are trying to get rid of things, clean out, not continue to cram things into our already stuffed house.

Then inspiration hit! In a corner of our master bedroom, we have a china cabinet passed down from my grandmother. I have another china cabinet from a different side of my family to house dishes in the dining room, so this one has sat in our bedroom filled with books. I consolidated the books from the bedroom china cabinet (even got rid of some of them -- gasp!) into our family room bookshelves, leaving AN ENTIRE EMPTY CHINA CABINET!

We moved a rarely-used desk downstairs from upstairs and I was ready to move into my sewing corner!On the top shelf I put glass jars and vases I already had and filled them with various small items, like extra bobbins, buttons, safety pins, hair clips, and ribbons. The 2nd shelf down has clear plastic boxes that house elastic, thread, sewing machine parts, and small piece crafts. It also has ribbon on spools and little pink buckets to hold scissors, rotary cutter, seam ripper, etc. The 3rd shelf down has stacks of poorly folded fabric. And there are 2 shelves in the bottom cabinet without glass window doors where I can hide the uglier plastic bins of fabric scraps, tracing paper and steam-a-seam.
I love the results of this project so much because now I can work on projects in pieces, 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there and before you know it, you have a new skirt! I'm a mom to 3, so free time doesn't usually come in large chunks of time! Also, I can create things so much quicker when all my supplies are in the same spot! Best of all, this sewing corner cost me $0.00 -- all things we already had that just were not being used effectively!

This post is part of the Moms' 30-Minute Blog Challenge.

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