day 1 mimi and pop camp - project playroom

the big kids are at mimi and pop camp this week (hip hip hurray!) and i have a list of projects to complete while they are gone. today was tackling the playroom. i ran to ikea yesterday and got one more storage shelf. i'm in love with these shelves and wish that was all we had in our playroom as they hide the mess so well. last night i made labels for my buckets and today i cleaned out, rearranged and organized. i am really happy with how it turned out. i need to make a few more bucket labels, but besides that this room is now mr.bear safe and ready to go. all small pieces have been put away and he has free range to play in there with the big kids now.

still have some art work to hang up on this wall, as soon as i find my sticky tack.

sorry the lighting is so bad in this one. i took these with my camera phone because i'm lazy like that.

don't you love my magnet wall? another great ikea find! now my fridge is free from all those darn leap frog magnets

close up of my tubs and labels

if you can't tell just by looking the room, i use to teach 1st grade. this room now kind of feels like my old classroom with everything labeled and organized with a specific place to go. it's my happy place right now (unlike my closet which is a wreck and the next project on my list). i printed my labels on cardstock and super dad dropped them off this morning to the office max to have them laminated for me. i than used sticky velcro dots to attach them to the buckets. my thought is that way if i need to move stuff around it's just a quick rip of the velcro and viola! buckets are changed. i know, it was a genius thought, occasionally i have those.


so what do you think? turned out pretty good, huh? now off to help super dad clear out our closet... new organizational system coming in there asap!

babies and banana bread

we made banana bread today. i doctor up the box mix from trader joes. it's yummy. mr.bear liked it. sass though bitty baby would like some too. so we set her up. mama sass and her baby just like me and my baby. i love when they imitate life!

so much better

we did it! it took over an hour. about 8 million redirections. several sneeks out to the trash can when he wasn't looking. but it's done. whew! i feel so much better!



ps. not sure why this last picture insists on being sideways in both post. i have turned it in picasa but both times it came up sides ways.... so weird!

my little junk collector

okay mom. you may not take any pleasure in what you are about to read. i know it's sweet revenge for all the years i had a messy room. just sayin'.


so bubbie is our little trash collector. every piece of paper. every little container has a purpose to him. he needs to save little thing because he might could use it for a project. he is a builder. he has an incredible imagination. but his room is always a mess. i mean there is stuff everywhere. i go into a panic attack every time i walk in there. he tries to straighten up, but i really don't think he sees the mess. to him it makes sense. to me it makes me a little crazy.

these pictures are of his room in it's current state. this was after he cleaned up. yes really. i. can't. take. it. anymore. we had a come to Jesus moment this morning. when he gets home from camp i am going to attempt to help him actually clean the place up. i don't want to hound him. i hate being a nag, but really? it's a death trap. do you know what those tiny little legos feel like on your bear feet. it's enough to make a grown man cry.

does anyone else live with a junk collector? is he doomed to be on an episode of hoarders later on in life? we need help! what can i do to encourage him to take pride in his things and keep his room tidy? i don't need it to be white glove clean, i just want to be able to walk in there and not risk breaking a limb while trying to get him out of bed in the morning.

be on the look out. i will post some after pics if i get a chance.

where oh where has yo baby gone??

okay my friends. i'm on a hunt. i can't find yo baby yogurt anywhere right now. for a few weeks now everywhere i have checked is sold out. not a publix, kroger or whole foods. what is going on? is there a yo baby shortage? i have googled to try and find out. i asked the guy at whole foods who was stocking the yogurt shelf.... pretty sure he thought i was crazy. are they discontinuing it? (surely not!) remarketing it? what's going on! mr.bear loves him some yo baby, but it's no where to be found!

in the mean time we've been getting creative with the plain whole milk stonyfield farm yogurt mixed with fruit, but i do love our little containers for on the go. yo baby please come back to us!!

wow what a morning!

today was a day for the record books for us. bubbie started "manly man" camp this morning. today was pirate day. he was excited. we get to the church to drop him off. we notice right off that the lobby is smokey, but have our worries calmed by being told they were using a fog machine to practice for a show. so i heave up the stairs with an 18lb baby on my hip and two little ones by my side to the third floor. just as we get up there, the fire alarms start going off, strobe lights and all and we are told to head down the stair well, so me and my three climb back down three floors to get outside. luckily the it was just because the fog machines had set off the alarm, but off we were to climb up the three flights of stairs again. i start to wonder if i can write this off as my exercise for the day. bubbie successfully gets dropped off to camp and we are on our way.

the little guys and i stop to do an errand on the way home. mr. bear is beat and so ready for a nap, so as soon as we get back home i run to change his diaper and get ready to throw him into the bed. he surprises me with a poop diaper, so i leave him for just a second to clean it out and throw it in the pail when it dawns on me that i might not have clicked the gate all the way (being that i had planned to just throw him in the bed). just as i head that way to check i hear the worlds worst sound... my baby tumbling down the steps. now thankfully, we have a spilt stair case, so it's only six steps to the landing, then six more. and they are carpeted, two things that worked in his favor. i immediately scooped him up and comforted him and he calmed down pretty quickly, so i was thinking that he had been protected and we were blessed to escape what could have been a lot worse. well we are blessed that he wasn't seriously injured, but as soon as i put him down to crawl and he went to bear weight on his right arm, i saw him just crumble under the weight and knew something was wrong. i was sure he had a broken arm or wrist. super dad raced home and my sweet friends came to my rescue taking care of sass and getting bubbie from camp so off to children's we went. six horrible xrays later (xraying a 10 month olds arms in six different positions is kind of like wrestling a wet cat, he was MAD), my nursed and now napping baby was diagnosed with a hairline fracture in his clavicle. thank you Jesus for protecting him and letting that be all! unfortunately there is not much we can do for him, but let him have some motrin and heal up. he is already figuring out how to bear most of his weight on the other arm and is on the move again, but boy this mama has had a long day!

friday fun

it's friday. we are ready to have some fun. we have a pretty busy day filled with gymnastics class for sass and a swimming playdate right after. than tonight super dad and i are going on a date night (he hates that phrase). but this morning we are in no hurry. we're building blocks. well mr.bear is doing more destroying of the block building than anything, but now he is down for his morning nap.


i love old classic toys. alphabet blocks definitely fall into that category. mr.bear likes to tap them together. the big kids spelled their names. they tried to build a super tall tower. they made color patterns out of the letters. they fought over who had more blocks. we had a little math lesson about equal as i divided up the blocks between the two of them. blocks are fun. fridays are fun.