Sunday Fun!

Hi everyone!  Hope you all had a fun filled weekend and that you're ready for the week to begin...well...are we ever ready for the week to begin??? {I rarely am}  This weekend was a little hectic my way as I had some realtives over and spent most of the time entertaining and enjoying some family time.  Now that didn't get me much further with all my projects, but family time is always the best and my projects will still be here tomorrow.  They left this morning and I must say this afternoon was EXTRA productive :)  I'm so excited when I get to clean my chaotic household.  There something about organizing and cleaning... and having it stay that way.  Unfortunately for me those instances are few and far between because usually my very energetic 21 month old...how should I say...DESTROYS any cleanliness there may have been:)  Yesterday afternoon my kiddos got to work outside with Daddy while I got to bring my house back to order.  I also got to start my walk-in closet organizing and have moved a few things around.  Love the feeling of having some progress to note. Then it was onto my Sunday ritual...or what I would like to have become my ritual.  I love starting the week knowing that all is in order and that all is planned.  I got the idea of a home binder from Jen over at iheart organizing {LOVE, LOVE, LOVE her blog by the way!!!}.  Instantly fell in love with the idea of planning my week ahead.  Never thought it would be so helpful but I have to say it has made some parts of our week easier.  I've also began couponing as much as I can in order to save some dineros.  So for those who are interested, here are a few items that are in my home binder:

1.  Meal planning (which is such a huge time saver).  

2.  The kiddos lunch menus for the week

3.  Clothes for the week (kiddos)

4. Grocery list (After reviewing coupons and meal plan for the week)

5. Shopping list for miscellaneous household goods

6. Household chores to complete this week

7. Any projects that need some attention

8. Fitness goals for the week

What I love about a family binder is that you can tweak it as much as you want to customize it to your family's needs.  The one thing that I've done is that I've laminated each master page of each section.  This way no more wasting paper!  I use expo vis-a-vis markers and voila, a greener binder:) 

Once this is complete I always feel that much better :)  It seems so much easier to get home from work knowing what is for dinner rather than wasting 30 mins or so trying to figure it out every night.  What I like even better than the awesome meal plan is using my crock pot!  How sweet it is to come home to a complete and cooked meal...the house smells incredible and we're ready to set the table and eat.  On those nights I feel like I have that much more time to enjoy my munchkins.

Well I am off to my Monday...hope yours is a good one!

Ciao

Here I go...

Ok...so after some serious thought I figured I'd make a list here of what I have in mind for the near future.  All the projects that I've had on my "to do" list for a while now.  As I finish each project, I'll cross it off and show pictures whenever possible.  I think accountability puts this girl into action rather than procrastination :)  So here it goes for the 1001 projects I'd like to complete:

1- Paint and reorganize/decorate children's playroom

2- Paint my soon to be craft/exercise room and get all organizing things in place (after I figure it all out of course!)

3- Start Project Life for my 3 children (Saw this on The Sunny Side Up blog and LOVED the idea)

4- Rearrange/Organize my walk in closet (which is in desperate need of a lift me up)

5- Put together the art wall for my children's creative concoctions

6- Add some finishing touches to our now finished 3 season room.

7- Make some picture canvas' for our living room (you know...the ones they show on Pinterest that are so amazing!)

8- Organize all of my pictures (SOOO Overdue!)

9- Make Cushion for our entrance bench

10- Redo the children's Chore Chart

So here are the top ten on my list...  Of course many of these have more than one component and will take longer to actually accomplish but nontheless, I put them out there for all to see.  I'm hoping along the way I can get some great ideas from others.  Today probably won't be that productive of a day since I have company arriving shortly for lunch...  I will still try to at least cross one of these off my list by the beginning of next week.   

I think I'll start by making the Art Wall for the kiddos.  It seems there is no real place to display there beautiful creations.  I bought three clipboards this morning thinking I would go with something like this (found on pinterest of course):

I'm thinking I'd like to cover the clipboards with some pretty material and glue a cute little wooden strip on the clip part with each children's name on it.  We'll see how good I can do with that.  I love crafts...but have to admit I don't that there isn't much creativity flowing in this body...quite the challenge I know, but thanks to Pinterest and all the awesome blogs I've found I should be able to achieve something....{I hope} :)

So the idea is that from this day forward, I'll give an update on which project I'm working on and what has been accomplished.  I'd also like to get a cleaning checklist going on at some point.  Don't you dread all the cleaning and picking up???  I know I do!  Unfortunately it has to be done and no good fairy will do it for me.  I figure if we all post our list and check back in at the end of the day Friday to give an update we'll all feel that much better about doing it.  Isn't there something to be said about doing things as a group???   How good I feel when all is crossed off the list and I'm ready to move on to something better and bigger!  Well on that note, I am off to get some cooking done before my guests arrive....


And just an FYI:  I figure I'll give you a fair warning...I may use this blog for some much needed venting every once in a while.  It will sure be cheaper than therapy!!!  You can just tune out when that happens :)

Chow!

My blogging Debut!

So this is my first blurp in blog world so please be indulgent :)  So I thought I'd start with some great projects that I have in the works...  Our children's playroom is in our finished basement but isn't so finished!  So many projects to do with so little time to actually  complete all of them.  I'm so excited that I am going to have a craft/exercise room in the near future so the children will now have a full size playroom.  This also means that I now have 2 rooms to redecorate and organize.  I have found so many great ideas through pinterest and other blogs that I can't wait to put in place.  I plan on starting with the children's playroom to make it that much more fun :)  The one idea that I have slowly started working on is some great pallet repurposing!  The floor is tile and hardwood but since it's in the basement it's a little cold.  I'm hoping to use 2 pallets, paint them a fun color and make a cushion for the top and voila I should have a great seating area for the children't reading nook.  I plan to make some creative cushions to go atop this wonderful new seating.  Once in the works I'll post some pictures to show my progress.   Have I mentioned how excited I am...  Here is a picture that shows what I want to do but I'll only be using one pallet high.

I'm hoping to do some fun paintings on the walls as well.  I'm thinking there will be a tree painted behind the seating and a lamp post/street sign with two hanging wooden signs.  One will say Reader's Corner and the other one will say Creative Lane. I also want to add some other paintings/stenciling to the walls, but am not quite sure what to do.  I want something that will last for years to come.  For the toy storage, I'm finding a multitude of great items and am still debating which ones to purchase!  Here are a few that I really like...

I'll have to make some drawings to show what I'm looking forward to doing.  I'm sure I'll be tweaking my plan a few more times between now and the end of the project!  I'll also have to come back with all the fun ideas I have for my craft/exercise room! 

Happy Reading.