Organized Drawer

This Mama is already in spring cleaning mode.... organization city. I have so many projects for the next few months and I am super excited to get more organized...  

Maybe I can finally sleep at night without thinking how terrible our hall closet looks inside.....

or open the playroom closet without being attacked by wrapping paper...

Yes.. organization is in full gear.


Today.. it was the junk drawer.

I forgot to take a picture of the before, but I did take a picture of everything setting out...

This is what I had to work with...

So with some dollar store baskets... I paid $1 for 3 baskets.. so this cost me $2 total.....  I got this....

I think I am going to get a few more baskets just to get the screwdrivers and chargers organized... but its so much better and easy to find what I need.

Now I can cross Junk Drawer off my organization list!!

Valentine Wreath

My valentine wreath got ruined a few years ago by some moisture that got into a plastic tub. I had to throw everything away, and I have just never replaced any of it. Today though.. I decided to jazz up our door and make a new wreath.

I went to the dollar store and spent $5 on the whole thing. I got a wreath. 3 strings of garland and a felt heart for the middle.

The first thing I did was take the wreath and spray paint it white. This isn't necessary, but I thought if some of the color did show through.. it should be white.

Then I took the garland and hot glued one end on there.. and just wrapped it around. I continued with all 3 garlands and completely covered the wreath.

Then I hot glued the felt heart into the middle... and ... tada!!

Our beautiful wreath!! I love it... it's beautiful .. and the best part...  I made it for only $5!!

Detached

Yes, lately I have been feeling detached from the world. There are so many things going on that my mind is being pulled in so many directions.

My mom is doing great, but her hair is falling out rapidly.

My MawMaw is in the hospital and they can't seem to stabilize her for more than a few days. She has type 1 diabetes and she is in the end stages. Her body is getting tired and weak and is trying so hard to fight, but it can't. And all the medicines that she needs to help her are working against each other. So we need lots of prayers to keep her going and hope she pulls through.

Joshua is still feeling off. The steroids he is taking makes him hyper and clingy. I have been loving every minute of the clingy-ness though. I even took advantage and rocked him to sleep one night. Do you know how long its been since I rocked him to sleep? I miss those days!

But all this stress has made me detached.... detached from the world.. detached from motherhood.. detached from being a wonderful wife... detached from my house.. detached from sleep...      and the last one ... well.. it makes me cranky.

So I went to my hometown this weekend.. to try to reattach.

Joshua and I played some baseball.

We took a little walk to see our horses.. Sarah and Engine.

Joshua went with Uncle Ryan and Papa to the crawfish ponds and came back with a cocoon.

Finally we spend time with family celebrating birthdays. My brother's birthday was great and we spent time in good company. It was a lot of fun.

It was so nice to see how many people showed up to celebrate in the midst of our grandmother being so sick. We missed her being there, but we are praying she will be there next time.

And the birthday boy opening his presents..

You know your old when you ask for a food saver for your birthday.. haha!

and the following day... we celebrated Peyton and Carley's 1st birthday.

So a weekend filled with lots of laughs and lots of family. It was good.. good for the soul. Good to reatach myself if only for a little bit.

We are now back to our schedule.. back to the sleepless nights. Hopefully soon we will be off the steriods. Joshua has an appointment to see the doctor this week and we will know the next step. His tubes are falling out, yet his ears are retaining water... so hopefully this will all end soon..  and mama can get some sleep!!

The Chore Chart

Woohoo!! Took me only 3.. 4 months to complete this??  There was just so much going on and I didn't have the time, but it's finally finished..

and I am in love with it...

the best part?

so is little man!!

This was super easy to make and I had most of the supplies laying around. I just had to buy the wooden circles, Velcro, and fabric.

I made the grid with ribbon I had laying around. I honestly just eye balled it and glued the ribbon on the back on the canvas.


The next thing I did was grab my cricut machine and cut out the 1 inch stars.

Then I mixed a little glue and water together and used a paint brush to glue the stars down to the wooden circles.

Then I put the Velcro on the grid and on the back of the wooden circles so we could be sure to keep track of Joshua's hard work.

Then I needed a somewhere to keep the wooden circles, so I used some fabric and hot glued a bag together. Yes.. hot glued!  I am no good at sewing and even if wanted to try it takes like a hour for me to set up and I was lazy... but the hot glued worked perfectly.... and I glued the bag onto the bottom of the canvas.

After that I printed out the days of the week and glued them on.

Then I printed out different chores and I put Velcro on the back of them so that I can change them out as needed.

(yes it does say take a bath in MY bath. I want the master bathroom back!!)

But... look how pretty!!!! 

(yes, those are Christmas presents to the left... we haven't had Christmas with the in laws yet.)

So, Joshua completes all his chores and at the end of the week he gets to pick a toy from the sack.

A sack you say??  Well yes.. I made one of those too.....

I hot glued it as well. Laid a ribbon down and folded over to make a hem. And I hemmed it with hot glue.

I hot glued around all the edges of the bag, just like you would do if you were sewing it.

Flipped the bag inside out and.. tada!!


Just as good as if I had sewed it... actually probably better.

I put a few prizes in there already.. some 'trashies'.. and some Cars 2 'squeakies'.

Joshua has been so excited and doing great with his chores so far. This morning he made his bed without complaint and then ran to add a star. Then he put his clothes on and added a star.  Once he brushed his teeth, he begged me to add another star, but I reminded him that we put that one up at the end of the night.

So far so great.. I am loving this chore board.

And... hopefully I will be changing the "take a bath in my bathroom" soon.

Sickness

Sickness.

It got us this weekend.

We were tired.. we were defiantly cranky.

I am not a good patient.. Joshua is not a good patient. I was wishing John was here.

Friday little man came home from school with a temp of 101.9 .. low grade, but still a temperature. The major thing though was that he kept saying there were 'boogers' in his ears. Normally this means that they are infected and oozing, but I couldn't find hardly any evidence of the oozing. 

Still.. I gave medicine and nurtured him the best I could.

By Saturday, he was feeling better and making messes all around the house with his toys. I must commend him though, he is getting really great about cleaning up and picking up his toys. Some days are better than others, but he is getting the hang of it.

By that evening we were all set to watch some football.... he was super excited when the Patriots made a touchdown... or "Hutchdown!!" .. as he says.

Monday morning.. his 'boogers' in his ears returned. I grabbed a Q-tip to inspect and there was blood right inside his ear canal. So we rode over to make a visit to his ENT doctor.


Sure enough...

Double ear infection. Low grade temperature. Compacted sinus's. Swollen Tonsils.

And...

his tube in his right ear is trying to make a exit.

Wonderful!!  
Cue the headache again...

After the doctor we stopped by the nursing home to see my Grandmama. She was so excited to see us and Joshua was so excited to see her. In fact, on the way to the doctor, he asked to see her because he was very 'worried' about her.

I think he just likes to visit the bird. Kidding. He does love his Grandmama!!

Sunshine is their beautiful Blue Macaw... and he talks.. very little, but its cute.

He says.. "Hello". "Bye Bye". and "Polly want a cracker?"

Cute cute... and fun. We all had fun visiting her and it seems she is doing much better. Hopefully she can return home in a few months.


As for us.. we returned home.. with lots of medicines. Joshua is doing a lot better and is at school today.

I went to the gym... and plan on taking a nice nap later.

It's good to feel good!!

Color Of My Life

"Family is the color of my life.. without them I am blind."

So today... we colored.. like we have never colored before. We sat on the front lawn and talked about Valentine's day coming up and what it means to us. I tried to teach him that it's not about the candy or the present he may get, but it's about showing each other how much we love and appreciate each other.

I tried to teach him that we have lots of love in our hearts and that we can share it with lots of people. That we can love and care for lots of different people in different ways. How amazing it is to have so many good people, friends and family in our lives.

His response?  "Well today I love Daddy. Tomorrow I can love you."

Ok then....

 

I suppose I will share his love with Daddy.... I can wait my turn.... I mean.. who can resist those big brown eyes?? So Handsome!

We have been trying to teach him how to ride a big bike.. but he's been determined to stick to his tricycle where his knees hit the handle bars.... and he looks goofy..... but he is secure. Secure in his abilities to peddle around the block without any help.

His bicycle? He has no interest... until today. Probably because his daddy begged him to be a big boy and ride it. His dad wanted him to take the next step... so he did. He tried to ride the big boy bike.

He smiled.. he took off.. he drove kinda crazy and had trouble peddling.. but he learned slowly.

And that timer on the back of the bike?  No idea. But if he was going to cycle.. so was it.


So go out there and color your life today... spend time with family.. you never know what beautiful things are in store for you.

Have a colorful day!