I {Heart} Organizing!

Wowwy, wowwy, you thought the post about making your own detergents was exciting, you haven't seen anything yet! Here is my super-duper exciting post about organization! Aren't you lucky? I bet you've just been sitting there wondering when I was gonna post about how I reorganized some stuff in my house! Today is your lucky day my friends!!

Okay, seriously, I've been thinking for a good year now that I need to better organize our art/crafts/games/playdough/drawing stuff, closer to our kitchen table where I might be able to convince the boy who says "coloring is boring" to actually create something for me every now and then. Before the reorg, our supplies were a huge messy pile in the playroom closet. Two things spurred my recent decision to finally get it done. 1) Emily has figured out how to open the playroom closet door (ugh!) and pull stuff out (ugh!) and on top of herself (agh!) so something needed to be done. 2) I found this a.maz.ing organizing blog, i heart organizing, with all kinds of crazy good organization ideas. Check out the blog, it's awesome!

I knew where I wanted to store our crafty stuff, in the buffet my Grandpa made (see above pic). My Grandpa recently joined Grandma in the nursing home. They share a room, which is totally adorable! Sadly, the house they have lived in since 1950 is now sitting empty and the kids have the huge task of emptying it out for the next step, which hasn't been decided yet. Lots of things in the house had already been promised to or picked by other lucky family members. I told my parents that I didn't care what I got but I wanted to have something, even if it was tiny, for sentimental reasons. I got lucky when my mom told me the buffet that my Grandpa made was still sitting in their dining room, uncalled for! DIBS! My favorite thing about it is that he made it. I guess I have a thing for homemade and DIY!

Anyways, we brought it home from CA a few months ago and I filled it with extra cereal boxes and coffee and made a little coffee station on top. All our mugs, coffee k-cups, and splenda organized in one place!

Here is the before pic, just some extra food stuff that could be moved elsewhere. I knew this cabinet would be the perfect place for storing our "boring" kids craft stuff!

Yikes, the crazy messy craft closet before the reorg!

And finally the before/after of my Grandpa's buffet. All the "boring" crafty stuff and games organized! The black bins hold all our paints and glue, flashcards, and Brian's finished art work. I purchased them at Target for $3 (small) and $5 (large).

The drawers are perfect for his coloring books and stickers and workbooks.

I got these caddies on clearance at the end of last summer at Target and they are perfect for holding each child's coloring supplies.

And I didn't stop there, I had to find a place for all the cereal and coffee so I reorganized most of the kitchen, cleared out stuff we don't use and made what we do use, easier to find.

I made each kid a school memories bin, found the bins on sale at Target for $5 each. I was inspired by this post.

I consider myself a pretty organized person, but I'd been putting off my organizing projects because I always find something more fun to do. Until I came across I heart organizing and got tons of ideas and inspiration. We will be moving in less than a year and the thought of packing out again has me on an organizational binge!! I wanted to share this on our blog because I was thinking it might inspire some of you guys to get organized yourself and I love it when other people share their favorite things! My new favorite thing: i heart organizing!

DIY Soaps!

This has to be the most exciting blog post ever. In the history of blogs. That's right, I'm going to tell you how I made my own Dishwashing Soap and Laundry Detergent! Gasp! Oh, the excitement! I can't remember how I got started on doing this, other than every time I buy Tide, I practically choke when I see how much it costs. And some how we go through sooooo much detergent. I was spending $20-$40 a month on freakin detergent. The only purchase that hurts more is those stupid razor refills. Why does it all have to cost so dang much?! So, anyways, I started researching online on how to make my own Laundry Detergent and found tons of recipes, that all had the same basic ingredients, so I took one and tried it. I also noticed that you could make your own dishwashing soap with almost the same ingredients, so I took a stab at that too. Below are the recipes I used and my tips/lessons learned....

Homemade Dishwasher Detergent

1 cup Borax
1 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (not Baking Soda)
½ cup Kosher Salt
10 packets of unsweetened lemonade mix

Mix together well in a large bowl, funnel into an airtight container. Substitutions for the lemonade mix: 1/2 cup Lemishine or ½ cup Citric Acid. Add more lemonade mix/lemishine/citric acid for hard water. Use 1 teaspoon of detergent per load and use vinegar as a rinse aid. This recipe yields about 19 ounces. During the first week after mixing, the citric acid in the lemonade mix may harden the soap mixture a little, so shake it up a little each day to prevent chunks.

I calculated the cost of the Cascade I've been using at 11 cents per load, my homemade version costs 7 cents per load. So not a huge savings but I love it, it works great and is non-toxic and good for the environment!!

Homemade Laundry Detergent

4 cups hot tap water

1 Fels-Naptha soap bar

1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda

½ cup Borax

Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted. Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken. Stir and fill a clean container with soap mixture. Detergent will gel so shake up before each use. Use ¼ cup per load for a front load machine and 5/8 cup per load for a top loading machine.

For a front loading machine, this recipe yields about 300 loads! I calculated the cost of the Tide HE I buy at Sam's Club to cost 18 cents per load, my homemade recipe costs 1/2 of 1 cent per load! Huge savings!! I find the clothes come out very clean and smell like clean clothes, not soapy or anything. Our clothes cleaned in Tide smell a little more fragrant but I find the real way to add fragrance is to use scented dryer sheets. Once again, this works great and is non-toxic and good for the environment! Take that Tide!

Fall Mantle & Family Sign

I finally got around to some fall decorating at the beginning of October and just got around to getting pictures of my fall "mantle." The pumpkins are these beautiful Plush Pumpkins made with real pumpkin and gourd stems. I love them! They are so soft and pretty. I'm not really into decorating for Halloween but I wanted to get some fallish stuff out there because it's my favorite season! Especially here in Phoenix where the average temps are 75 right now, love it! Oh, and the gorgeous changing colors of the cacti.....wait a minute...nevermind, they stay greenish brown all year long. I was inspired by a few pins on Pinterest (here and here) for the yarn letter, which cost me like $2 at Joann Fabric and I used a hot glue gun and half a skien of yarn I already had.

Our new "baby farm" family sign over the TV. I was inspired by a sign that Tori Spelling has in their front yard (yes, I watch their reality show).

Farm Field Trip

Brian's Preschool went on a field trip to the farm/pumpkin patch today. Mommies got to tag along. Here he is with his class, the Shining Stars!

We went through the "Corn Forest" as Brian calls it. It was a maze and I made sure I had my cell phone with me in case we got lost, I could call 9-1-1 to save us ;)

Then we went to pick vegetables. Here is Brian pulling up a radish, we also got some cucumbers and squash, that we had for dinner and Brian magically liked. I think it might have something to do with his harvesting them and all.

Brian loves this "train" thing. I have a picture of him riding it every year for 3 years now!

Searching for the perfect pumpkin.....

...found it!

18 months

Our babies at 18 months old

(Brian July 2008, Emily October 2011)

This side by side comparison sort of makes me wish they were twins!

Okay, the wish only lasted a few seconds. I imagined them both tantruming at the same time. In public. And I'm alone. Nope, I think I'll be happy with them just the way they are now.

Book Exchange Coffee

Myself and another squadron wife hosted this month's spouses "coffee" at our house. We decided to do a book exchange. Everyone brought a wrapped book and added it to the "bookshelf" (just some bookends from our office) and after we ate and discussed our squadron spouses' business and socialized, we did the book exchange "combat" style. My hope was that everyone end up leaving with a good book they've never read before. I made little cards that look like old library catalog cards with cute quotes on them and scattered them around. I was inspired by this blog and found the card catalog generator here.

I converted my antique desk by our front door into a wrapping station for people who brought their books naked.

For the nummies: we did a potato bar with all the fixins, two kinds of salad and a bunch of desserts. I baked the spuds throughout the day and then kept them warm in crock pots. And by warm, I mean I had to use a potholder to move them to plates and open the foil, so it worked.

We had probably 20 different toppings, from the standards; bacon, sour cream and chives, to the wild and wacky; feta, jalepenos and taco meat.

I forgot to take a picture of the dessert spread, which is a shame because it was probably the prettiest part. Anything covered with this much cream cheese frosting must be pretty. I took some store-bought brownie bites and piped some store-bought cream cheese frosting on top, and added some fall sprinkles. This is my party dessert standby and everyone is always impressed until I tell them I did basically nothing!

I also made an amazing Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, yum, I'm drooling thinking about it. The recipe is Steve's grandmother's and I tried a piece at a Thanksgiving when I was pregnant with Brian, it was so good, I had another piece and another piece and another piece. I did the same thing last night. And this morning. And this afternoon. It's gone now. I love me some pumpkin-flavored desserts. I have a new slogan: Pumpkin, it's not just for pies anymore. Here is:

Grandma Edith's Pumpkin Cake Recipe

4 Eggs

2 cups Sugar

1 Cup Vegetable Oil

2 Cups Self-Rising Flour

2 tsp Baking Soda

2 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Salt

2 Cups Pumpkin

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Beat eggs and sugar in large mixing bowl. Beat in oil. Sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in small bowl and then slowly add into creamed mixture. Stir in pumpkin and vanilla extract. Bake in fluted pan for 55 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool before frosting.

Frosting:

16 ounces of Cream Cheese, softened

1 stick of Butter, softened

1 lb box of Powdered Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Cream together softened butter and cream cheese, slowly mix in powdered sugar and vanilla extract.

When I was ready to frost the cake, I warmed the frosting in the microwave until it was runny enough to pour over the cake rather than having to spread it on the cake and having it look all messy and ending up with the frosting spatula in my mouth several times.

Emily at 18 months

Emily turned 18 months old last week and I snapped a few pictures of her that day. This one is my favorite. She had just grabbed Brian's face and planted a big kiss on him and of course I wasn't fast enough with the camera. She was done with giving kisses but didn't mind at all to get a few from big brother!

She is at such a fun age, very playful and learning new things everyday. She's adding new words daily too. My favorites right now are "kay! kay!" when she brings a blanket to me and wants me to make her a cave to play in. She loves giving kisses, including to the dog. She loves to scribble, she's going to be our kid who makes her artistic mark on the walls with a sharpie one day. She's sneaky and smart and cuddly.

Emily has been having some stomach issues lately and we are starting to look into what is going on. It's probably just a really long lasting virus but we are having lab work done this week and going to see a GI doc in the next few weeks. She's still energetic and eats and drinks a ton but her weight is in the 5th percentile so we decided to make sure there isn't any underlying health issues or food allergies causing her "daintiness." But what she lacks in weight, she makes up for in height, she's in the 90th percentile for height!

We spent some time in the afternoon at the park. Here she is giving me her "cheese" for the camera

This is her "wheeeee" when she's in the "wing"

Her distracted look-away pose

Loves cars as much as big brother

Her new favorite activity, sliding down the "wheee"

She loves hiding in this little cabinet in the kitchen. She'll yell "bye-bye!" and then climb in and close the door. Then pops back out yelling "hi!" and giggling!

Here is her "enough already with the pictures mom!" look

Shameless Fundraiser Promotion

{not the cookies from the fundraiser but some yummy looking ones}

Just sent out the following email but thought I'd post it here too! Help if you can!

Friends and Family,
Brian is doing great in his last year of preschool. He's attending our local church preschool and we love it! His school is having a fundraiser right now, selling Otis Spunkmeyer Cookie Dough. Obviously, since none of you live near enough to us that I could transport frozen cookie dough tubs to you, you would not be able to buy any to support his school.

But then I had an idea. Rare, but sometimes I get ideas. Now stay with me. 3-4 times a year our squadron wives do something we call "Maintenance Cookies." The wives spend hours slaving away in the kitchen baking dozens of cookies, then package them up and deliver them to our hard working enlisted maintainers. These are the underpaid enlisted airmen who keep our fighter jets in shape and are directly responsible for our husbands safety. It's one small way we can show our thanks. We will be doing another "Maintenance Cookies" just before Christmas, which helps provide a little bit of holiday spirit in the form of baking to these guys and gals who are usually far from their homes and families during the holidays.

So what does this have to do with Brian's fundraiser? Well, we could kill two birds with one stone if you purchased a tub of cookie dough from Brian's fundraiser, which I will deliver straight to my freezer when it arrives the week of Thanksgiving, then I'll use the cookie dough to make dozens of cookies for our "Maintenance Cookies" drive in December! If you would like to help out, Brian would be grateful and so will our airmen!

The cookie dough tubs are $15 each and make 3 dozen cookies, below are the list of flavors (choose one or I can choose for you to ensure a variety). His orders are due on the 24th, so let me know soon if you'd like to help out! And if not, I totally understand, everyone's child is selling something right now! I'll just be shocked if you've read this far ;) Thank you! Love Kelly (and Brian)

Butter Sugar
Carnival (M&Ms instead of choc.chips)
Chocolate Chip
Cranberry Oatmeal
Oatmeal Raisin
Peanut Butter
Rainbow Chocolate Crispy Cookie (some proceeds go to the Make-a-Wish Foundation)
Reduced Fat Chocolate Chip
Strawberry Shortcake
The Pink Cookie (some proceeds go to the Susan G. Komen For The Cure Foundation)
Triple Chocolate Chunk
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut

Fat Cheeks and a Fat Lip

Brian and I both had quite an adventurous day on friday. As for me, I finally gave in to what probably 5 dentists had been telling me for 10 years or so, "You need to have your wisdom teeth out." I have been lucky (?) enough to inherit the gigantic Harris mouth, which means I had all kinds of room in there for 4 extra teeth. My Dad actually had 5 wisdom teeth, although he pulled one of them himself while in the dentist's chair to avoid any additional insurance co-pay (true story). But I decided to leave the teeth pulling to the professionals, so friday morning I popped a Xanax*** and off we went to the oral surgeon. One minute I was talking to the nurse and next thing I knew, I was being loaded into the front seat of our van, demanding a trip to the smoothie place. I took an hour nap or so when we got home, milked my "condition" for a while in the afternoon so I could finish reading a very juicy US magazine but by late afternoon, I was downstairs with the family, making and cleaning up after dinner, bathing and putting the kiddos to bed like normal. I had no pain, very little swelling and overall, I don't know why I was dreading it so badly for 10 years. And of course Steve was helpful, taking over some mommy duties the day of. He even folded a load of laundry for me while I was sleeping, I just wish he had told me because later that day I spent 10 minutes looking for that basket of clothes!

As for Brian, I made arrangements for the kids so Steve wouldn't have to entertain them in the waiting room. Emily went to "school" and Brian off to a friend's house. Just before Steve picked him up, his friend's super adorable and usually sweet little brother popped him in the mouth with a big rock. He got quite the fat lip, but it's not the worst he's ever had and it sort of makes him look tough. I didn't mind sharing my peas-bagged-in-a-sock ice bags with him!

***the Xanax was prescribed, I don't usually need to be medically calmed and it actually just made me feel tired, but the sensation that I didn't want my teeth pulled never did go away. I guess they prescribe it to all their patients, I assume they don't want anyone freaking out the morning of and backing out of their $1200 elective surgery, just a guess though.

Family Hiking

We live in the western foothills of the Estrella Mountain range that runs on a south-east diagonal below Phoenix, so we are just a few minutes drive away from some really great hiking trails. Steve has been able to do some exploring on his own, both on foot and on the ATV. He wanted to show us one particular trail that goes to the highest peak in the Estrellas and now that Brian is getting older and has more endurance, we loaded up the kiddos into the Pilot and 4-wheeled through the sand to the base of the mountain. The trail is 3 miles each way so we obviously didn't make it that far with a 4-year-old on foot and a 17-month-old in a front pack. We did make it a respectible 1/3 of the way up the mountain and got some pretty great views. Brian was a champ and didn't want to turn around. He doesn't quite understand that what goes up, must come down and you have to save some energy for the downhill portion of the hike.

The weather was beautiful, about 90 degrees with a slight breeze and we even got lucky enough to catch a sprinkle from a small summer storm to cool us off. Brian took a fall near the end of the hike, but he has forgotten all about his little run in with some sharp rocks and wants to hike again soon. We are thinking we need to get one of those toddler backpacks for the tot for next time!

The Zoo

It's completely pathetic that we've lived in AZ for over 2 years and just recently went to the Wildlife World Zoo. It's near base so not too far away, we just always had a good excuse like it was too hot or too much for the baby or too expensive. I kept hearing how great it was so we finally dragged the kids there and had a great morning at the zoo. This zoo is huge and has tons of animals and lots of fun rides. Brian loved the train through the safari lands and we also went on the sky ride thingy. We rushed through their new aquarium because our little creatures were getting hungry, but we'll be going back soon since we liked it so much, we bought an annual membership for the kids and I to go back and enjoy the zoo anytime we want!

I won't bore you with lots of animal pictures but we saw this adorable 2-day-old antelope walking around with his mommy, so cute!

The sky ride thingy. Steve was brave and took Emy, who squirmed the entire time and had him paranoid she was going to fall. He says never again will Emily get to go on the skyride. I kept a tight grip on Brian and he kept saying "Mommy, stop holding me, I'm not going to fall and you are making me sweaty!" My little boy doesn't need me anymore!

Big Bear

Considering we've been back from Big Bear for a month now, it's time to get some pictures from the trip up. There are some random pictures of Emily having fun with an empty box, always a good time for a 1.5-year-old. And then there are some pictures from an alpine slide we went on. Big Bear was fun but was so crowded for Labor day weekend, we were always waiting for something, like a table at a restaurant or in line to do something fun. I'd love to go back in the middle of some random, non-holiday week.

Oh and we went ziplining but my sister has the pics and when she sends them to me, I will post them (hint, hint)

Emily giving Uncle Allan the evil eye, she really does like him though

Brian and daddy in line for the chair lift up the mountain for the alpine slide

Chillin and eating some cookies while the rest of us took turns sliding