Darn Cute Valentines

"Donut" You Know It's Almost Valentine's Day?

Conleigh was the creator of our Valentine's treats this year.  She was so cute because she had it all figured out, right down to the pun she wanted to use.  Her idea?  She wanted to give everyone doughnuts and put a note on them that said "Donut share."  She thought she was so clever!

I talked her out of the unabashedly selfish "Donut share." and instead talked her into "Donut you know how much I like you?"  and "Donut you know you are a great teacher?"  The boys were onboard with the doughnut theme so this afternoon, we took the time to assemble our school treats.  I used my scrapbooking progam to make a cute little card and we then took store bought doughnuts and added lollipop sticks and white chocolate drizzles.  We dipped the lollipop sticks in white chocolate so they wouldn't come out of the doughnuts.  Zeke helped me do that part by handing me the sticks.  Since our school has a "no homemade treats" policy, Conleigh helped me put a sticker on the back with a link to Sara Lee's allergy information and ingredients list.  All three kids helped stuff the bags, while I put the card in and twisted the tie shut.

If you know Conleigh, you are probably well aware of her love of doughnuts, so if you also happen to get a Valentine from her which means she shared her precious treat, count yourself as really loved.

Thanks, http://www.positivelysplendid.com/2012/01/valentine-doughnut-pops.html for the inspiration.

Ten Fingers Are Overrated--Cutting with Scissors...On the Lines

Last week, the occupational therapist at Zeke's school caught me in the school office, excited to tell me that she just saw Zeke cut with regular scissors.  He's been doing that for quite awhile now, like maybe a month after he got his purple spring loaded scissors.  I think having those purple ones have him the ability to see how scissors worked and then figure it out from there.  That said, he is a crazy good scissor user.  He cuts on the lines better than what some kindergarteners and first graders can.  (I helped him with one side of this elephant, the part where the trunk connects to the face.  He did the other side by himself.)

Spa Party

Conleigh celebrated turning 7 with 3 birthday wishes including getting her ears pierced, supper at Pizza Hut, and an all girl birthday party.  This Saturday, she invited 4 friends for a spa party.  The girls soaked and lotioned their feet, did a musical manicure game that involved passing the polish until the music stopped and then painting with whatever color was in their hands, enjoyed peanut butter sandwiches, fruit, yogurt, and cupcakes, and played Barbies and dolls.  

Conleigh is Seven!

7 years ago today, your Mama Bernadette welcomed you into her world.  (And 4 years ago today, we brought you home to ours.)  You are spunky and march to the beat of your own drum.  With a flair for the dramatic, you've got a thousand different faces and voices.  Silly words roll of your tongue often like "For heaven sakes of America!"  (Which we have no idea exactly what it means.)  You are a great reader, a lover of performance, a little mommy to your baby brother.  You just learned to tie your shoes.  You hate the thought of details.  Keeping a clean room or playing a sport with a lot of rules are not all that important to you right now.  But you did tell Papa that cross country might be your thing, especially if you get a popsicle when you finish the race.  

Happy birthday, my dear.  We've already celebrated a bit with ear piercing and Pizza Hut for supper.  One more birthday festivity this weekend with a party for a handful of girl friend will round out your birthday wishes.  

And happy welcome home.  What a crazy wild ride.  From being evacuated from Haiti on an Air Force C 17 to Mama and Papa heading to Florida on one way tickets, not knowing when you would be coming, to a scared little girl who cried for hours until her voice was hoarse and scratchy, to that same little girl slowly slowly slowly coming out of her shell.  Could it be that 4 years later, all those layers are peeled back and we have truly met the real Conleigh?

This C-17 is from another orphanage's evacuation but it's pretty much the same as what Conleigh rode to Florida on

"Wow! You're a Big Family!" Controlling the Chaos Tidbit #7-Dealing with Crap

Crap-we've all got it.  It's looking into your bathroom storage closet and realize you have somehow bought 10 boxes of Band Aids and now are able to cover over 1, 000 owies should you ever have the need.  It's the poor lonely clothes that have been abandoned to the darkest corners of your closet because they don't fit, are ugly, or are missing a button and you're too lazy to fix it.  It's the jeans that are pajamas that you received as a birthday gift but you know you will never ever use despite dear Aunt Ethel's assertion that they are so comfy and fashion forward.  I do try to keep our crap collection to a minimum.  Because with 6 of us, there is no shortage of crap.

When talking about crap, there are 3 basic groups into which I sort items I no longer want or need:  throw away, donate, or sell.  The throw pile is pretty easy.  Anything broken gets thrown.  (And often cheap junk like trinkets from carnivals or the doctor's office get thrown too.)  However, actually throwing items away with children around is not so easy.  It involve trickery.  And subterfuge.  (And lots of sneaking things out when they aren't looking and then strategically placing more garbage on top of those things so no one realizes you threw it away.)  Don't judge me.  If you have small children, you have probably one or two broken Happy Meal toys that have met the awful fate of being buried alive under the coffee grounds.  You are maybe just not admitting it.

For donate, I generally have boxes or bags just for items I want to donate.  The first two are for boxes of hand me downs that I intend to pass on to my friends who have children just a bit younger than mine.  The third box is for a women's shelter.  The third is a box for Flip Flop Fleet which collects shoes, underwear, and bras for Haiti.    The fourth box is for our local thrift store.  To make this work, I do have to kind of have a plan beforehand and have an idea of what are acceptable donations for each place.

My last pile is for items I would like to sell.  This includes the dreaded words "garage sale."  Garage sales are a lot of work.  (Sometimes more work than what is profitable but that's another story.)  I try to cut down on my garage sale headache by staying on top of the garage sale pile throughout the year.  Here's how-whenever I have an item I want to put in the garage sale pile, before I put it in garage sale box, I put the price on a sticker and attach it to the item.  That method ensures that the bulk of my pricing is done months and months before the actual garage sale.  (Another quick tip is to not price books and stuffed animals or other small kids toys; just throw them in a box at the garage sale and have all books or all stuffed animals or small toys worth 50 cents or a quarter.  Anything like that I don't pre price; I just through it in the garage sale box and deal with it on garage sale day.)  I also have a few other options for selling items.  We use a local consignment store for most of our clothing.  They take both kids' clothes and adult, so anything I would like to consign I put in a box to take to the consignment store about once a month.  I usually average $15 a month at the consignment store.  With the baby, I've also gotten onto quite a few for sale by owner type sites on Facebook where people are selling all sorts of stuff locally like kids' clothing, baby gear, and furniture.  I've bought items from these sites and I have used these sites to sell items too.

Throw, donate, or sell-those are the piles.  Lest you think my house is crapfree, come visit.  You're welcome to see my crap that usually fills the counter that I've claimed as office space.  Just don't look in the garbage. Under the paper towels, leftover spaghetti, and half eaten apple,  you just might hear an armless Barbie begging to be rescued

"Wow! You're a Big Family!" Controlling the Chaos Tidbit #6-Paper Clutter

I am not the world's best housekeeper.  Not even close.  I kind of pick and choose what I clean.  (Until certain things get so gross that I can't stand to look at them anymore.  Like the inside of the microwave.  And the patio doors.)  But there are certain things that I do try to tackle everyday because not doing so would drive me batty.

Like paper clutter.  It seems like it's one of those things that where if neglected, it starts multiplying.  Between bills, newspapers, coupons, calendars, kids schoolwork, junk mail, and magazines, it just grows and grows and grows.

 My best tricks for trying to keep it contained:

1.  Have a place for things beforehand.  For me, this kind of boils down to a couple of things.  I have a 3 ring binder that organizes our life.  It has my master calendar, a section for school related papers (like schedules and lunch menus), a section for phone numbers, and a section for information for baby sitters.  I have a dish drainer that I use to organize the papers I most often use.  (Unpaid bills, Zeke's Shriner's stuff, and insurance forms are 3 files I have in there right now.  Plus a miscellaneous folder for those random papers that don't really merit a folder of their own but that you know you will need.)  The slots for the dishes are just the right side for keeping a file upright and I use the silverware basket to hold my unpaid bills, a checkbook, and address labels.  Our dining room has a built in desk area with drawers for filing which is where I keep the paid bills, warranty information, insurance policies, etc..  I also have another binder that is for my coupons.

2.Only touch it once.  I try to only touch paper stuff once.  This means when I bring in the mail I quickly sort out the junk mail from everything else and put it in recycling.  The bills I put in my bill holder until I am ready to pay them.  Invitations go into my binder and get written on the calendar.  School lunch menus get punched and put into my binder.  I have a file for insurance paperwork, a file for Zeke's Shriner's stuff, etc. so that I can quickly put those things away.  I try to deal with papers as soon as they enter the house so that I can avoid the dreaded piles of paperwork.

I also try to follow those two tips when I deal with my papers from my kids' school.  Each of my school age kids have a clipboard on the end of our desk space.  When they unpack their book bags, any papers get clipped to the clipboard.  The papers stay there until I am ready to look at them.  Then, I recycle what we aren't keeping, send back to school what needs to go back, and file anything that looks important that I might want to keep for them to look back on.  We also have a display wall in the hallway with clipboards where the kids can display their papers.  Each kid has two clipboards.  This means they can only hang up two pictures at a time.  That means they have to do some thinking about what they want to display.

This is a real life photo.  Note the large box on the floor, the messy winter clothing, and the half erased chalkboard.

And what to do with those papers you want to keep for your kids? At our house, each kid has a large box in the basement.  Any papers they want to keep get placed in the box.  I do try to date the pieces but other than that, there really isn't any organization to the boxes.  I just toss the papers in and I'm hoping that one box will be sufficient for each kid through high school.