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Parenting

Annie

Hello everyone! I’m back. Fell off the social media planet for a bit.  We have had quite a month!  I know most of you come here for organizing/home decor, etc. so I’m giving you a pre warning that today’s ramblings are more of a personal/family post.  I need this recorded in my blog books!  I don’t have time to keep up two separate blogs, so until I do, you all know that once in a while the family stuff gets sprinkled in-between.  :)  Plus this is pretty much all we’ve been doing for the past three months and it has just been too much fun not to share!  Two more pre warnings: #1 – this will be a long post (a lot I want recorded!) and #2 – I’m going to be shamelessly bragging about my girls.  I know – so annoying that I’m about to be one of THOSE moms.  But I can’t help it.  I’m just so proud of them I could burst.  :)  Regular organizing and decorating posts are right around the corner!

In October my girls decided to try out for their first play.  They have done a theatre camp the past two summers with CYC (California Youth Conservatory) just for fun and LOVED it.  My girls have always loved singing and dancing and can be quite hams when they want to be so it didn’t surprise me they loved theatre camp.  CYC is known around here for their high quality children’s theatre so when one of the camp directors reached out to us and told us they were putting on the show Annie and thought the girls had a chance at principal orphan parts, we decided to give it a shot.  The girls each practiced a song and a short monologue for their scheduled tryouts.  They both did great and made the first cuts!  Then a week later, we met on a Saturday afternoon with everyone else who made the first cut for the second round of tryouts.  I wasn’t sure what to expect and about died when I walked into the auditorium where they were holding the tryouts.  SO many kids!  There were only six girls (orphans) that would actually get speaking and solo singing parts.  I got really nervous.  Thoughts were racing through my head.  This will be hard when they don’t make it.  Even harder, what if one of them makes it and the other one doesn’t!?

Continue reading “Annie”

xoxo, Erin
Organization

Over 20 ways to organize your home and life!

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How is the organizing coming along everyone?  Did you all make a year plan?  I’m seriously so excited about my plan (you can see it all here!).  It feels so good to know that everything I want to get done this year will eventually get done.  I’m just tackling my house in small bite sized manageable pieces.  :)  The month is quickly flying by and I’m almost finished with my January spaces (attic/extra room/play room).  Hoping to take pictures and share them soon!  Today I’m sharing over 20 ways to organize your home and life!  I thought I’d pull up some of my past organizing projects to give us all some motivation.  I know I can use some right about now!  Some of these pictures are from spaces in our previous house and some are from the new house. Hopefully you will find something in this round-up that will help you with the spaces you are currently working on.  (Click each link for the full post!)

Continue reading “Over 20 ways to organize your home and life!”

xoxo, Erin
Organization

2015 planner/handprint calendar

Happy Monday everyone!  We’ve had such a fun and busy week with our kids.  Lots of good stuff going on around here that I’ll share at some point!  But first I wanted to tell you all about my new planner for 2015!  You guys – I’ve finally gone digital.  I have tried countless times to use my iPhone for a planner/calendar and just couldn’t do it.  I love paper so much!  But my husband and I were spending so much time e-mailing each other back and forth all day about things to add to our calendars… cancel this and add that and we can’t make it to this and call and change that appointment…  Then we added a few new activities for the kids to our schedule and had so much going on that we quickly realized we needed a new system.  So we did a little research and discovered the app COZI.  Have you heard of it?  It’s a family organizer and we are in love!  It’s so user friendly and I love the way it lays out your day, week and month.  Kenny has my calendar synced up with his work calendar so we can both add things and notify each other.  Perfect for families with older kids too – the whole family can use it.  I could write about all I love about Cozi for an hour but you can check it out for yourself here.  So many neat features.  I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to a paper planner and for me that’s saying a lot!  (Not advertising for them btw – just love this app and wanted to share it with all of my fellow planners.)  :)
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I still use my Time Management Binder (full post here) to organize everything else going on.  This binder has always worked so well for me.  There are places in Cozi to write out to-do and grocery lists, etc. but I still prefer to do that on paper.  I’ll always love making a list and checking things off.  :)

K now I have to show you this adorable handprint calendar Kole made for us in pre-school!  This would be such a cute idea for a Mother’s day or Father’s day gift.  Or for grandparents at Christmas/birthdays.  Each month has a picture with his handprints in it…

january-handprint-calendarfebruary-handprint-calendarmarch-handprint-calendarapril-handprint-calendarmay-handprint-calendarjune-handprint-calendarjuly-handprint-calendaraugust-handprint-calendarseptember-handprint-calendaroctober-handprint-calendarnovember-handprint-calendardecember-handprint-calendar
Is that not the cutest thing!?  Such a keepsake.

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It’s hanging in my pantry and out of all of the calendars I’ve used over the years, this one takes the cake.

:)

Happy Planning everyone!

xoxo, Erin
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Displaying and Saving Christmas Cards

Ok.  I have to start this post by saying that I was so touched by your sincere comments after my 2015 goals/word post!  Honestly some of them made me tear up.  So kind of you all.  I have an e-mail folder full of blog comments and e-mails I’ve saved over the years that have meant a lot to me.  I call it my “rainy day folder” and I turn to it whenever I’m having a bad/hard day for a little pick me up.  :)  Most of the comments on my last post are now in that folder.  Thank you!  Truly.  Your love and support mean the world to me.
butler's-pantry-christmas-cards Talking Christmas cards today!  Do you still have yours up?  I might be a little crazy, but I usually keep my cards on display until after January (sometimes through February!).  They make me so happy and I’m never ready to part with them right after Christmas.  Here are a few pics of how I displayed them this year.  I had grand plans of displaying them in a fun way on a blank wall near my office and then just ran out of time to put it together (maybe next year..).  Instead my kitchen pantry door frame became the landing spot!  I used painters tape to hold the cards up and they’ve all stayed in place.  YEA.

Continue reading “Displaying and Saving Christmas Cards”

xoxo, Erin
Uncategorized

My goals and word for 2015

Happy Friday everyone!  So glad I made it through this week!  The first week back after Christmas vacation is always a hard one for me.  I can’t help feeling a little down that the holidays are over and I always miss my extended family after spending time with them.  Plus it’s just so hard getting back into the routine, isn’t it!?  Feeling so busy and rushed after such a nice two weeks of moving at our own pace.  Which was slow.  I’ve decided I quite like moving slow.  There isn’t enough slowness in my life.  :)

I’ve been thinking a lot about my goals for the year this week.  Are you a goal setter?  I’ve always loved setting goals.  I don’t always achieve everything I set out to do.  In fact, I pulled out my goals from last year and Kenny and I were laughing so hard because I hardly achieved any of them!  (Start planning meals – nope.  Go to bed by 11:00 every night – nope.  Exercise six days a week – nope.)  Ha!  That’s ok.  Just the act of reflecting on where I’m at in my life and thinking about ways to better myself is rewarding and important, regardless of whether or not I follow through with everything.  At least that’s what I’m telling myself to feel better.  :)

This year I’m being very realistic and kind to myself and setting goals that are more attainable for me during this busy stage of life.  I’m also trying to think about goals that will help me become a better person.  In fact, my word for the year is BETTER.  I want to be better next year than I am this year.  So here are my goals for 2015.  I’m hoping that by sharing them with all of you I’ll have a better success rate than last year!  Although given my poor performance in 2014, that shouldn’t be hard to pull off.

Continue reading “My goals and word for 2015”

xoxo, Erin
Organization

How to make an effective plan to organize your home this year

how-to-make-an-effective-plan-to-organize-your-homeWell!  Christmas decor is finally put away and I am slowly coming out of my annual post-Christmas funk.  Ever so slowly.  :)  The one thing I always look forward to at the beginning of each new year is making my annual “to organize” list.  YEA.  Nothing like a good list to start the year off right!  We all know how much smoother life runs when our homes are in order.  This is the year!  Time to get our houses organized.  I have been thinking so much lately about how I want to plan my year as far as organizing our home.  Last year I wrote a post about how to make an effective “to organize” list.

Continue reading “How to make an effective plan to organize your home this year”

xoxo, Erin
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Christmas front porch!

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Happy January everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful holiday.  We enjoyed some time in Utah with family and I have to say that tonight I’m feeling depressed!  SO bummed the vacation is over.  I’m really not ready to re-engage tomorrow.  I know I should be all excited about a fresh new year and goal setting and organizing and I’m sure that will come, but tonight I just want to keep eating chocolate by the fire in my pajamas.  :)  Because of my ‘not ready to let go of all things Christmas’ mood it feels quite appropriate that I share some pictures of our front porch decked for the holidays that I never got around to posting.  Nothing like bringing in the New Year with Christmas lights right!?  Anyone with me?

Since none of you are answering I’ll assume it’s ok to carry on..  :) Continue reading “Christmas front porch!”

xoxo, Erin
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Recent December pics

Well.  I’ve been a bad blogger lately, haven’t I?  Sorry for the lack of posting lately!  We are soaking up as much family time as possible and I’m so happy we still have the rest of the week.  I’ve been much better about sharing pics on Instagram – it’s so fast and easy.  When my kids and husband are home with me I just can’t bring myself to spend hours on the computer.  But a few posts are almost finished and coming soon because I still have Christmas decorating posts that I never finished!  December got away from me.  It always does no matter how prepared I try to be.  For now here are a few random pics from the past two weeks I never got around to posting…
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My little buddy helping his daddy make pancakes – our Saturday morning routine.   Continue reading “Recent December pics”

xoxo, Erin
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Christmas Card Stair Garland

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Happy almost Christmas everyone!  Are you ready?  We are wrapping things up around here.  Literally.  :)  I was going to gear up to face the crowds today and hit the mall for a few last minute things, but my little buddy isn’t feeling well.  He is asleep across my lap sharing space with my laptop as I type this right now.  Poor little thing.  Thank goodness for Amazon!  Guess I’ll be doing my last minute Christmas shopping on-line.  I can live with that.  :)  Thought I’d share some pics of our staircase decked for the holidays!  But first our Christmas card… Continue reading “Christmas Card Stair Garland”

xoxo, Erin
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Christmas in the family room

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Is everyone still standing!?  Surviving the busiest month of the year!?  I’m so happy to have made it through this week!  So much fun but I’m exhausted.  I love all of the parties and school programs and gift giving and craziness, but my favorite part of December is when my kids are out of school and we can just be home enjoying the season together as a family.  Really looking forward to next week!  I have so many things I still want to share on the blog this December and I’m running out of time!  One week until Christmas.  Yikes!  Time to get posting.  :) Continue reading “Christmas in the family room”

xoxo, Erin
Uncategorized

Neutral Christmas Console Table

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Happy Monday everyone!  One more week until kids are out of school for Christmas break!  I have to be honest and say that I’m so excited to get this week behind me.  I can’t wait to have my kids out of school so we can spend mornings in our pajamas watching Christmas movies and evenings in our pajamas driving around looking at Christmas lights.  There seems to be a theme here with pajamas.  Clearly I’m a fan.  :)christmas-console-table-decorating
Sharing how I decorated my console table for the holidays today!  This table ended up being more neutral and less colorful than I originally planned, but it still feels festive when you come around the corner into our family room.

Continue reading “Neutral Christmas Console Table”

xoxo, Erin

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