Play Room: Keeping It Clean

Don't we all wish our play rooms looked this clean  all the time?!?

Well I am here to tell you I don't have perfect children that put away one toy before they get out another one. So from the hours of 8 A.M. - 8 P.M. this is what their play room looks like.

It takes talent to destroy a room like that. Lucky for me they like to clean up just like their momma. My kids are only two so cleaning up to them is not a chore it is a game, so I make it fun for them.

Here is my secret :



They know it is time to pick up when I drag out the shopping cart and wagon. We then go "shopping for toys" all around the house. I then drag all the bins out on the floor and they unload the toys into the correct bins (I still have to help tell them where somethings go but they are getting pretty good about knowing which bin they go in.)

It's basically just like grocery shopping, you pick out all the stuff and then have to unload it into your cabinets. I might just be preparing them for when they are old enough to go grocery shopping because there is nothing I hate worse than grocery shopping.

Confession: I put my kids in onesies for two reasons because they started taking their diapers off AGAIN (we have already been through this phase once) and I also like that they look like little babies instead of  toddlers. I wonder how big they make onesies so I can keep pretending they are babies? ;)

So there is my secret on how to keep the play room neat from the hours of 8 P.M. to 8 A.M. I would love to hear how others  make cleaning up fun for their kids. 

The fabulous parties I am linking up to:

Lil Luna
Organize and Decorate Everything
Crystal and Co.
House of Hepworths
Delightful Order
Gluesticks
Tatertots and Jello
Be Different Act Normal
I Heart Naptime
Tip Junkie
A Bowl Full of Lemons
Let Birds Fly
Somewhat Simple
Fingerprints on the Fridge
Tidy Mom
320 Sycamore
I Can Teach My Child

Play Room: Art

When we decided that this room would be the play room, I really wanted to paint the room to brighten it up. After the big paint spill of 2011(when I spilt half a gallon of paint all over the nursery carpet) that I caused at our old house, my husband forbid me to paint another room again :)

So I knew that I would have to put up some bright and cheery artwork to brighten up the dark walls. I searched etsy for a couple weeks and I wasn't finding anything that I wanted for the price I wanted so I decided  we (me and the boys) would make all the art and add in a couple pictures of them.

From left to right, top to bottom:

- Picture of Grant during his first birthday photo shoot.

- Shoot For The Stars. I chose this quote because I hope they always remember to dream big and learn to never settle for less.  I used a piece of red and white chevron paper for the background and using my Silhouette I applied the vinyl design on the glass.

- I painted this letter G, that I got from Hobby Lobby, apple green. Everyone thinks I need two since I have two kids that start with the letter G but I like the way it looks with just one.

- For the three vehicles I did the same thing as I did with the "Shoot For The Stars" art, I used different color background paper and then applied the different color vinyl to the glass.

-Gabe at his first birthday photo shoot.

- The next two pieces are the little ones first masterpieces. We made them using the mess- free fingerpainting technique that I showed you last fall. I am framing these because you never know they might be worth millions one day ;)

I am by no means done decorating their  play room, so I will be sharing more as I finish it. Although nothing in my house ever seems to be "finished", every room is always subject to change.

You can find more about their playroom here:

Reading Nook

Organization

The fabulous parties I am linking up to:

Lil Luna
Organize and Decorate Everything
Crystal and Co.
House of Hepworths
Delightful Order
Gluesticks
Tatertots and Jello
Be Different Act Normal
I Heart Naptime
Tip Junkie
A Bowl Full of Lemons
Let Birds Fly
Somewhat Simple
Fingerprints on the Fridge
Tidy Mom
320 Sycamore
Oopsey Daisy
Six Sisters Stuff

Play Room: Organization

I bought these ClosetMaid Cube Organizers when the boys were newborns and their first purpose was to hold bibs, blankets, onesies, hats, socks and books in their closet. You can see that I still use some of the fabric bins in their closet now but when we moved I put the cube shelves in their playroom to organize all their toys.

I originally had plastic bins in the cubicals with the fabric bins but they broke very easy so I set out to find something that was "Gabe and Grant proofed" and I found these sturdy metal buckets at Ikea in the gardening section.

I labeled the metal buckets with vinyl.

 We have a bin for small stuffed animals....does anyone else hate these things as much as I do?!?!

 Every little boy needs a bin for cars, right?!

A bin for all their electronic devices. They have probably 8 phones...you know because they have so many people to call. 

A bin for all their basketball and footballs.

I leave out a few baby toys for when their baby friends come over but now those baby friends are all growing up too. 

A bin for all the stacking cups and blocks. 

You can find more about their playroom here:

Reading Nook

Art

The fabulous parties I am linking up to:

Lil Luna
Organize and Decorate Everything
Crystal and Co.
House of Hepworths
Delightful Order
Gluesticks
Tatertots and Jello
Be Different Act Normal
I Heart Naptime
Tip Junkie
A Bowl Full of Lemons
Let Birds Fly
Somewhat Simple
Fingerprints on the Fridge
Tidy Mom
320 Sycamore
Oopsey Daisy
Six Sisters Stuff

Play Room: Reading Nook

I LOVE children's books and wanted my kids to share that love of reading. When I saw these Rain Gutter Book Shelves, I knew it was what we needed for the boy's playroom. We put these up in September but I am just now getting around to showing you.

What I LOVE about the shelves:

- The boys can easily find the book they are looking for because all books are facing forward.

- It is a lot easier for a toddler to clean up books this way versus stacking.

NOTE: If you do these shelves, put ALL brackets on STUDS. We didn't put the middle ones on studs and the boys can now pull the screw out of the wall.

Stay tuned the rest of the week for how I decorated the playroom, how I organized it, and how they destroy it.

You can find more about their play room here:

organization

Art

The fabulous parties I am linking up to:

Lil Luna
Organize and Decorate Everything
Crystal and Co.
House of Hepworths
Delightful Order
Gluesticks
Tatertots and Jello
Be Different Act Normal
I Heart Naptime
Tip Junkie
A Bowl Full of Lemons
Let Birds Fly
Somewhat Simple
Fingerprints on the Fridge
Tidy Mom
320 Sycamore
Oopsey Daisy
Six Sisters Stuff

Sneak Peek and a Winner

We have a winner for the My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Software but first I wanted to give you a sneak peek of what will be going on around this blog next week.

We will be talking about the boy's playroom all week. How I organized it, how I decorated it,  how they destroy it, and how we manage to get it all cleaned up again by the end of the day. I know toy storage and organization is something a lot of parents are struggling with now that Santa has left your house looking like a toy store. So I hope to inspire you to get your children's toys in order too.

Now onto the winner of the giveaway, I got one of my little helpers to assist me.

And he picked the #6 and the 6th person to comment on the giveaway was Shahny. Check your e-mail Shahny for the details on how to get your software.

If you weren't the lucky winner don't worry, all my readers can use this  promo code STMMMS97306 to get $10 off their software order at My Memories.



Sesame Street Party- Wrap Up

The invite was pretty much the only thing I didn't have part in. I ordered these from the Etsy seller, BrieZee's Boutique.

The big white space under the date wasn't actually there, I just whited our address out for privacy reasons.

I shared with you the food, decor, and the party pictures. Now here is how it looked all put together.

I hope you enjoyed party week.

To see more about our Sesame Street Party, visit these links:

The Food

The Decor

The Party Pictures

Don't forget to go enter the My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Software Giveaway. It ends Janurary 14th at Midnight.

The fabulous parties I am linking up to:

Lil Luna
Organize and Decorate Everything
Crystal and Co.
House of Hepworths
Delightful Order
Gluesticks
Tatertots and Jello
Be Different Act Normal
I Heart Naptime
Tip Junkie
A Bowl Full of Lemons
Let Birds Fly
Somewhat Simple
Fingerprints on the Fridge
Tidy Mom
320 Sycamore
Oopsey Daisy
Six Sisters Stuff

Sesame Street Party: The Party Pictures

On Monday I showed you the food, yesterday I showed you the decorations, and today I will show you how the "stars of the show" liked their party.

My mom said that when I saw these pictures I would be confused and I was. My husband wasn't paying attention what the bibs said just put a bib on each kid. Resulting in the wrong bib on the wrong kid and I was looking at it thinking....wait a minute that isn't Grant lol 

They didn't care for the bounce house part but they LOVED the slide.

It wouldn't be a party without a tantrum. I know, I know, it's his party he can cry if he wants to.

And these are some of my favorites from the party. They are with their great grandparents.



Tomorrow I will wrap up this party week with the invitations and how it looked all put together.

Don't forget to go enter the My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Software Giveaway. It ends Janurary 14th.

Sesame Street Party: The Decor

On Monday, I posted about the food at the party. Today we will focus on the decorations that I spent many late nights and months putting together. Of course I probably could have spent many MORE months planning and added more decorations but there is only so much time. Oh well onto the next party I am planning ;)

I got the idea for these balloon wreaths at How Does She. I think mine must be fuller than hers because I used WAY more balloons than she did. I made at least two extra trips to Walmart because I thought I had enough but turns out I didn't. This was a super easy project but it was pretty time consuming. I guess mainly because I had to do two....story of my life ;) I justified the time it took because I know that I can use them in the future.

The wreaths look really small in this picture but they are really average size, my doors are huge.

To make it more personal for my boys, I made these Sesame Street signs with their names on it. How perfect that I have two doors right?

I made the sign using my Silhouette. I just cut a green and yellow rectangle, a green and yellow circle and glued the circle behind the rectangle where only half was showing. I used the Arial font for the letters and number. Real scientific right?

I also made these Sesame Street characters using my Silhouette to hang on my pot rack. I used the scalloped circle to make the faces and different shapes( circles and ovals) to make the eyes and mouths.

I  like to use my hanging pot rack for anything but it's original purpose of hanging pots.

I made the banner also. I cut the circle and letters on my Silhouette and attached together with ribbon.

This next banner is the only party decoration that I didn't make but it is pretty special too. It was the banner from my 3rd birthday party. Yes my mom really kept it all this time and no she is not some crazy hoarder ;)

The boys got ahold of this banner one day and I was chasing after them saying "Noo you can't play with that it is vintage"...true story :)

I made these for centerpieces for the island. The lollipops were favors for the kids. I made the characters the same way I made the one that were hanging.

I am sure all the parents loved me for the lollipops ;)

To see more about our Sesame Street Party, visit these links:

The Food

The Party Pictures

The Wrap Up

Don't forget to go enter the My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Software Giveaway. It ends Janurary 14th.

The fabulous parties I am linking up to:

Lil Luna
Organize and Decorate Everything
Crystal and Co.
House of Hepworths
Delightful Order
Gluesticks
Tatertots and Jello
Be Different Act Normal
I Heart Naptime
Tip Junkie
A Bowl Full of Lemons
Let Birds Fly
Somewhat Simple
Fingerprints on the Fridge
Tidy Mom
320 Sycamore
Oopsey Daisy
Six Sisters Stuff

Sesame Street Party: The Food

On New Years Eve we had the boy's 2nd birthday party. The theme was Sesame Street of couse. All they talk about it "Melmo" (Elmo). I decide to break this up into several different post about the details and then I will show you it all put together at the end of the week.

Today we will talk about the food.

I made this rainbow slushy. I found the recipe at Ramblings from the Sunshine State. It was very tasty and pretty but if left out too long it turns into a yucky brown color.

 It wouldn't be a Sesame Street party without some yummy cookies for Cookie Monster. I made the ultimate cookie, it is a oatmeal, peanut butter, M&M , and chocolate chip cookie all wrapped into one cookie. It is called a Monster Cookie, fitting for a Sesame Street party right? I found the recipe for this at Simply So Good.

We had some potato chips for Big Bird and some goldfish in honor of Dorothy, Elmo's goldfish. We also had pizza because that is Elmo's favortie but I didn't get a picture of that.



And it wouldn't be a birthday without some kind of cake. Me and my cousin made these Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Grouch cupcakes.

To make these we put vanilla icing on the top, dipped them in different colors of sanding sugar.

Elmo

Eyes: Jumbo Marshmallows (sliced in fourths) and chocolate chips

Nose: Orange Peanut M&M

Mouth: Half an Oreo

Cookie Monster

Eyes: Jumbo Marshmallows (sliced in fourths) and chocolate chips

Mouth: Cut a slice in the cupcake and put a mini chocolate chip cookie

Grouch

Eyes: Jumbo Marshmallows (sliced in fourths) and chocolate chips. Black icing for his eyebrows.

Mouth: Half an Oreo

To see more about our Sesame Street Party, visit these links:

The Decor

The Party Pictures

The Wrap Up

Don't forget to go enter the My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Software Giveaway. It ends Janurary 14th.

The fabulous parties I am linking up to:

Lil Luna
Organize and Decorate Everything
Crystal and Co.
House of Hepworths
Delightful Order
Gluesticks
Tatertots and Jello
Be Different Act Normal
I Heart Naptime
Tip Junkie
A Bowl Full of Lemons
Let Birds Fly
Somewhat Simple
Fingerprints on the Fridge
Tidy Mom
320 Sycamore
Oopsey Daisy
Six Sisters Stuff