A little brotherly love

Austin loves his big sister Chloe (our Boxer) and tries to play with her as much as he can. His new favorite hide out is her cage~which he likes to put his toys into for her. Every night when we put Austin down and Chloe comes into the bonus room she goes to check her cage to see what kind of treasures her brother has left for her that day. Well on this day Austin thought Chloe might need to check her Facebook page or her doggie blogs, so he was sure to leave his laptop in the cage for her

Big Man @ the dinner table

Little A has been doing so well with feeding himself with his spoon & fork, we decided it was time for him to join us at the big table. He loves it and looks so big sitting there. We even found some really cute Elmo place mats in the $1 section at Target.

Spring Cleaning Day Two~Update

I am very proud of myself for pretty much completing Day two of our spring cleaning. I did the following to our family room today.

cleaned blinds

washed windows

washed curtains

dusted everything & Windex's

cleaned ALL the molding & trim

wiped down all the doors

swept

I still have the following To Do:

*vac the red sofa (this is the sofa that chloe uses as her bed~I tried to vac it today but little man had a fit
*mop

I need Brad's help with the following:

*clean the ceiling fan

*clean light fixtures under the catwalk

*clean the upper molding going into our b'fast area

*clean the leather soda.

Over all I think it was a good day!

Cleaning update

So I have a little confession this morning about my spring cleaning progress.... I didnt do any of it this weekend. I decided to take the weekend off and play with my boys. So today is back to the real world around here. I have to drop Bernie off this morning for a bath & haircut, then come back home and try to get started on our family room down stairs. We really dont use this room~well us with two legs dont use this room. Chloe has claimed our red sofa in the family room as her bed. She loves it. I finally got smart & put a blanket down on it so its not covered with dog hair. Why did I not think about this last year, before she wore the sofa out? So I will try & post some update of my cleaning progress later today. Wish me luck. This room is filled with molding, molding & more molding. Hopefully Austin will be happy playing downstairs so I can get something accomplished.

Also, I will try to get some new pictures of my little guy posted later today!

Spring Cleaning Day Two-Living Area part one

So as I told you yesterday, I started my 10 day spring cleaning around our house. Day one was to do a "Clean Sweep" meaning just go thru the house and try to pick up each room. I did that (which really wasn't too much work. Now on to day two. Which I have already completed this morning. Day two & three are both the main living areas of your home and for us we spend all of our time in our Bonus Room/Playroom~ so I started here (tomorrow I will do our downstairs family room). I am really proud of myself for getting so much done today in this room. I did the following in our bonus room/playroom:

*cleaned the baseboards

*vac/cleaned the carpet right against the baseboards -you know that area where dust & dog hair seems drawn to that the vac. doesnt always get.

*sanitized all of little A's toys (except the balls in the ball pit & his mega blocks-but I will be doing those, I just have to take them to the shower for a good wash down) I am talking I even sanitized his play mat

*moved all furniture that is not attached to the walls to vac & clean under them

*wiped down the blinds

*washed the curtains

*washed the sofa covers

*vac, dusted & windexed the whole room

*cleaned the window

*sanitized Chloe's dog cage

Ok, I think thats about everything. I will try to post some after photos in a little while.

I am really wanting to get new furniture in our bonus room (sectional sofa, rug, end table, storage ottoman to be used as a coffee table and maybe a new desk for the computer). Brad & I have been wanting to get furniture for this room forever~but just havent broke down & made the purchase yet. I am hoping maybe sometime soon. I am trying to save, save, save so Brad will give in. After all this is the room we spend all of our time in. I will keep you posted on it.

You can view the full article on day two here. For me the room had pretty much already been declutered so I rolled up my sleves & did more of a deep clean.

Spring Cleaning Day One

SO today I am starting the spring cleaning party. Day one is a clean sweep

I found the following here: Be sure to check out simple mom for many great articles.

There are several reasons for starting with this:

1. Just like Dave Ramsey’s debt snowball involves paying off your smallest loans first in order to blow them out of the water and gain some emotional traction, picking up trash is an easy, brainless small task that packs a lot of punch. When you have quick visual progress, you stay motivated to continue with the rest of the job.
In fact, I’m listening to Dave Ramsey at this exact moment, and he just said, “Your attitude at the beginning of the task that determines how well you finish. How excited you are about something determines how well you do it.” Well said.

2. Getting the surfaces cleaned off helps you see what you really need to declutter and clean. If we’re going to get into the nitty gritty, we need to see where the real clutter lies. Wiping off the surfaces provides an accurate picture where we need to focus for the rest of our spring cleaning.

3. When you clean off the surfaces, it’s easier to keep up with basic housework for the rest of your two weeks. My spring cleaning process involves only a few hours a day of intense cleaning, in order to still have a life and do things like make dinner for your family, run your errands, and answer your email. If you take a day to surface clean, like you’re doing today, then it’ll be much easier to have time for dinner prep and toy pick-up.

Mandi’s post today on Organizing Your Way is all about Decluttering 101. Her ideas will get you stocked with motivation and tips to get started.

10 Days to Spring Cleaning

So I have been putting it off for long enough...Spring Cleaning time. Its something that we all hate to do but know it needs to be done. I have been trying to prepair myself for this for the last few months but have not found the real motivation to dig in and get to it. So this morning I came across a spring cleaning party over on simplemom. She breaks it down into a 10 day process with each day focusing on a different area. That doesn't seem so hard. I am going to start the process today and just take it one day at a time. We moved into our home almost a year & a half ago so its not too crazy yet. I am thinking that if I do this spring cleaning thing 2 times a year from now on~it should never get awful. I am hoping everyone will keep me in check and make sure I am sticking to this. Its only 10 days right?....... I have already cleared out a lot of unused items around our house recently for a garage sale so hopefully it wont be too bad. Its just time for the deep clean-washing windows, curtains, blinds, under the furniture. Sounds like fun right? Let me know if you decide to join me in this cleaning party and we can try to motivate each other. Here are the basic steps for each day

Here’s the Spring Cleaning Party schedule:
Thur. June 11 – a clean sweep
Fri June 12 – the living room, part one
Sat June 13 – the living room, part two
Sun June 14 – the kitchen, part one
Mon June 15 – the kitchen, part two
Tue June 16 – the bathrooms
Wen June 17 – the kids’ rooms, part one
Thur June 18– the kids’ rooms, part two
Friday June 19 – the master bedroom
Sat June 20 – the front entry

That should take care of everything. I am off to do my clean sweep today.

Cupcake time

My little man had too much fun the other day eating a cupcake. He doesn't get things this sweet too often~but he knew just what to do with it. He had icing all over his face when he was done.

Playing outside

Look at his crazy hair here. He's all kicked back and enjoying the ride!








Now that it is getting to be Summer Little A loves to play outside. However, it gets soooooo hot here during the day and the humidity is killer. So we have to time it just right. We get morning sun in our front yard and afternoon sun in the back. Most days we play in our driveway or front lawn for a while in the afternoon since there is so much shade there during this time. Austin loves running around and pushing all of his toys around.

Little A's personal race track!

Little A has recently discovered that his highchair can be used as a toy since it will move. He loves pushing it around our entire downstairs. Its like his own personal race track! He is very careful not to run into anything. He has so much fun doing this and screams with happiness.

Little A's bedroom makeover

In my little guys bedroom I knew I wanted something fun but had to do it on a budget.  So, I worked with the bedding he already has (Stop & GO-transportation theme).  I painted the upper half of his room a blue color and added a painted line to act as a chair rail in the center.  I added some red curt ins and painted some wooden letters to hang on the wall spelling his name and "play Zone".  I also hung some paper lanterns above his bed and my mom gave me a new transportation rug that he can drive his cars on.  Over all I would say I have less than $100 in upgrades/decorations in his room.  His room & bathroom are probably my 2 favorite rooms in the house.  

Austin's Bathroom Updates

One of the first rooms I decorated after we moved in was Austin's bathroom.  We are fortunate to have a bathroom that is only accessible from his room - which I know I will be so grateful for in the future.  So, we were able to make his bathroom a fun kid friendly theme.  I went with monkeys since after all he is our little monkey.  I really didn't spend much money in this room.  Aprox. $50 was all that was spent.  The shower curtain was from Target & the most expensive item in the room.  The rug and moneys above the toilet (which are actually place mats) are also from Target both items were on clearance.  The bright colored towels are from Old Time Pottery and the monkey towels are from Kohls (which I got on sale @ a great price).

Front lawn improvements

After my last posting listing all the things that I want to do differently to our home, I figured I better list the items we have already improved or are happy with.  Below you will find photos of the front of our home.  Anyone who knows my husband knows he takes pride in his lawn.  He always wants it to look great.  Since we moved into our home he has been working very hard on it.

We have pulled up most of the bushes that the builder put in & replaced them with different bushes & flowers.  We have replaced the tree in our front lawn (for some reason we had to do this at both of our homes after we bought them).  We have added a fence around the back yard and a bed along the front of the fence by the drive way and on the side of the house.