Mother's Day 2010

I had a lovely Mother's Day this year, got to sleep in (a favorite of mine), sweet gifts from my boys and lastly my wish was to get my porch plants potted and my porch cleaned up.

This is the sweet present Jaden made for me at school. It is a pink heart-shaped necklace made out of paper and glitter:) It came packaged so fancy in a hand-made box and bag decorated by my sweet firstborn.
Bryson made me a tissue-paper book mark and adorable crayon-melt heart card:) I so love these sweet hand-made gifts from my precious sons!
Todd got me a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

My porch all complete with pots planted!

My other Mother's Day gift was finishing up this project. I bought the pavers, soil and plants and my awesome Dad/Gardener assembled it. I love the way it turned out and it will look even better when the different groundcover plants spread to surround each paver.


Our yard is a definite work-in-progress and each year we accomplish a little bit more. I feel like our front yard on the south side is pretty much complete (I'm sure there will be a few changes here and there over the years). I have so much to do still on our side and back yard, but a little progress each year is what we try to accomplish! The only other items on my major yard to-do list this year is to build a few more raised garden boxes (for more raspberries and blueberries) and to build a stone paver area for our garbage/recycling area on the side of our house (much like the one I built for the boys' sandbox last summer).

House Projects and Other Stuff.

Exciting title huh?

I have been super busy working on all our house projects and other resolutions on my list. I have cleared out the front closet (and got rid of a bunch of coats that we never wear), went through all my extra decorations in the cupboards on the bottom of living room shelves, went through most of the kitchen cabinets clearing and decluttering, and reorganized our entertainment center even the top of it! Our kitchen and bathroom cabinets our actually naked right now as the cabinet company came back to collect them and refinish the front of the lower cabinets doors and drawers. The finish on the top of several of them had started to peel away from water damage, we didn't realize that we were supposed to apply a wood oil to the front of the cabinets at least once a year. Whoops! Fortunately, Todd works closely to the contractor who recommended the cabinet company so they came and did all this work for free!

I also went through the kids toys and got rid of a bunch of junk. I bought some round wooden circles, had gramps help me drill two small holes into them, spray painted them black, labeled them with a white paint pen and attached them to some new and existing wicker baskets with white ribbon to reorganize our toys in the playroom. I wanted it to have a chalkboard look, but without letting my kids easily wipe the labels away! That drives me crazy, LOL! I also attached a few to the wicker baskets in our entryway.

I still have a lot left to do. I want to work on our master bedroom next. I have been putting off finishing our bedroom since we moved into our house. I have lots of plans, one of the first steps is to paint the bed frame, dresser and mirror frame black. I started to paint an armoire (that I bought almost two years ago at a garage sale) to put in our room but the black is not a true black so I am going to sand and start all over with a paint/primer in one which I found on a blog that is supposed to be fabulous. I also want to reorganize our closet, finally paint our fireplace mantel white which was put in 3 years ago, build and hang some shelves and make some art work for above our headboard. To finish off the room I want to buy a new duvet cover and a chaise lounge that I have been coveting from IKEA. So excited to get these projects underway!

I also need to list a bunch of stuff on craigslist! I am finally ready to get rid of all most of the baby and toddler things as well as a bunch of other items that I have been meaning to list!

In other news, the boys have been getting along fabulously lately! They are really at the age where they can play so nice together. Bryson is finally understanding "rules" of the games (which Jaden primarily creates;). Of course, this is not always the case and they have their disagreements too. They are both really into superheroes right now and often role-play. Bryson, especially, is obsessed with wearing his Superman cape everyday. He also loves his Superman shirt and would wear it everyday if I let him.

Here are a few pictures of them playing Hungry Hungry Hippo today in their matching p.j.'s:)



Here are the baskets by our front door with the circle labels.

The playroom baskets.

Basement and resolutions

We cleared the basement this weekend, in hopes of actually working on it this winter. I have a ton of things on my New Years resolution list this year. Most of them involve organization, many have been put off for years! These do not have to be done in order, but I am hoping to work on completing most of them during the cold winter months.

1) organize and go through all closets (downstairs and upstairs)
2) organize and go through all drawers and cabinets (kitchen, entertainment and bathrooms)
3) go through all kids toys in playroom and bedrooms (make labels for the baskets)
4) hang shelf above entertainment center (buy brackets to hang)
5) finish curtains and rehang rods (we hung them too low in several places originally so I want to fix that)
6) hang wallpaper in the laundry room
7) get cabinets for the laundry room and hang
8) hang pull-out hanging dryer for the laundry room that my dad gave me for my birthday 2 years ago!
9) build shelves in the storage room upstairs
10) finish our bedroom, which will involve: painting our bedroom furniture black
11) building shelves to put on the wall
12) making art for the wall above our headboard
13) finally painting the fireplace mantel that Gramps and Todd made 3 years ago!
14) take a bunch of stuff to the Goodwill after going through toys, closets, drawers and cupboards
15) build a shelf system for Jaden to display his Legos
16) build some book racks for Jaden's room
17) find material to sew a fort around Jaden's loft bed
18) help Todd on the basement when possible
19) paint guest bedroom and move Bryson (this may not happen until next fall, but I already know what I want to do for his new bedroom).
20) list and sell a bunch of stuff on Craigslist!

I'm sure a lot will be added to my to-do list as the year progresses, mostly I feel the strong urge to get organized! We have collected so much stuff since we moved into this house almost 5 years ago and I am ready to purge a lot!