Thursday, November 25, 2010

Not a Box

This is not a box.

It's a train.

It's a chew toy.

It's a reading nook.

It's a picnic table.

But it's not - oh! Wait, could it be...?

Nope, not a box. It's a play room.

  
Note: I love the book "Not a Box" by Antoinette Portis. I will review it soon on Manor Books, with some fun activity suggestions.

Monday, November 22, 2010

The Annual Week-Before-Thanksgiving Organizing Frenzy

Over the last few years, this last week has turned out to be the week I panic and start organizing so I'll be "ready for Christmas." Right. Like I could ever be organized enough things wouldn't be messy by the end of the holidays! But, this helps things go a lot more smoothly.

Some of the goals of this organizing session:
1. Create space in the pantry and fridge for goodies from neighbors, as well as Tony's students and co-workers.
2. Create spcae in the fridge for cookie and sweets ingredients, and a space in the pantry for the same.
3. Designate a place for gifts we recieve and don't know where to put yet. This year we have half a shelf in the linen closet for this purpose. Some years we have a laundry basket tucked away somewhere.
4. When I do the entry again, I will make an outgoing gifts area, with all our gifts and wrapping supplies.

My first task was cleaning out the very full and disgusting fridge. Here is the after, where you can actually see everything. That is my rule of thumb: Get everything in sight and easy reach, then stop.


Next was the pantry. Again, I got everything in sight and reach, then stopped. No need to go further. It would maybe look nicer with all matchy containers, but this works, and is a lot cheaper.




The horror, the horror! All of this stuff was crammed into our corner cabinet. We could never find anything. We had to take everything out to get to what we wanted. Things were getting smashed. It was awful!

Since we couldn't afford to remodel the kitchen, which is what I really wanted to do, I grabbed a bunch of boxes instead. I sorted things by type and frequency of use into boxes, then slid the boxes in.

Not everything needed a box - the oil is just lined up where I can easy grab, since it's a most frequently used item.

This is where we store all our extras I find  really cheap or free.



Now if I want something behind the boxes, I just pull the box out instead of having to unload the entire cabinet, one item at a time. It's just like having drawers! I'll post back in a couple weeks and let you know how this is working out.

Since I was at it, I did the pots and pans too:

I'm also redoing the entry closet, to make room for incoming and outgoing gifts.

I'd love to hear when you find yourself doing the most organizing. Is it before a major holiday? When the weather is nice? When you find a spot you just can't stand anymore? Are there places in your house  you have to work over and over again before you find something that works?

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Karlea's Birthday Party and Trick-or-Treating

Here is the long awaited, much anticipated sequel to last week's post. Last year I entered a drawing, and won, for the very first time in my life! The prize was a birthday party to 15 at Alligator Andy's. Woohoo! I figured Karlea was the family member who lived in town who was closest to the right age to enjoy this sort of thing, so we celebrated her birthday there. We all had so much fun!

Eating pizza:

Blowing out the candles:
Playing b-ball with Daddy:
Skiball:
"This is so much fun!!!!"
Whoops, sideways :) Cadence spent a lot of time just climbing back and forth, back and forth, over these seats.
Miniature golf:
With all the commotion it would up being more like throw the ball and run around shrieking golf, but the point was to have fun, so thats ok!
I love, love, LOVE it when she walks around with her arms crossed.

Last on our agenda for the day was Trick-or-Treating. We pretty much just go to Nana and Papa's, but it's fun for her to get to wear her costume and carry her beloved bucket around.

She has recently perfected knocking:
The chef got candy!
Here are some less blurry pictures of Cadence in her costume before the actual event. I couldn't seem to get a good one while we were out :)

Monday, November 15, 2010

Gracie


Tony got me a puppy for my birthday! She is a registered Labrador Retriever, pure black. She is sweet, shy, loves to play and learns quickly. She loves Cadence, and Cadence tolerates her :) It has been a big adjustment getting the toddler and the puppy used to each other, but is going well over all. Cadence does love the puppy, she's just used to having her space :D

Playing in the dog's kennel:


She spends a lot of time sleeping, and a lot of time whining. 


Grace Ann Chancellor


 Having fun playing - her favorite toy is the ball.






Thursday, November 11, 2010

Red Ribbon Parade

Whew! The last Saturday of October was busy, and I haven't had time to share any pictures! I'm going to do a post today, and another in one week to share the pictures. In the morning we woke up and had the Red Ribbon Parade. From what I've heard, Moore has the biggest one in America, or something like that. All I know is, there is lots of candy. Cadence loved it. She liked watching the people go by. She was in awe of the percussion section. And she LOVED picking up candy off the ground and putting it in her bucket.








And my two favorites from the morning:



Thursday, November 4, 2010

A Recent Trip to Tulsa

We had so much fun visiting Mommy, Alex, Josh, JoJo, Auntie... you get the point :)
 Cadence really loved playing outside.
 With Uncle Alex. Have I mentioned she LOVES Uncle Alex?
 This brought back memories. I think all the kids to ever be in this back yard have used the storm cellar door to climb up and slide down. She delighted in making me nervous by climbing along the very edge. Could she not have climbed in the middle?!
 Ok, I apologize to the self-conciese Cadence of the future, but this picture cracks me up.
 Do you see what my dear sweet child is chugging?
 It's lime juice. Uncle Alex was encouraging her. And, well, ok, probably Mommy and I laughing encouraged her too.
 Then she got the lemon juice. She made really funny faces - and then she just kept on chugging!
 "Yum, I like this sour stuff!"