Patrick's Room

This weekend I came to a conclusion: Patrick's perpetually messy room is my penance and my test.  There is no other explanation for why my son's room is in a constant state of disarray.  The endless papers, stuffed animals, books, dirty clothes, stray socks, and random treasures are only there to test my resolve and mock me.  He is a world-class slob and sometimes I am in such awe of his slovenly ways that my head doesn't explode from anger and frustration (that's only sometimes, usually my head explodes and I get a trash bag a curse under my breath for 45 minutes). 

and for the record, there is only way place in our house that rivals Patrick's mess....

My Office.  This is a good day.

DIY Cleaning Supplies

Oh Pinterest.  You are a full-time job my friend!  You make me cook and clean and mommy ALL day long.

One of my favorite Pinterest discoveries is DIY cleaning supplies.  You know I love buying cleaning supplies but it is so expensive and toxic and all that.  So as my cleaning supply cache has dwindled I have started making my own.  I pin all of these to my home management board, there are lots of others there too.  I just haven't tried all of them yet.

Mama Lou's Top DIY Cleaning Supplies

1. Granite Cleaner from 320 * Sycamore.  I finally have granite!  We love the granite in our new house but I have been SO disappointed with the expensive granite cleaners.  Streaky weaksauce!  This cleaner is cheap and easy to make (rubbing alcohol, dawn and water). I'm on my second bottle.
2. Stain Remover from Modern Day Moms.  I've used this on several different stains (BBQ sauce, Ink, stains of unknown origin) and it has worked like a charm.  I haven't used it on the carpet yet but that's next.  And again super easy (dawn and peroxide).
3.  Spray Starch from Crazy Mom Quilts.  Kevin started wearing shirts and ties to work and ironing, ironing, ironing.  I had store-bought spray starch with a broken non-clog spray valve.  It took a bit of coaxing but I got him to use it.  I added more starch (cause I like it heavy) but it works really well.
4. Shower Cleaner from Simple Organized Living.  I love the way this cleaner works.  And another easy recipe: vinegar and Dawn (notice a theme here?)

A couple of notes, I accidentally bought the  concentrated Dawn.  I've used it all now but I think next time I will use whatever dish soap I have on hand.  Your vinegar should be regular vinegar, Costco has the huge bottles cheap.  Get a big bag of baking soda too while you are there.  I use the combo of the two to clean drains.  Baking soda is a great odor remover for your carpets, towels, etc.

Other dual purposes:
1) Pledge for my stainless steel
2) Dryer sheets to clean baseboards
3)Vinegar for the windows
The list goes on and on.  Happy homemaking.

My Keithy

Here's your moment of KFC for today.

There will be a time when Keith doesn't dress like Tom Cruise on Top Gun or wear his new motorcycle pants for four days straight (including church).  Right now I can't imagine that day.  My best guess is that he will in fact become a police officer (probably a motorcycle cop because he wants those boots) and dress up every day.

The other day we were going to take our taxes to the accountant and he was asking me about taxes.  I explained that any time we make money we have to give some of it to the government.  "Pffft. That's no good."

Keith: Mom, why do you and Dad get the Masterpiece Bedroom?
Me: Because we pay for the house.  When you move out, get a job and buy your own house you can have the Master Bedroom in your house.
Keith: I'm going to have bunkbeds in my Masterpiece Bedroom.
Me: How do you think your wife will feel about that.
Keith: Fine.  I'm getting the top bunk though because I bought the house.

Love him!

16 months old!

23.9 lbs and 31 inches.  She is a wonder.  Here are a few recent milestones:

Opening doors.  HEY NOW!

Sleeping through the night. YEEHAW!

Coloring and crayon eating.

Climbing. 

Signing: Cookie, More, Water, Thank you, Please, Milk

Accessorizing.  She picks out her shoes every day.

The most helpful baby EVER.  Don't get me wrong, she's a total mess maker but she loves helping out and seems to have an intrinsic understanding of how to help out.

Not a lot of words but she knows what she wants and she can tell you to get it!

Also, I know it isn't politically correct to say this but I love this girl SO much more now that she is sleeping in her own bed all night! 

Sometimes I'm An Idiot: TFTP

Distance: 9.03 miles
Time: 1:23:16
Avg Pace Per Mile: 9:13

Today as I ran I was thinking about all the things I think about when I run, namely what I was going to write about my run.  I have lots of things to say to you but my head and heart kept coming back to this saying that I pinned the night before.

 

"3 Choices," you can substitute the word bad  with the words: hard, tough, dumb, unfair, or lame.  I will substitute "something bad happens" with: you have a tough (slow) run.  But I was buoyed by the fact that I could run another day and run faster and get over this dumb cold.  So I ran, slowly.  And when RunKeeper asked me how it went, I said: OK. 

That's not an enthusiastic "OK," that's a "BLAH STOP ASKING ME OK."  I wanted to be under 9:00 minute miles.  It didn't work

I got home and ate my just burned calories in the form of this, that and several scrambled eggs.  A few hours later I checked my run against my other long runs and discovered something: that was my fastest long run yet. 

You might wonder how I didn't know that but like I said, sometimes I'm an idiot.   I don't hold numbers in my head the way some people do.  I just forgot what times I was running.  So I might be an idiot but apparently ignorance is bliss.

Valentine's Day: Instagram Style

Hearts in my tree

Overnight cinnamon rolls-Our Best Bites: tap the top and squeeze the bottom for hearts <3

heart shaped bacon

Heart shaped LoLos: Thanks Aunt Katie

Brotherly Love

Love is a Battlefield Valentines: Inspired by Jacolyn Murphy

To: My Lovely Kaydin

 

 

 

Te Amo

My Aunt Kathy's Heart Pan <3

Silhouette fun: Tickets to stay up late, get a Sonic drink, pick the movie for movie night and get out of a chore

Peace baby

Bieber Fever

Patrick.... Not an idiot

This is Patrick.  He's my darling son.  Some days he does things that are so much like me that I want to scream.   Look at him, head in the clouds... no idea what is going on.   Other times he's just Patrick...

1. My knee is still sore from the run and I haven't done enough stretching to help my situation.  Sitting for long periods of time, not a great idea.  I'm creaking and groaning when I get up.  Patrick caught me getting up from my desk one day and tried to take pity on his poor mom, "Just make a list of what you need, write it all down, I'll get it and you can rest." 
No doubt he was planning on charging me $5 per task but seriously?

2. We are working on a big Accelerated Reader goal.  He brought a book out one night and was frustrated by the incomplete story.
Patrick: I didn't get to read all the pages!
Me:  It's a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.  The story is different every time you read it.  That's the point.
Patrick:  So I should just start at the begining and read it all the way to the end?
Me: No, it skips around.  You can't read it that way.
Patrick: Well why don't they just write the stupid book the normal way.  How can I take a test on this? (throws hands in the air)
Me: You won't be able to take a test on it, it isn't an AR book.
Patrick: Wh-What?  (Growls and walks back to his room)

3. Patrick was going to movie night at school.  As Kevin was getting ready to take him, I was giving him my final mom mommyness.
Me: Have fun but please keep the over the top silly behavior to a minimum.
Patrick: What do you mean?
Me: I mean don't act like an idiot.
Patrick: But I'm not an idiot.
Me: Exactly.

Organization: legos and playroom

If you know my boys, you know that they love Legos.  They will play with Legos for hours and hours.  And they have successfully strewn approximately 52,774 Legos throughout my house.  I often think to myself as I vacuum their rooms and the PlayRoom, "I just vacuumed up $43 in Legos."  Legos are a mess.  That was before the baby.  Now add a precocious 15 month old to the mix and the mess just got really messy. 

Last year when my friend Ang told me that she sorted all of her son's Legos by color, I thought she was nuts, as it turns out she's a genius.  I did delve into the sorting last year.  I took all of the Lego Minifigs out of the general population and put them in their own container.  This was no small task since Keith enjoys removing every removable piece of Lego guy possible (and some non-removable pieces too), tiny hands, guns, hair, etc.

All that to say, I conquered the Legos and their wicked step-brothers Coloring Chaos. 

This is only the tip of the crayon, paper, marker, etc iceberg.  And this is the tidy version.

Legos live here..... And 75 other places.

Going into this project I was pretty sure that I was going to have to purchase some kind of storage container.  I was initially considering the 5 gallon Home Depot bucket with the tool organizer for the coloring supplies.  But that's still $10 and I would probably need at least 2.  I also was thinking that I needed to buy more storage drawers.  That's when I realized that I have two additional sets of storage drawers that are currently being (ineffectively) used for coloring supplies.  So I dumped all of the coloring in one place and started sorting Legos by color.

The stacker/sorter thing to the left sorts Legos by size.  I used this to get my tiny pieces sorted and find all of the MiniFig parts.

Once I was done sorting I checked the inventory and was happy that I had enough room!  We have lots of Star Wars, so the biggest drawers are a Black/White/Gray and a Green/Brown.  I also have the teeny tiny pieces that my boys love playing with in two drawers, instructions and vehicles in seperate drawers.  The rest of the colors Red, Yellow/Orange, Blue and Pink/Purple all got small drawers.  The final drawer is a bigger drawer for Legos that "need to be sorted."

Red, Yellow/Orange, Blue, Pink/Purple, To Be Sorted

Instructions, Vehicles, Tiny Pieces (2), Green/Brown, Black/White/Gray

Next up: Coloring supplies.

After sorting Legos I realized that the Lego sorting boxes were perfect for crayons, markers, etc.  So I went through several bags and boxes of writing and coloring utensils.  I checked every pen and marker, tossed lame non-Crayola crayons, set broken crayons aside for crafting and sorted by type.  That included sorting the skinny crayons from the chunky crayons.

There it is!  I threw away the magazines in the magazine holders and put coloring books in one and workbooks in the other.

Then I found all of the wayward flashcards and put them in the former Minifig container.  Loose worksheets, math facts, hand-writing practice pages, and speech homework pages are in the white binder.  Clipboards, spiral notebooks are up there too. 

It took me all week.  Mostly because I had a little helper: Little Miss Can't Be Sleeping.  But it is so nice to be able to tidy the room quickly.  And to see the boys play with Legos that they didn't even know they had!  Total Cost $0