Clean and Organized Kids Rooms

The kids are off to school and now I only have one child left in the house. I decided to use this two week time before story time and other fun preschool activities start for my youngest to clean out the kids rooms.

I have learned it is much easier and more efficient to do so without my daughter present. She likes to keep every little scrap of paper. I get rid of bags of little pieces of paper and she never knows what is missing if I purge while she is gone. Out of sight is out of mind, she has not once missed anything I have decided to get rid of, and she is always super happy with her clean and organized room.

My kids clean their own rooms, don't get me wrong, but there comes a time where they need a good going through and reorganization to make it easier for them to put things away.

I know some of you have wondered what my kids rooms look like anyway, so here we go..

 

Child #1

7 years old

 

She got a new desk this year got to LOVE Ikea. She also loves her loft. She enjoys displaying all of her school artwork on the walls. Not my choice to hang them up there, but it is not my room and she LOVES it.

Click over to learn about her Mosaic Mirror.

Click to read about Robie the Red Robot you can see in the photo below.

 

The Loft with reading area, and icicle Christmas lights underneath. She also made her own fairy mobile a few years ago from her fairy party decorations, still hanging up. There are also various stuffed animal elevators she made out of recycle materials to transport her stuffed friends up and down from the loft.

 

 

 

Click to learn about her loft curtains, or her hanging READ book holder.

 

 

 

Wipe off board, world map and Judy moody printable.

 

Yep I did all the clothes and closet stuff too. I just moved the shoe hanger to her closet because I think it will get used more here for odds and ends than I was using it in my craft room. 

Child #2

5 years old

 

Notice the fishing pole holder on the wall behind the basket ball hoop. He is all about fishing.

 



 So it is not surprising that he has a poster of local fish right by his bed. Also this year he got a new fishing bedspread from Cabella's.

 



 

His closet is ready to go. His dinosaur lives in there because his siblings are afraid of it. Yes even his big sister has an issue with the dino.

 

The shelf on the right came from Menard's. We got it back when he was a baby. It was a five shelf kit and we modified it a bit so we could use it at his changing table. Now it works well for books and toys.

 

 

Child #3

3 years old





 

I still love being in this room as much as the first day I finished it.

 

We built his wall bookshelf ourselves.

After doing painted wood letters in the other kids rooms this time around we went with the block style paper letters from Hobby Lobby and I covered the fronts with scrapbook paper,

 

 

 I also covered many large puzzle pieces from a thrift store puzzle with scrapbook paper or paint to decorate his room.

 



 

 

I cut out large wooden puzzle piece shapes out of wood and attached hooks too them.

 

 

 

 

 

I covered the edges of each piece with paint or scrapbook paper to coordinate with the room colors.

 

 

 

All of my kids rooms have decorated windows used as frames.

 

The boys have a pottery barn alphabet card set letter in each frame.

 

My girl's is from her baby days. I had the kids who I taught in preschool paint these drawings in for me. The three kids who painted these are going to become teenagers this year!

Arial, Kyle and Bryce.

 



 

Ahhh... I have donated two boxes and 3 bags of clothes and toys to the local foster care store, and gotten rid of 5 grocery bags full of recyclables and garbage. We are officially clean and organized.. for now.

Easy Outfit Shopping List, My Thrift Store Friend

When those days come around that Savers has 50% off their clothing it is a day I get ready to shop!

But how does one sort though all those racks for just the right pieces to complete your wardrobe?

My Style Pinboard

Pinterest has helped me put some pretty neat outfits together while out thrift shopping. I just pin outfits I think are cute into my style board so when I get ready to shop, I have some idea of what to shop for, but I have mostly gone from memory when I get to the store. This has left me forgetting to look for some important pieces, and spending too much time looking at things trying to decide if I like it or not.

I know I like my style pinboard on pinterest so I started to write down some of the pieces I need to look for. But my descriptions of grey sweater leave way to much to my imagination. Even if I get specific with my descriptions they are not always easy to decipher.

So that is when I got the idea of printing off my pinterst style board. I suggest you do so in color as well so that you remember what colors to look for. Now I am set to head off to my favorite thrift stores to shop for the pieces I am missing from the outfits I have pinned.



All I need is at a glance!

To make sure all your pins fit onto your page, go to File, then select Print Preview. Then select the shrink to fit option. If you choose 50% all your pins should fit on the page width wise. You can also adjust the side margins by dragging the dotted lines on the preview page. It can take a bit for the photos to load to the preview page so be patient and don't worry if you are staring at a blank page for a few extra seconds.

Before I head out I plan on printing off my sewing inspiration boards too. You never know when you can upcycle a good thrift piece into a great new piece.

Sewing Stuff

Kids Sewing Fashion Inspiration

Savers does happen to have 50% off summer clearance today (August 21st) for Super Saver Card Members.
So head there and sign up for the Super Savers Club today. It is free and is not a credit card, just a perks type of card.
Happy Shopping!

Back to School of Fish??

First day of school here and this year I sent off two children! Now I only have one left at home. I swear it was his idea to go shopping today, he didn't want to go home to an empty house. So I followed his idea and headed off to Gordman's and Walmart. 

I wanted to get the kids something special to remember their first day of school, after looking at various toys and such. I decided to go with fish.

I guess I thought I needed something to take care of now that I was down two things to take care of during the day???

My youngest son picked out the fish for his big brother and sister (he got a new Star Wars guy so he was ok with not getting a fish of his own.)

A blue beta for brother, since that is his favorite color, no brainer there.

He is now happy in his new home in an empty Fisher Peanut container.

 He was pretty feisty and energetic, a pretty good fit for my son honestly.

For his sister he chose a white beta. I had never seen one this white before, he shimmers in the sun.

very pretty. I hope my daughter likes her brother's choice.



He was much calmer than his blue friend, but swam beautifully around the tank once we put her in. We had this tank from a set of goldfish we had a few years ago. We had rock, and even already had beta food. So we are set.

I set each fish on their desks with a new outfit I had saved and a note that says.

A group of fish is called a school, so to help you remember your first day of school, I got you a fish. I am sure you will get along swimmingly. At bedtime when you have done all you need to do and you are ready to crawl into bed you get to feed your new fish friend.

The fish are named after each child's school to make it even more memorable, and the names fit the fish pretty well I think.

  They are both attending new and separate schools this year.

Homemade Pizza Lunchables

Pizza Lunchables are a favorite of my two school bound kiddos, so I thought I would make my own after seeing the idea on pinterest.

I love having this ready to send off to school with them so that they have some variety in their lunchboxes.

Here is how we did it!

For our crust we bought a package of Rhodes frozen dinner rolls 36 count.

The frozen little balls of dough are just the right size to make little pizza crusts.

All three kids took turns flattening out the balls into their pizza crusts and poking holes in them with a fork so that they didn't puff up too much.

I baked them at 350 degrees, and flipped them halfway though baking with a spatula. I also used the spatula to flatten them out a bit more after turning them. We took them out when they started to brown. Ours are a bit pale, because our kids like them that way.





For the sauce I couldn't pass up this squeeze bottle. I did use up the whole bottle making this round, but from now on I am going to empty my cans of sauce into this bottle and it will be ready to roll for the next round. I also had these mini sized zip top bags that work great to hold sauce. I filled them up with the squeeze bottle and laid them flat on a cookie sheet to freeze them so that they can be packed frozen and be thawed and ready to go by lunchtime.

Coming together nicely!

We adore turkey pepperoni at our house, 70 percent less fat than regular pepperoni and all the flavor!

Here are all our crusts and sauce packets ready to pop into the freezer.



We pack all of the kids lunches in these Ziploc divided containers. They come two to a package and my daughter used them all last school year and they help up fine to dishwashers and lunchbox travel. They are not leak proof, so you can not pack really wet stuff, but the money we saved on bags, and how much easier these made packing lunches made them more than worth the cost. There is another company that make a container that is similar but they are much more expensive. 

We just bought a couple more packs on sale since we now have two kiddos eating lunch at school.

We have two crusts one pizza sauce, some cheese and turkey pepperoni, apple sauce, some carrots, and a juice box ready to go in this lunch. I will assemble them the day they need them, but packing them will be super simple!

Our school kids are in Kindergarten and Second Grade so this is more than enough food for them for lunch. They usually get milk at school as well, so we can pack plenty in these boxes without the juice box in there.

The dinner rolls had 36 to a pack, we put two crusts in each so each bag has enough for 18 lunches, The pizza sauce we put about 2T in each bag, and had enough for 14 packs of sauce.

Smore'-ito

I am in love! With this face, yes of course, with this snack, oh my yes! Upon a trip to the outdoor campus for women's try it day I was introduced to Mexican smores aka Smore'-itos.

So as I sent the two big kids on a solo trip around the block on their bikes (another first) I decided to put my 3 year old to work making today's snack.



Smore'-ito 

1. Take a tortilla, spread with about a table spoon of peanut butter.

2. Add some chocolate chips.

3. Add some mini marshmallows, (or large marshmallows cut up)

Cooking options:

Option 1:Today we put ours open and flat into the microwave for 30 seconds, then rolled them up after cooking.

Option 2: Roll up the filled tortilla making sure the ends are closed and wrap it in non-stick foil, or lightly sprayed regular foil. Once wrapped you can cook on the grill, or on coals of an open fire for 2 minutes on each side.



SO YUMMY!

Melty oowey gooey and perfect!

Cheesey Egg Omelets in a Muffin Tin

My son is a  big breakfast eater. He can eat up to three different breakfast's in a morning. He is a growing boy. But now that he is off to kindergarten he can no longer just eat all morning, he also has to eat much earlier than his body is used to eating.

I know I need to get a good source of protein and some fiber in his breakfasts so that he stays satisfied until lunch time. Lucky for me he loves eggs. These simple egg omelets in a muffin tin are an easy way to get that protein in. Put them on an multi grain English muffin to add some good fiber, and I think I found a simple and easy grab and go breakfast for my growing Kindergartner.

Egg Omelets in a Muffin Tin:

Spray a six cup muffin tin with cooking spray, (the non-stick tins don't work as well as the plain aluminum ones)

Crack six eggs into a liquid measuring cup. Add salt if you wish.

Mix eggs up with a fork until whites and yokes are blended well.

Pour equal amounts into each of the muffin tin cups

Bake 325 for 10 min.

Do not over bake.

When you take the tin out, the eggs will have a hollow center perfect for holding diced ham or shredded cheese.