525,600 minutes

My baby Asher was a year old yesterday. I have been so sad about it, crying in the grocery when I saw a newborn sad. I am such a wreck. I swear, I am not one of those people who can't wait for their kids to grow up. I love them just the way they are, cute, little, and no matter how much they drive me crazy I know as they get older, it will only get crazier. I love all their stages but I just love them as babies so much. And those grannies in the grocery are right on, it does go by so fast. It seems like I was still preggers yesterday. Now he is mobile, eating Oreos, and throwing tantrums. With that being said, he is such a sweet baby. He is so cute, so loveable, so smart, so curious! We all love him dearly.

Here are a few highlights of him lately...

standing up in the crib hollering for me to get him

 birthday pictures on the stairs

 watching daddy grill dinner

 more stair pictures

 he was pretty much scared to death and wanted me to hold him, I tried like crazy to get him to smile, didn't work

 so we sat in the living room instead

 well, he sat for 26 seconds before he decided to find something else better to do

 china cabinet destruction any moment now, he is an expert crawler, by the way

 finally, I got him looking cute sitting on Tanner's bed, love that dimple

 he loves balls, just like Parker

 he also like Hans and Franz, my new washer and dryer, he especially likes the Franz's dryer vent, he steals it and hides it at least once a day

 he loves to drink beer

 OMG, I'm kidding! He likes to play in the pantry. These were just extra beers that didn't fit in the fridge. 'They make a cool bangy noise when you drop them on the floor," Asher says.

 looking out the window at the wildlife, in this case, a panting hot dog who wanted to come in

 he is an official tornado, F5 version. the boy can empty a drawer or basket faster than you can tell him to stop

 see, he's cute but deadly

 when it all began, 525,600 minutes ago.

Ok, now I'm crying again.

Happy 4th of July!

I "love" trying to get a picture of all my kids looking cute. It is an impossible feat. Darn near Herculian. Somehow I usually manage to get at least one where they are all kind of looking at me and sort of smiling. But sometimes, the outtakes are way funnier.

The best one I could get. I love these little firecrackers I tell ya.

Hope everyone had a great 4th!

Boys are such a joy

 I have been a serious blog slacker lately, not intentionally but this summer is kicking my bootie. I am so busy all day long I swear, I don't even have time to think. Anyway, I am laughing at some of the recent pics on my camera. I had to share them with you.

Couch tents/forts/pile all the cushions on the floor and make mommy so mad

(notice the ever present pug butt)                

 Interesting uses for hat box inserts

 Waking up with devil horn bed head

 Or Flock of Seagulls hair, you decide

 Notes to entice the flies into our new Venus Fly trap, do you think it will work?

Yep, boys are a joy and they can drive me crazy at the same time. I have to keep telling myself that they are joys or I'll go insane!  ;) (I'm not leaving Zoe out so don't worry, she's a joy too, but she's been pretty calm lately and therefore, not driving me crazy!)

save those buttons!

Just something for you to think about... back to school shopping will be here before you know it! ARGH!

Big Tall Hubby got some new shirts for Father's Day, and a way cool new hat and some new dock shoes. Man, he is one lucky dude. And a well dressed one to boot. I'm a little jealous. Anyway.

I always save the extra buttons that come with a new shirt. Well, duh, you do too right? Well, I am so on it, I put the tag in the teeny baggie after I cut them off and voila, I know exactly what shirt that button goes to. See the little description "grey", it helps I tell ya. Now, for those stores that have plainish tags, I would just write, "grey Jos. Bank shirt". I know, I'm a genius. Hold your applause, please. If they don't have one of those teensy baggies, I have a stash that have used for crafts and treats. Or if I am feeling lazy, I just toss the button in the pile. But don't picture that, imagine my perfectly organized buttons why don't ya?

I keep all my buttons in a drawer in my sewing cabinet.  Someday on my "to do" list, you will see "clean out button" drawer, cos, man, do I have a lot of buttons!

Have a happy weekend all!

Sometimes your tried and true methods don't work

My last post, like a week or so ago (jeez, busy much?) I shared how a binder saved me. Well here was my coupon binder a while ago... based on the photo, Valentine's day perhaps? It was a disaster. I swear, this binder used to be so efficient. I modeled it after those crazy people on Extreme Couponing (I love that wacky show). It was glorious. I had pockets for my calculator, my rebates, my pens, scissors and baseball card holders for each coupon. Oh the organized loveliness. THEN, I had a baby. Hello, no time, no free hands, and no room on the shopping cart for a giant binder! So I had to regroup. Literally. 

I decided to go back to my old coupon organizing system, a plain accordion file folder with general categories based on my store's layout. 

First I wrote down the layout of the store (as I was shopping one time) I kind of knew it but I wanted it to be exact. (Always the perfectionist!) Then I made little tab labels. And then I resorted all my coupons. I kept my zippered pouches for "coupons to file" and "use next trip" because they are really handy.

 I put everything in this little Longaberger. (It is hard to see, but it is really shallow) I put the weekly sale flyers in here too along with the uncut coupons, until I can get to them, sometimes the night before my shopping trip. Argh! Darn kids. I keep the basket in my pantry and just pull it out as I can, usually while I am catching up on the Real Housewives of Orange County, love that show too!

 I hated to see my old zipper binder go. In fact, I just put it in my basement with my other organizers. I think I'll go back to it someday. It was so awesome to see all my coupons rather than flipping through them in a file but honestly, it just wasn't making sense right now. Isn't that what organizing in general is all about? Wow, I'm getting all philosophical today! 

I hope everyone has a great week. I am working on potty training, not me, Tanner, and so I am spending a lot of time in the bathroom. Oh joy. Hope to catch up with you all soon.

quick organizing project

A quick one for sure. I swear, this summer is keeping me so busy, or should I say my kids are keeping me so busy, I don't have time to do much of anything other than cook, do dishes, wash clothes, and give kids baths, lots of baths. So my projects (believe me there are a lot) are by necessity short and sweet. 

Oh, the papers that come in to this house are frightening. Like, massive boxes taken to the recycling bin on a regular basis (in addition to our weekly recycling pick up!) frightening. Some people in my family, I won't say names, (mostly tall people and small people-that pretty much includes them all) think every piece of paper is important and keep-worthy. And since I am the scrapbooker of the family, they give them to me and say, "we should keep this" so of course I do and then I get mad because I have a massive pile and then I have to find a place to put it all and then that person will say, "do you know where that ___ is?" Grr. It makes me grumpy. 

We have a designated drawer for phone books. I know, there are a million ways to find phone numbers besides those big books but we pull them out quite regularly, we are so old fashioned. Get over it. I also keep a real hanky in my purse that I use and wash regularly, I'm a granny in disguise. 

Any-who, we also kept our school directories in that drawer too. Big Tall Hubby gets one from school each year (staff and students) and I still have some from my teaching days and the kids have been getting class lists every year. 

OK, it sounds crazy to keep all those but I swear to you, no computer search engine is better at finding an old phone number than me rooting through our drawer of digits.** However, it was getting to be a big mess.

See the pile on the left? Those are our lists, etc. 

 I bought a cute turquoise (love all the turquoise everywhere now) notebook and some plastic pockets, who doesn't love the office supply aisle at Target? Oh, I'm the only nerd who does? Well, I also go to Hallmark just to read the funny cards for fun. I'm a true individual.

 I made a cover using old scrapbook paper and stickers.

 The small directories are in the pockets. 

 There are also notes I glued to notebook paper* and put in plastic sleeves from my scrapbook stash.

Class lists*** went in sleeves too. Then I took apart the bigger directories and hole punched them and put them in the back. All done. Easy peasy. Cute. Antiquated, but who cares?!  I'm granny-ish, so antiques and I get along just fine. 

*I kept the notes only because it is easy for me to find certain things because I remember it is on a yellow post it note (for example). I know I could make a master list but I am a visual person and my memory works better that way. Told you, I'm an individual.

** I know I could make some sort of master list on my computer and keep it there, thus avoiding the whole paper trail thing but I do not trust it. I lost three years of pictures a few years ago (including Tanner's infant pictures) when our old computer died so I do not keep everything on the computer. I still take film pictures sometimes. I know, so does your grandma. Maybe you could give me her number? We'd probably have lots in common. I can designate a page in my new book for my new granny friends.

***I tried to blur out all the readable phone numbers, don't be a weird computer stalker and zoom in on my pictures and call kids from my kids' classes, that would make you a total fruit loop. OK?

baby love

Don't you just love when 3 year olds play with baby dolls? I mean, it is the cutest thing in the world. Tanner is a great babysitter. He works really hard feeding them, trying to diaper them, and carrying them all over the place. I am so glad we haven't gotten rid of any baby dolls yet. I hope they get lots of love and attention in the years to come.