He's Funny

My boy’s sense of humor. Can you see it? He makes me laugh...

New Machine

My Mama bought me a label machine. And my son got his hands on it and my spice drawer. Glory! (Home again, jet-lagging and in wonderful organizing mode 👌🏻)

Let's Rearrange!

"Can you help us rearrange our room Mom?" ...music to my ears... of course I will! These are girls after my own heart.

Quote of the Day

H: “Mom, can I organize Daddy’s closet? I already folded all his tee-shirts and now I’m starting on his underwear”

Me: (After the shock wore off) “You’re a boy after my own heart, H… of course you can!”

…later…

H: “Mom, I really think we should reorganize the whole house once a year. Like, the first month of the year we organize everything… the closets and the bathrooms and…”

 

Wow do I love his ideas!! If only I could get him to clean and organize his own room…

A Child After My Own Heart

One of the (millions) of super fun things about parenting is seeing your own characteristics appear in your children. Weeeeell, that is true except when the qualities you see emerging in your children are your own bad ones repeated all over again. Oops. That would fall into the category of one of the (million) challenging things about parenting.

In case of this post, it’s a fun characteristic.

As a kid, I remember making all kinds of preparations for myself. I LOVE preparations. I am a think-aheader. A do-aheader to the core. (Although I have to say that being a busy Mama of three does not always allow this quality to shine these days as much as it has in the past). Anyway, preparation makes me feel so loved and valued. It’s not one of the official five love languages, but it’s way up there for me. And not everyone thinks like that (and I don’t expect them to), so even as a kid, I’d often make preparations for myself. Just brings me joy!

Example 1: I would often choose my outfit for school the day before. That’s kind of normal, right? What was NOT normal is that I rigged up a contraption from my closet to the bed that delivered the clothes to me in the morning. When I’d wake up, I’d yank the string, clothes would slide down the string and arrive bedside where I could dress without even touching my feet to the floor. Talk about preparing for getting dressed in the morning! So convenient, right?

Example 2 : I’d sometimes lay my pajamas out neatly on my bed, pre-toothpaste my toothbrush, set it neatly on the counter and then turn down my covers long before bedtime. That way, when bedtime came and I was tired, I’d already prepared things ahead of time. Pull on pajamas, scrub my teeth and slip into bed. Easy peazy. It was only barely easier than doing each of those jobs actually at bedtime, but it just felt so good to me, even as a child, to have them done ahead of time. Just how God made me.

So, I occasionally try to disciple my children in the value of thinking ahead and doing things now so that it’s easier later cause it’s just part of who I am. But I don’t think I ever specifically demonstrated laying ones pajamas (and little sister’s pajamas, God bless his sweetest little heart!) out neatly on the floor.

It’s apparently just in his DNA.

God love him.

The New Lego Box

This happened over the weekend.

And I have since heard reports that building Lego creations has now become much easier because exponentially less time is spent digging in the bin for JUUUUUUSTTT that one exact piece that is needed to perfect the helicopter/car/whatever.

:)

Oh how I love my family.

Two Things, Organizationally Related

1. I recently made new labels for my kids’ toy bins. It brought me great joy and fulfillment.

2. My boy must be made of the same stuff because when I asked him to please put his trains into the bin that I had so carefully and beautifully marked with a printed train icon mounted on two layers of coordinating scrapbooking paper and then laminated…  he worked so patiently and carefully and then proudly presented me with this…

Bahahaha… I love it. A boy after my own heart.

And that reminds me, I thought of something today that I wanted to re-organize. I gotta go!! (Um, this is not a joke).

The Little Things…

Measuring spoons on hooks inside the cabinet.

Things like this make me oh-so-happy.

Baby Steps for Projects

I’ve had quite a few projects on my mind these days. Repairs around the house. Decorations. Improvements. Organizing. And just some fun things I’ve waited until we were ‘settled’ again to do.

The thing is I have two small kids. And frankly that fact can make the idea of completing projects a bit more daunting.

But I've made it work! My secret, which really isn’t a secret at all is baby steps.

I mean teeny tiny itsy bitsy pieces of a project at a time.

Lemme show ya.

When we first brought H back to Africa at sweet and tiny 5 weeks old, this was his  nursery. We lived in a different house at the time. I had made this bunting for his room and hung it for decoration. I loved it.

When we switched houses I used it again in the room that both the kiddos share. However several years later I now wanted to update it a bit and add some brighter more fun prints into the mix.

So that was my project. Nine new flags to add to the bunting I already had and then hang it all up for the first time since returning back.

Here is where the baby steps came in.

The important thing to note about the baby steps is that each of these steps was accomplished at a completely separate time. The bulk of the project could have been accomplished in a few hours if one could devote herself entirely to the project. But I couldn’t do that… I never had enough time to do it all beginning to end. But I sure did have several minutes here and there throughout my days and that is all I needed to get this done. I actually did this over a course of probably a week or more.

1. Prewash fabric and dry.

2. Get out ironing board and iron. (A tiny step for sure, but necessary. And it got me one step closer and that always feels good.)

3. Iron fabric.

4. Dig out old bunting to use for a pattern.

5. Iron old bunting. (This probably took the longest of all the steps, and my boy assisted me on this one by handing me flags on one side and stacking them neatly on the other.)

6. Cut 9 new flags.

7. Iron seams down on new flags.

8. Cut 9 new sets of ribbon for hanging.

9. Replace sticky hooks on the wall in the kids room. (Switching gears to preparing the room for the bunting cause once I had sewn them I knew I wouldn’t want to wait to hang them up.)

10. Purchase string in the market.

11. Hang string on the wall through the sticky hooks that had already set for a day.

12. Get out sewing machine and thread it with the correct thread. (Another tiny, but necessary step in the right direction. And how fun to have it all ready and waiting for me when the time came too…)

13. Sew flags! Now, you might say this was the actual project. But see how much had to be done in preparation?! I actually could sew each flag in two minutes flat. It was so quick. But a lot had to happen ahead of time before I could sit down and actually DO IT!

14. Hang flags!

15. Stand back and admire!!! (Okay, so this was the only step that I actually did immediately after the prior one! Ha!)

So rewarding, eh?!

When projects are broken down, they seem so much more achievable. I have applied this rule to so many areas of life lately. If I am feeling overwhelmed about what I have to cook in a day’s time I even think about that in steps. Choosing recipes would be the first. Then I’d go do something else. Then I’d go back later when I had a minute and set out all the ingredients I would need when the time came to cook. And later when the time came to start cooking I would feel like I already was prepared and had a good start and it wouldn’t seem so overwhelming to me anymore cause I had already taken a couple steps in the right direction.

Am I the only one out there who likes to operate like this?! Planning and preparation bring me such joy. And I get so much more done in my days when I think about what little steps I can take to begin accomplishing tasks that seem large and looming.

Now… what shall I start next?!…