More Than You Wanted to Know About Our Vacation

What an adventure! I promise there is some organizing stuff in this long post. I color coded it for you so you don't have to read all the details if you don't want to!

Victor turned nine while we were on vacation and he pulled a tooth out on his birthday which made it especially fun for him. I’m not sure why that is so exciting. It just is!

Lovely started getting some kind of skin disease the day after we left so she had painful sores on her bum and feet and legs and horrible diarrhea. We were happy that the worst of it was over the first week. Isn’t that a great thing to get when you’re traveling for hours in a car seat?

Persistence who has been sick for several weeks and losing weight, also had a bit of a hard time on this trip. Right before we left we started thinking she might have silliac disease so we have had to cut wheat out of her diet. It was quite challenge making sure she had food she could eat that didn’t have wheat in it! She did really well with her new diet but sometimes she would get sad that she couldn't eat some of the things we were eating.

I did a pretty good job packing for our trip. Normally I pack WAY too much stuff. I brought along my travel bag of course. I had the kids each take four outfits plus their church clothes (with extra underwear and socks of course) and that was just the right amount. They just wore things a couple times when they needed to and I was able to do laundry at my sister’s and again at a couple of the hotels we stayed in. I took along my own laundry detergent packed into serving sized baggies and I organized the kid’s outfits into large baggies. It’s great to be able to rummage through a suitcase without messing everything up and they take up less space because you can squeeze all the air out.

I brought paper plates and napkins, plastic spoons and forks and lots of water bottles to refill. I raided the medicine cabinet for anything we might need on our trip and I brought puzzles and activities for Lovely to play with in the car that we never used. I also brought too many books. Actually I think one of the kids snuck a bag of books into the car that I didn’t intend to bring. I am so lucky that my kids don’t get car sick. They read in the car wherever we go.

Unfortunately I do get car sick. I always have. But I had a great plan for this trip. I bought some less drowsy Dramamine and took half a pill so that I could quilt or work on my laptop while we traveled. It worked wonderfully at keeping me from getting car sick but sadly I also passed out 30 minutes after taking it! I tried it several times but I just could not stay awake! I guess it wasn’t such a great plan.

I really like these file storage containers for keeping the van organized. They’re tall and they fit perfectly between the seats. I always keep one in the car to use as a garbage can and we have a couple more that we fill with books and toys.


Do you want to know my secret for keeping the baby happy on our trip? Books on tape! Who would have guessed it? Every time we put one in she would get perfectly quiet to listen to it and eventually fall asleep. The last day of our trip we drove 12 hours straight home from San Jose and she slept most of the way while we listened to our books.

It can get a little tricky putting a tired baby to sleep in a hotel room with people who are not going to bed yet. If you can get a tired baby to hold still for two minutes they will usually go to sleep, so I strapped her down in her stroller and put her in front of the television until she was out.

We saved a lot of money by taking our own food into the parks we went to. I have a soft sided cooler with a strap that we hung off the back of the stroller. We filled it with yogurt, cheese, deli meat, left over KFC and water. We brought along crackers, granola, nuts and fruit. Everyone was completely happy eating that for the three days we spent inside the parks. Oh, and I made sure to bring an extra outfit for the baby when we were in the parks. She never needed it but I wanted to be prepared.

I was surprised that three days walking around a park didn’t make my feet sore. Wearing comfortable shoes paid off. I wonder if these moms felt the same way. I couldn’t count the number of women in high heels and pointed toes. Where is your common sense people?

All our hotel stays were at the Holiday Inn Express. I just want to say, I love this hotel! They had an awesome free breakfast every morning, they all had high speed internet access and swimming pools and some of them had laundry facilities. Stranger made sure we always got a room with a fridge and a microwave and the hotel room that we spent Christmas in even had a fireplace!

I wasn’t sure about spending Christmas on the road but it was fun. We set up our little tree everywhere we went and we took along our Christmas Book that my Mother made us several years ago. It’s full of Christmas stories to read and songs to sing every day in December. Thanks Mom, we love it! We brought one present for each of the kids to open and told them before we left that our trip was their main present. They were perfectly happy with the whole thing. We had a hard time finding a place to eat on Christmas day but finally came across a Denny’s and McDonalds. We opted for McDonalds so we would have more time to spend at the beach. I think Christmas day at the beach should be our new family tradition!

I hope everyone enjoyed the Christmas holiday as much as we did!

More photos.

Christmas Vacation

We’re home! After 14 days, 5 hotels (one of them was my sister’s house), and 2,600 miles we’re home. And now I want to go back!

I don’t know if I ever mentioned what we were doing for our vacation. Stranger had three weeks of vacation that he had to use before the end of the year so we drove to California, stopping at the cousin’s house on the way for three days. We went with passes to Legoland and Magic Mountain but other than that we didn’t have any plans. We just drove and saw what we saw.

I was wondering if it would feel like a vacation with all the work involved with traveling and being cramped in one hotel room with five people. Surprisingly it did! Other than all the packing and unpacking it was a very relaxing trip. We had a wonderful time. The kids were happy and traveled well (I’ll tell you my secret in my next post!), I didn’t have to cook or wash dishes for two weeks, it’s pretty hard to lose anything in a hotel room and let me tell you, after being back in Utah for one day, I am missing that warm California weather!

If you want to torture yourself you can go look at some of the photos here. Just so you know, the kids helped write the witty captions. I didn't need any help with the dumb ones.

A Million Pieces of Heaven

That's right! I have my very own Container Store photos to post!!! Today was our last fun day as we are headed home tomorrow. The one thing I really wanted to do on this trip was find a swap meet to go to. We don't have any real swap meets in Utah. Stranger felt sorry for me that we never made it to one so he took me to the container store today. It was better than I could have imagined and fun for the whole family. Can you just see how much fun everyone is having?

They even have stuff you can try on. I'm not saying your supposed to try it on. I'm just saying you can.

It became apparent that I was going to be busy for a while so Stranger left me with the baby and took the kids next door. Did you know that Best Buy offers child care while Moms are shopping at The Container Store? They take all sizes of children too.

Speaking of every size imaginable, The Container store has it. The only way they could make it any better is if they get one of those machines like they have on Star Trek where you tell it what food you want and it appears. "A container that's 10x12x4. Red. Linen. With handles." Or, "A speckled blue ring box that's disguised as a little tiny gift bag." Oop, there it is!

There are so many containers to choose from that it could give you nightmares trying to decide which one you want. Like, you go to school and it's third period before you notice you forgot to get dressed after your shower this morning so you run to your locker to get your gym clothes but all of a sudden your school is The Container Store and you can't figure out which of the thousands of stainless steel garbage cans is supposed to be your gym locker. Every time you reach your hand into one to pull out your sweaty shorts you find a handful of stinky moldy cheese instead and then for some reason you decide to start eating all this cheese until you realize you have turned into a giant block of swiss cheese and the other students are storing their books in you which is fine with you really because no one seems to care if cheese comes to school naked.

If you wake up with a funny taste in your mouth and every bar of soap in your house is missing, don't come crying to me. I tried to warn you.

There's something else I have to warn you about. Just because you find something at The Container Store doesn't mean it is an item worth owning. If you even think about buying a Hot Dog Storage Container then I am so never speaking to you again.

Dear Container Store,

I love you with all of my heart but I hate you for making me want to go home with 37,000 jewel colored acrylic treasure boxes in various sizes. I despise you for making me think I need to spend $15,000 on a storage system for my garage. I will never forgive you for offering me containers that coordinate with every holiday of the year or for showing me how beautiful my closets can be as soon as I decide to sell the rights to name my right butt cheek on E-Bay to pay for the make-over. You are all I've ever wanted but our love cannot last. You will always offer more than you can give and I will be left picking up the cluttered pieces of my broken heart. Goodbye Container Store.

P.S. I'm keeping the colapsible zippered boxes to remember you by. Is that wrong?

Look Out Christmas!

I am a Holiday scrooge. I admit it. I’m much too lazy to make a big commercial deal out of the holidays and my husband is too, shall we say, thrifty? I don’t know how much longer my children are going to fall for the, “Sure you kids can decorate the tree again this year. No, no, I want you to have all the fun,” routine. When people come over I get to be St. Lara, the self-sacrificing Mother who has a lopsided tree all for the sake of love.

We do actually celebrate with a couple little Christmas traditions that we call our own. Our favorite almost surpasses Santa Claus in popularity. He’s called the “The Lookout Man”. Now doesn’t that just sound like someone you’d want to file a restraining order against? Don’t make that call to your lawyer just yet because The Lookout Man really stands for LOOK OUT, HERE COMES SANTA! This stalker leaves presents on your doorstep on Christmas Eve to satisfy every child’s yearning to open “just one” present before they go to bed. He splurges on pajamas for the little ones but the old folks are lucky to get a crummy pair of reindeer socks with bells. Apparently someone got your Christmas wish list mixed up with one that said, “I don’t care what I get for Christmas, as long as it has adorable little bells on it!”

If you are a little one, once the Lookout Man arrives, you can consider yourself warned. As soon as your jammy fashion show is over and the offering of cookies and milk has been left you had better get to bed because the Big Guy doesn’t stop for naughty children who stay up too late. He doesn’t care that your stomach is full of butterflies and you are too excited to sleep. I mean, it was your parents fault for feeding you full of all that sugary junk anyway. What do these people expect on the biggest night of your life? If there were any decency in this world Christmas would start at 12:00 midnight! Oh well, you’ll just have to lie awake wondering who exactly IS The Lookout Man. You’ve kept a keen eye on your parents all night and it’s obvious that they’re too old to make that kind of quick get away anyway.

I’m not sure if you want to call this next one a tradition or just “I’m going to get credit for all the money we wasted on this crap” but Santa does not leave a sleigh load of gifts at our house. He stuffs small stockings with a few trinkets and then he goes on his merry way. Here’s a little story explaining how this got started in my home.

Once upon a time my Mother spent every last dime she had on lovely Christmas gifts for her deserving children. She wrapped them all prettily and under the tree they went. The children were delighted as they ripped open the parcels and discovered their heart’s desires on that fateful Christmas morning. Disappointment didn’t set in until the last gift was unwrapped. “But Mother? Why didn’t you get us anything for Christmas? Don’t you love us Mother?” “What do you mean,” Mother inquired? “Why these presents were all from Santa. You didn’t buy us a single thing!” Somehow every gift she had so carefully prepared had one missing ingredient. None of them had her name on them!

The moral of this story is, “Put your name on all the good stuff. Make Santa look like the cheap jerk.”

You are welcome to use these little traditions in your own family. Think of them as my family’s Christmas gift to yours. Never mind that we were too cheap and lazy to get you a real present. Merry Christmas!

Super Speed Keyboard Hottie

*Edited

This whole laptop business isn't as easy as I thought it was going to be. First of all I have to get all my favorites and passwords and files set up the way I want them and it doesn't have all the same programs that my desk top has. I'm sure there is an easy way to go about this but I'm doing it the hard way. So what do I need to sync my computers? Does anyone have any advice for me?

Dial-up oh how I hate thee! How do people live in the dark ages like this? I told my husband when we bought our property that I wasn’t moving there if we couldn’t get wireless. I was willing to give up Heaven for High Speed. How desperate is that? We’re staying at my sister’s house for a couple days but I’m hoping and praying for the good stuff at the hotel once we get to California. And can I just say that staying up till 2:00 a.m. is not fun when everyone gets up at 6:00 to get ready for school?

Then there is the fact that my third arm has been cut off without a mouse to use. I had already been working on learning the hotkeys pre-laptop but I can see that I’m going to have to speed things up and learn all of them as soon as possible. I think I’m pretty “Hot” with the Ctrl A (select), the Ctrl C (copy), Ctrl V (paste), Ctrl X (delete), Ctrl S (save) and Ctrl Z (undo) but Ctrl+Shift with arrow keys (select text) is more than I could ever have dreamed of!

There is Alt+Tab that we all know and love, to go between applications quickly, but Alt+Esc? Who knew? The mouse is for people who have too much time on their hands, not for lazy people like us who want to get things done fast. You know, so we can have more time for folding socks. Not to mention the fact that we could really hurt ourselves pushing that heavy mouse around. Wonderful wide world of Hotkeys! Where have you been all my life??? Now that I’ve found you I will love you and cherish you and never let you go!!!

To find more beloved Hotkeys go here or do a search for yourself you Lazy Hottie.

* You don't have to know hotkeys to use a laptop, they just makes it so much faster. They make navigation with any computer faster. I am determined to learn as many hotkeys as possible so I started making my own cheatsheet. Here you go if you want to use it too. I'll be adding to it as I learn more.

• Select Whole Document – CTRL +A
• Copy – CTRL C
• Paste – CTRL V
• Delete – CTRL X
• Undo – CTRL Z
• Save – CTRL S
• Find Files – CTRL F
• Go To Box – CTRL G
• New Document or Browser Page– CTRL N
• Open Document – CTRL+F, DOC #, or CTRL+F, O, Tab to field, arrows, enter
• Font – CTRL+SHIFT+F, use arrow keys and then enter to select
• Move box- SHIFT+ ALT+SPACEBAR, then press M. Move the window or dialog box using the up/down/left/right arrows then press (ENTER)
• Resize box-SHIFT+ALT+SPACEBAR, then press S. Move the window using two of the up/down/left/right arrows then press (ENTER)
• Restore/reduce - ALT+SPACEBAR, then press R
• Minimize - ALT+SPACEBAR, then press N
• Maximize - ALT+SPACEBAR, then press X
• Close Window - ALT + SPACEBAR + C
• Homepage – ALT +HOME
• Select Checkbox – TAB to box, SPACEBAR
• Select – Shift+Arrow keys selects characters and Shift+ CTRL +Arrow keys selects words
• Move Text - Select the text you want to move. Press the F2 key. Move the insertion point to the location where you want to move the text. Press Enter.
• Change Application – ALT +Tab+Tab+Tab or ALT +Esc+Exc+Esc
• Switch Documents in Same Program – ALT +W then number or CTRL F6
• Close Window – ALT +F4 or CTRL +W
• Close All Windows - Alt + Shift + F4

We're Not Very Good At Surprises Around Here

The UPS man brought my Christmas present today! I didn't know it was coming even though I have been asking for one. Let me tell you, it MORE than makes up for the present I didn't get last year. Can you guess what I would want right now more than anything else in the whole wide world? A laptop! But not just one. I asked for two so my kids and I can all work on computers at the same time. I'm so excited!!!

I'm especially excited that one of them came today because we are leaving tomorrow for a trip to California for two weeks. Now I will be able to blog while we're gone. I didn't know how I was going to survive for two weeks without my computer. What a hardship that would have been!

I'm sure having fun organizing my packing. As you can imagine, everything is in bags and storage bins and I made a big long list so I hopefully won't forget anything! I'll let you know how well I did once we get on our way.

Perfect Your Pie Crust

Don't recipes always say to cut strips of foil for the edge of your pie crust to keep it from over-browning? So I have spent years fumbling around with strips of foil that never stay on just right (I must be some kind of foil dummy) until last month when I made a turkey potpie with Thanksgiving leftovers. For some reason I got the idea to cut a SQUARE of foil big enough to cover my pie, fold it into fourths and cut a circle out of the middle of it. Wouldn't you know it but the dang thing fit perfectly over my pie crust and stayed put as it should!

No burned crusts here!

Check out more amazing ideas that will work for you! Not that this idea was amazing. It was pretty good though so I'd give it a 7 out of 10. What do you think? Is this going to be a life changing experience for your pies?

Decorating a Boy's Room

So how do you decorate a boys room? When Victor was born and I started collecting things to go in his room I knew that I didn't want a baby nursery. I wanted a room that would be a good fit no matter how old he was. Call me lazy but I just didn't want to re-decorate when he outgrew elephants and clowns. You might call his room Patriotic Transportation.

This is his room in our old house where I went kind of crazy experimenting with paint. He liked it but I wanted something more timeless in our new house. I had the painters paint all of my new walls, ceiling and trim the same bleached sand paint so I could take my time adding color. I painted Victor's trim shortly after we moved into the house. After that I decided that bleached sand was a perfectly good color and haven't done any painting since!


Instead of getting ready for our trip yesterday, I spent the day (and night) decorating Victor's room for his birthday next week. He stood ready to hand me hammers and drills until he passed out on the bed at around 11:00. I kept working, staying up till 2 a.m. to get it finished. I'm so happy to have one more thing crossed off my to-do list!

I bought this rack from Pottery Barn on clearance. Now the boy has a place to hang his robe, a towel and a sweatshirt. The floor has been working really well for him so far but I didn't so much like that system.

This is the secret door in his closet that I wrote about a couple months ago.

We found this ore at the lake several years ago. It's hanging over his (unfinished) closet.

I found the old wooden racquets at a garage sale and I picked up the artwork of ships and planes at various discount stores as well as the clock. Eventually I'm going to put a window seat under the window for him that will have a couple extra drawers for storage.

This flag hung at the White House! Did you know you could order flags that have flown at the White House? Apparently they just run one flag after another up the poles all day. You can call your local congressman and ask for a flag request to be mailed to you. I think I only paid $7 for this one.

I bought this old wooden sleigh for five bucks at a garage sale. The blue bookshelf is the first thing I tried to build for my house. A friend of Stranger offered to let me borrow his tools but when we went over there he wouldn't let me touch any of them and ended up building the whole thing himself. After that I started collecting my own tools from garage sales. I built this headboard from an old wooden door. The little night stand I bought at a garage sale for $5. I want to paint the bookshelf and night stand. What color do you think I should use? I'm thinking black or dark chocolate brown.

I bought these little star quilt hangers from pottery barn so I could figure out how to make my own. I've never made any and in fact this is the first time I have ever used the stars! They need to be painted too, probably black. The quilt is black and red and gold. Those are supposed to be suns but my sister said she thought they looked like turtles so now it's the turtle quilt.

Do you think some day I will get all my doors stained? I'm afraid it's too far down my list to happen any time soon.

Here is a happy boy looking very cool.

You like?

Organize Your Aprons

Look at my handy aprons! I have never had a place to put them in this new house until now. Not that it really mattered because with them hanging right next to the sink I still can’t remember to put one on.

This rack has been sitting in my kitchen for let's not say how many months but I couldn't decide where I wanted to hang it or even if I wanted it in my kitchen. I have to make these decisions very carefully because we all know that once you drill a hole in a wall to hang something you can never, never, never change your mind, move that thing and fix the hole. Don't even think about it because you will upset the delicate balance of nature or of your husband who is telling you to stop putting holes in the walls.



There are some people around here who do remember to wear the aprons. I offered to make one that fits Lovely but apparently that’s not as fun as the apron folding game, or as cute.



When cooking gets tedious you have to find ways to entertain yourself.



I need to discuss making the new following rule at our next family counsel. "Your hair must be combed and you must be dressed before you are allowed to do anything cute or photo worthy. Messy hair, jammies and one pink fuzzy slipper will no longer be allowed.” Unless they add to the cuteness that is.

Tomorrow I will tell you what I have been doing all night instead of packing for the trip we are leaving for in two days.

It Takes Persistence

She’s job hunting. Everywhere we go she asks me if she could get a job at this place or that. She wants to be a waitress but she says she will settle for sweeping the floor at the local gas station down the street. If only they would let her help customers once in a while. She can’t figure out why restaurants don’t hire six year olds. She finally decided if they hired six year olds and older then little kids like four year olds would think they could work there too. “But they would just get in the way wouldn’t they Mom?”


Persistence asked me the other day, “Why do people keep asking me what my Daddy does when their Daddies do the same thing?”

“You mean you think all Daddies work for the Railroad?”

“Yes.”

“Well, they don’t. Daddy’s can do all kinds of things. They can be teachers, doctors, fire fighters, work at McDonalds, or libraries or anywhere.”

“Oh, I thought teenagers did those things and then all the Daddies worked at the railroad.”


“Mom this letter says it’s for Lara Gallagher. Can I open it for you?” I turned around to see what piece of mail it was and said, “Sure.” Persistence ran off to open her treasure. Moments later she returned and excitedly said, “Mom! You are really going to love this! It says right here, if there is anything they can do for you then you are supposed to call! Do you want to go somewhere tonight? They could come baby sit us for you!” “Oh ya? What does it say exactly?” I asked.

“Welcome, we hope you’re enjoying your recent HSN purchase. Tune in or visit us online anytime for innovative and stylish products for you and your home. If there is anything we can do for you, please call one of our Customer Service representatives at 1.800.284.3900.”

It's an Organized Closet!

In just a couple weeks my hall closet went from this:

To this!

I’m so happy with the way it turned out. First of all I decided what I wanted to do with the space. Then I cleared out all the tools and building supplies and organized them into boxes according to the following categories: things that needed to be returned, painting supplies, hardware, and tools. All of it went down to the basement except for the return box which went out to the garage.

Finally it was time to get to the fun part! I had a pile of wood scraps and I rounded up all my tools when I was working on this project so I had everything I needed to get started. I measured and drew lines where I wanted the boards to go. Then I cut them and screwed them to the walls. After the boards were up I filled all the holes, caulked, put on two coats of paint and installed the hooks. It sounds easy doesn’t it? It was but of course it took longer than I thought it was going to take. Things like this always do, especially with so many helpers!

Everyone begged to get in on the action. Stranger spent an hour in the ceiling/attic finding one of the flooring boards I needed for the bench. I really wanted to do it myself but he kept begging and begging so I gave in and let him do it. He also screwed down the boards on the bench because I didn’t make the braces wide enough and he thought I would mess it up. I pretty much agreed with him there! The kids helped by fending for themselves for two days while I worked and they posed long enough for me to take their picture during the painting process. Lovely helped by being in the way, walking off with the tools and losing screws but she got to be the first one to climb up on the bench and hang up her sweater!

One blue container holds swimming towels and the other holds all our pool toys; floaters, balls, diving equipment, bags full of shampoo, sunscreen, combs, etc. The bench is extra deep so we can keep our swimming bag on the back of it and still have room to sit on the front of it. It’s extra sturdy, allowing me to stand on it to reach things on the top shelf. I discovered that top shelf was a great place to store a sleeping bag and a roll of quilt batting.

The bottom row of hooks is right where the kids can reach them and the top row is for Stranger and I to use. A hanging rod might have been efficient for storing more jackets but who wants to take the time to hang their jacket on a hanger? Not this lazy family! I am in love with hooks and I use them everywhere I can.

This brings us to how much I spent on the hooks. I bought 18 hooks at $2 a piece, $36 total. That was all I spent on the entire closet. All the wood I used was from the scrap pile. Pretty cheap re-do don’t you think? I love saving money!

It feels so good to have one more project crossed off my list. I can’t wait to get started on the next one! What should it be?

Organize Your Refrigerator

Here are some more refrigerator photos for you organizing crackpots (that one's for you sally!). I didn't take any photos of my freezer so I'll have to do that another time.

See that top shelf? It’s only empty until we go shopping again I’m sure. You know the organizing rule about setting boundaries? The second shelf is the new boundary for leftovers. If a leftover doesn’t fit on that shelf then something else has to come out first. This new rule is going to prevent us from starting so many science experiments.

The top drawer holds all kinds of cheese. I buy the small packages when they go on sale since they keep for a long time unopened in the fridge. Buying the big packages to save money and then letting half of it go moldy is not a very thrifty thing to do. Not that I've ever done that before. You can store grated cheese in the freezer for a few weeks but it tastes terrible if you leave it in there for too long.

The third shelf is where I put the Salad Kit and a container full of dairy products. Again, I like the small cartons of whipping cream. If you open a big carton you have to try to use it right away.

The fourth shelf holds the egg container and a container full of condiments. Again, if it doesn’t fit in the condiment boundary then something has to be thrown out.


The next drawer is for produce and the bottom drawer is for meat.

I love using big containers in the fridge. I designed my kitchen cupboards using all drawers because they make it easier to access things in the back. I think refrigerators should be designed the same way but maybe the containers are better because they can be pulled all the way out and set on the counter. Use some extra containers you have in storage like I did or measure your shelves and buy new containers that work perfectly.

Our Taco Kit fit into this ingenious container that lifts out of the door.


The door also holds our milk and a few other odds and ends.

Have you noticed my love for Pyrex storage containers?

Stranger wanted to buy a set of them (on sale of course!) one year for Christmas but I didn’t think we needed them because I’ve always used Rubbermaid containers. He obviously got his way and I love them! Now I don’t have to worry about the dangers of heating food in plastic, they don’t stain and they look pretty enough to use as serving dishes. They’re not completely leak-proof but that has never bothered me. You might want to consider putting these dishes on your Christmas list!

Here is one positive thing about living in cold Northern Utah. We put a cooler in the garage during all the Thanksgiving rush to store extra gallons of milk and things that we didn't need direct access to. Ice kept it cold enough during the day and the garage kept it from freezing at night.

Get those refrigerators cleaned out and organized. You need the room now that the Christmas holidays are in full swing. We’re all looking for more organizing ideas and inspiration so post a link of your own refrigerator re-do. We'll come check it out and tell you how wonderful and not lazy your are! But, you already knew that didn't you.

Created to Organize Your Meals

I’ve been reading a lovely little book called Created to Be His Helpmeet. If you are any kind of feminist or atheist then this book is not for you, but I’m sure you guessed that after hearing the title!

One of the chapters in the book talks about simplifying your breakfast and lunch meals so you have time to make a nicer dinner for your husband because let’s face it; do your kids really appreciate all the work you do to get a nice meal on the table? No. Your husband most likely won’t either but at least he will appreciate the taste! (We hope anyway.)

The author suggests feeding your kids the same thing for breakfast every morning and the same thing for lunch every afternoon. Doesn’t that sound simple! Thank you Debi, for giving me the permission I needed to simplify my life by torturing my spoiled bratty children! Now I know where I went wrong.

Many years ago I decided that my kids weren’t going to eat ECC (Evil Cold Cereal) anymore. I started cooking eggs, oatmeal, pancakes, muffins and such every morning until my kids were breakfast snobs. One day, “I don’t want eggs. I want oatmeal!” The next day, “I’m never eating oatmeal again. I want pancakes!” We slowly added more interesting dishes to our breakfast repertoire like crepes, German pancakes, baked oatmeal, waffles, quiches, etc. I’m not telling you I cooked something fancy every morning but my kids felt deprived if I didn’t.

A week ago we talked about this during our daily family counsel and came up with a plan and a list of things we would like to eat. I explained to the kids how we were going to make our lives easier by eating the same things every day with maybe something special on the weekends. Our Breakfast Options: Boiled eggs, peanut butter toast, fruit, granola (homemade so it's not evil). Our Lunch Options: Salad, sandwiches, burritos.

The kids and I cleaned out the fridge and washed all the dishes. I really try to keep the leftovers cleared out of it but things got pretty out of hand over Thanksgiving. When you run out of storage containers you know you are in trouble!

We went to the store and bought all the ingredients we needed to make a Salad/sandwich Kit and a Burrito Kit. I love to eat salads but normally I’m too lazy to cut everything up. So this time we just bought everything we could that was already cut up and washed. Persistence. My 6 year old cut up the rest of the vegetables and we put everything into baggies. I’m not, however, too lazy to make my own salad dressing because it’s so easy and bottled dressing is just yuck.

Salad Kit

Burrito Kit

Now I don’t have to hear, “What’s for breakfast,” and “What’s for lunch,” twenty times a day. When people are hungry they know what they can eat and they can prepare it themselves. Not only that but I'm not tempted to grab takeout when I know we have a quick meal waiting for us at home. We are all loving our new simplified meals, even Stranger!

More on refrigerator organizing tomorrow!

Who’s Child is This?

Have you ever met a one year old that plays with a bag full of toys at your feet?

Then when she’s finished and runs off you turn around to find this?

I have heard of the “Pull everything out of the bag as fast as you can and throw it on the floor” game but I have never heard of “Put everything back when you’re finished with it” game. Anyone? Anyone? Do you think she’ll be able to teach her old brother and sister to play it too or is that just wishful thinking?

Stay tuned for another episode of "Baby Organizing" next week.