Laminating-Mania, Busy Bags and Customer Service...

A few observations and experiences from this week: 

-It really sucks being sick when you are a mom
You all are very fortunate to be getting this post today. I finally succumbed to the 34897 different sicknesses that all my children have been passing around amongst themselves. Layla had a 24 hour stomach virus in the beginning of the week, Olivia still had a cough from her last cold and then decided to go for round two. I then got a legit call from the school nurse on Friday... Summer had apparently thrown up in the hall. (I felt so utterly bad for her and was slightly worried because those kinds of things can follow you around for years. Fortunately a friend was walking her to the health room so there was only one witness. Phew. Kids can be cruel). I have to say I do enjoy the  "she hit herself in the eye with her zipper" call much better than the puking one. So on Sunday, it got me. Everything at once. I felt like death and barely moved from bed all day. I couldn't have been happier that this happened on a weekend so Matt could take care of the girls. There are few things worse than feeling that miserable and having to be mommy through it all. 

-I have found a passion for laminating
My sister saw this shirt and made a very specific phone call just to tell me about it: 

Story.Of.My.Life. I become obsessed with organization, labels, etc... but then I never keep it that way. I like to, I'm just too scattered... but then that drives me insane. It can be tough living inside my brain. So on my continued quest to provide some independence for the girls around the house, my next mission was to eliminate all excuses for not putting their clean clothes away. Enter: clothing labels. So before I began this project, I had an irresistible urge to buy a laminating machine. I don't know why, I just really really wanted it. Amazon (obvi) brought me to the perfect, amazingly reviewed, budget-friendly beauty that I would receive in two days with my fab prime membership. I mean I don't know about you, but there have been what seems like upteen times that I have thought to myself, "I really need to laminate this." So after the excitement of the laminator delivery, I then scoured the internet in search for the perfect clothing images... far harder than I had anticipated. After saving a trillion to my computer, adjusting them, printing them out, re-outlining them myself, and pasting them onto adorable paper (Layla- green, Summer- purple. I had to switch them after depression ensued)... my laminator went into action. Here are the results: 

Shirt Types

Leggings/Sweatpants or Jeans

Pajamas, Underwear and Socks

I attached them to their drawers with an adhesive velcro coin so I can change location of things when I want or with changing seasons. Good news: Layla and Summer put every last piece of clothing in the proper drawer, easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. HOORAY!! My stupid work paid off, but now if I can just get them to put their DIRTY laundry where it belongs...

-My kids need to learn to PLAY BY THEMSELVES!!!! 
With this recent colder weather, I have come to the unfortunate realization that outside is just not going to be an option for much longer. I know they would be fine, but let's be serious... I don't want to freeze my butt off. We spend A LOT of time outside during the other seasons, so to have them cooped up inside all winter is sort of a nightmare... unless I want them to watch TV all day. My sister had told me about "busy bags" years ago, but the girls usually just played with each other. Now with Livi totally alone three days a week (totes not what she is used to), she epically sucks at playing by herself. Layla isn't great without their fearless leader Summer either. My work commenced. So I started off with a semi-ghetto puff ball situation from a yogurt container with a hole in the top. 

I don't know why pushing those puffs through the hole and dumping them out is entertaining, but it is and that is ALL that matters. 

Next up was a matching picture game. My printer is basically out of ink so I will be redoing these, but I just printed a few animals pics, cut them in half, laminated them (obvi), and voila. 

I then decided to order a few items to make things more interesting. 

Velcro Craft Sticks. Literally just stuck the velcro coins on them.  


















Clip the clothes pin with the number that corresponds to the dots (More laminating! And educational!! Bonus!!): 

Match the upper case top part of the egg to the lower case bottom part: 

And a felt board situation: 

Okay I bought the last one... do you know how annoying it is to cut out all of those shapes?!?! And judging from the dog hair visible in the picture, they have already played with it. 

I have a few more in the works (stringing beads, dry-erase shape/letter tracing, etc), and I have been figuring out different age-appropriate ones for Layla vs Olivia, but the point of these is to bring them out, have them play with them for a period of time, and then put them away. Don't let them get sick of it. Since I have been working on these I feel like they have been watching more TV than normal, but you have to reach your goals somehow... I am just searching for more things to laminate. 

-I use curbside grocery pick-up because I DON'T want to put myself through the hell that is known as shopping with my children
I have previously discussed this fantastical service that Harris Teeter provides. I shop online at home (my specialty in general. Lucky Matt), select a time to pick it up, they load it into my car, and perfection. No tantrums, screaming, sweating, forgetting things, buying extra things, 57 cookies, mania that is shopping with small children. There are few things I hate more. So the night before I pulled up all of my items, chose the pickup time for before I drive carpool for Layla's school, and went to sleep at peace knowing that the next day we would actually have food in this house. Now the customer service at Harris Teeter is beyond exceptional. I actually regret each time I go to Safeway because despite the convenience of beer and wine, someone always does something that is just so irritating that I internally re-avow my allegiance to the Teeter. So prior to this time, I have never had a single issue with an order. My produce is always phenom, meat fresh, and all items accounted for. Now there is one employee at HT who is just a little... shall we say, odd. Very nice, just different. First bad sign: I received four phone calls the morning I was supposed to pickup my order, asking about substituting the things they were out of, giving me bigger cans of this, that, etc. She was rambling on but I did hear her say something about a bigger can of tuna and a bigger can of pumpkin puree. No prob, whatever, I can deal. When I opened my trunk for my groceries to be loaded, I see her and immediately become concerned. I become more concerned when she makes a side comment about how heavy my meat is (pork tenderloin... should be 2 1/2-3lbs). I am increasingly concerned when she has me sign two different receipts, with the main one significantly more  (like over $20) than I had been anticipating (the second one was for items she had added later. I know, I was confused too). Unfortunately I had kids to pick up from school, so dissecting my receipt was not a possibility at that moment. When I got home and started to unload the bags, I am met with the meat... and yes, she had every reason to make a comment about how heavy it was. Instead of giving me the small, normal package of pork tenderloin as I had ordered, she gave me a ginormica of a pork loin that had to have been three feet long. I mean it was as tall as Layla!!! It also weighed in at nearly TEN pounds. Hereeee is the extra $20 on my bill. I still got it half-price, but paid $27 instead of the $8 I was supposed to. So oh well. We have the mammoth meat. Matt looked up how to cut it up and we essentially will get like 10 meals from that one behemoth. The next morning I get up and go to make the girls breakfast and that is when I discovered: no bananas. I requested six bananas and they are nowhere. I checked the car too. Okay so mammoth meat and no bananas. I fish out my receipt to check everything else. I find that I also paid for an extra can of tuna and I was given a large can of pumpkin pie filling instead of 100% puree. Not okay considering I was making a dessert that day with the pumpkin puree that needed to be chilled overnight. 

Due to these fatal errors (and the fact that I was nearly out of deodorant and didn't want to use Matt's for three days again), I did the last thing in the world that I wanted to do (which is why I use this service), and packed up Layla and Livi to go to the store. I kindly explained all of the issues to the home shopping manager person (who was off the day before, natch), and she proceeded to make corrections. She gave me money back for the can of tuna AND another $20 for the difference in meat. I got my pumpkin puree (they were NOT out of it... look with your eyes and not with your mouth, as my mother would say) and my bananas. All the while my kids are snotty, whining, crying, and miserable.... and I am sweating, trying to explain the problems, and chucking cookies at them in hopes of silence. Meltdowns started happening and I was spastically trying to get out of there, so as I was turning to go the woman yelled after me that she would add another $5 credit to my account. While it doesn't erase me having to come into the store, they did try to compensate (and I got my deodorant). I don't blame the odd woman (total lie), but I hope they make sure she stays in a position that she can succeed in (aka not picking out my groceries). Maybe other people have the luxury of not caring, but I am not one of them... I have too much laminating to do. 

-This is my blog so I get to have a proud mommy moment
I had my parent-teacher conference yesterday for Summer and she started out, "Before I get into the specifics can I just tell you that you have the sweetest, cutest little girl." :o) I knew that, but hooray. Nothing but advanced and proficient in absolutely everything. AND she has slept in her OWN bed ALL night for FOUR nights in a row. YESSSSSSSSS!!!! I had Layla's parent-teacher conference a few weeks ago and I will say, it was the first one I have ever been nervous for. Not that Layla is bad, she is just so completely different and one of the youngest in her class. I wasn't sure how she really was in school. My worry was silly because she got 100% raves as well, and it was from the same teacher Summer had last year. So basically, my kids are great for everyone else and total hellions for me. At least it isn't the other way around.

The madness continues... Wish me well. 

Happy Wednesday! 

Death by IKEA and a Happy Laundry Room...

I have a true love/hate relationship with IKEA. I mean, it is so cheap, has a trillion things, is so colorful and happy... but yet it can feel like the devil's playground when you are overstimulated and suddenly feel frozen with indecision when you swear you knew exactly what you were coming for just mere moments before. 

In my silly overambitiousness, my recent quest has become to promote independence with the girls. I want them to be able to get their own clothes out, put them away, get their own coats or jackets, etc. I figure I can't expect them to do things if 1. They can't even reach it. 2. There isn't an actual place to put things. Herein started my quest for uber-organization. So obviously I started 15 projects and have yet to finish one. Sometimes I just don't know why I do things. 

My first ambition was to make the laundry room a fun, happy place to be in. I mean, no one likes to do laundry... I might as well make it random and awesome. I wanted fun bins to bring in a bright color that I was going to paint one of the walls. Quest accomplished at Home Goods where I found these orange and grey bins to go on the shelves. 

So I went with an orange wall, did a grey chevron roman shade, pulled out a mason jar and put on a chalkboard label for items left in pockets, ordered a decal from Etsy, and hung a framed "Martha Stewart stain guide." 

I hung an old shelf with hooks on a lower level so the girls could have a place for their main jackets, backpack, my purse, etc. Put up a hook for items that need to be hung up immediately, an ironing board hook and also a broom/swiffer caddie thing behind the door: 

Here is a random 'before' picture: 

Here is the after: 

Laundry is miserable. This needs to be a happy room. End of story. 

So that project is mostly finished (the cabinets need to be organized... they are ginormous but I am not utilizing them, perhaps because I would always need a ladder). My other project is redoing the closet in Summer and Layla's room. I had previously gotten some drawer units and whatnot, but the high shelves and place to hang their dresses just didn't work. They couldn't really hang up their own clothes, and I just thought it was a ton of wasted space in the closet. I found an idea that would work from iheart organizing that looks something like this: 

I wanted to get additional shelves to hang above the lower rods for smaller bins for hair things, belts, etc. Their closet currently had the one builder-grade wire-ish shelf that hung across the top. Not good. 

So I planned ahead for this IKEA trip. I even got someone to watch the girls. We had dinner plans with friends that night, but I had what I thought was a good amount of time to gloriously shop without children. I thought I was being smart about this. I know I do plenty of stupid things, but taking multiple children to IKEA when I need a large item is something I never want to do (again). I had a list... expedit shelves, bins for the shelves, and three frames. I also wanted to look at wall shelves. That's it. 

It was a rainy afternoon, but no one was on the ICC per usual so I made it there in good time. I smartly parked at the exit, proud of myself for thinking ahead. I brought my list, notebook of measurements (just in case), and purse. So my first mistake was not grabbing a cart by the entrance. I hesitated but thought, "No. All the stuff I'm getting is on the lower level." I ride up the escalator and am met with the happy, modern, bright patterns and adorable setups. It's this joyful land filled with things that are so cheap but they make look so good. I snag a yellow bag and put my annoying notebook in it, grab a brochure and pencil. My trip officially commences. 

Almost immediately I see curtains that look like a perfect color for our bedroom AND they have the grommets at the top... oh wait, miracle upon miracle, they are long enough (I have absurdly long windows in EVERY room)!!! And they are only $27.99 a pair! I can't believe it! I put two sets in my yellow bag and it is already awkwardly heavy. I'm not even through the Living Room showroom. Oh well, I usually have three kids with me. I can carry a bag no problem. I continue on my way, stopping to look at the different wall shelves. There are so many of them, and they are everywhere... and when I think I like one I end up running over to another set-up thinking I like different ones and low and behold they are the same exact wall shelves. I plow through sofa-beds and get to the wall units and media storage. Here I write down the article number, aisle and bin for my expedit shelves like a pro. But then... wait, there are cute inserts with drawers that I could get for these shelves. Oh no, there are multiple types of bins in slightly different colors. Crap. What do I need. Losing focus. I jot down the insert article number and the names of the different bins. I can make the official decision later. I can't think right now. My arm and back are throbbing from this awkward bag. I start second guessing the curtains but I know if I put them down I am never finding them again. I see more wall shelves that look good. Ugh, those are the shelves they put products on. I run through Kitchen and Dining trying to get back on track. In Workspaces I slow down when I see all of the fantastic looking organizational stuff. Our office needs a better system... I could get this stuff to help that out.... no no no, stop, focus. I am continually seeing different shelves with different bins and fabulousness and my mind is whirling over what I actually need. Ohhhh the closet systems in bedroom are amazing, I want all of it. I somehow blow through children's IKEA with the sheer motivation being my back is aching from these stupid curtains and I make my way downstairs. Alright, I only have 30 minutes to find all of the stuff down here and get on the road. Crap. Here is where it went majorly downhill. I grab a cart to appease my back. Ohhh a trashcan would be fantastic to hold wrapping paper in. Hmmmm these $3.99 spice racks are all over pinterest for their book holding qualities, I should get a few. Bins. Oh these bins. I agonize for several minutes, finally grabbing two in turquoise (??? I need five). I get to curtains and I am now met with another set that I think I like the fabric better but they don't have grommets. Decisions. This woman won't get out of my way. I hate her. I think I like the grommets. Ugh do I really need these right now? No, I don't. These can wait. I put them back twice before I put them back in my cart. I get to the frames section with mere minutes left before I am supposed to leave. I can't find the ones I want. Wait which ones do I want? I liked it best when it was a bigger mat, right? Aghhh I have no idea. None of these look like the ones that I want. Ten minutes later I frantically grab several and nearly sprint to the massive warehouse area. 

The expedit shelves are on aisle 1, bin 24. I find it promptly but I am met with an extremely large box. I mean, I know how big these shelves are (they are the ones I made my bench from). But are they really this big? And heavy? Over six feet long and 50lbs? My cart won't do, I need to get one of those other flat-bottom-big-things. I backtrack to the front of the warehouse to grab one of them, and push both carts over to the shelves. While holding the back of the cart with my foot, I try to finagle the huge shelves onto my cart. Profusely sweating and running severely late, I must have looked like I needed help because a woman came over to hold my cart in place while I maneuvered the shelves. I thanked her, then loaded my stuff up on top of the new cart and shelves. These curtains. I mean, they can wait. I take them out and set them aside. NOOOO I forgot to write down where that adorable pink insert with drawers was. The computers are all occupied. And I never did find the correct shelves or decide on anything. Oh well, whatever, I have to leave. I am so late. I am running to get in line. Finally grab one that doesn't look too long and try to look like I am not utterly frazzled and sweaty and irritated that I have no idea what I bought or what I even need anymore. No, checkout woman, I have no idea where my IKEA family card is. Clearly you have to scan it before you start scanning my things because you are standing there waiting for me to find it. Ah YES here it is. Did it even do anything? No. I paid and left, thinking to myself how I was going to get these shelves into my car by myself. Determination presided. Despite the awesome pouring rain, I lifted them up and pushed them partly in, then ran around the other side to lift it over the console. Went around back again and pushed it in fully. Success! At least it is raining so my profuse sweating isn't too noticeable. I packed everything else in, already regretting not getting the curtains. Ahhh rainy traffic. I can feel a migraine coming on. I finally get home and throw on some clothes. My hair and makeup is a lost cause. The entire ride to dinner I sat in the way back between Summer and Layla. Neither of them shut their mouths the entire ride and all Summer wanted to teach me was some 'Avocado' song/game she learned with her friends at school. I barely did it one time when I decided the 'quiet game' was essential. That didn't last, but we finally did get there and I had TWO lemon drop martinis and prime rib. I'm pretty sure most things can be solved with two lemon drop martinis. 

So I got the shelves but only two bins. The frames were the wrong size. I wish I bought the curtains. I never found the wall shelves. And I keep thinking, that trip could have been MUCH worse. I could have had children with me! I have since made an updated list with EXACT items (along with article numbers) and I may just go straight to the lower level and get the things I need. That was just out of control. 

So I am now mid-23498 projects (I am also moving their old drawer units into our closet and reorganizing), with none of them completed. Which kills me. Oh and did I mention we drove to North Carolina for a wedding last weekend?? A total of 17.5 hours on the road between Friday and Sunday. (I knew we were going to be driving to NC, but in my head that meant like 4-5 hours. I didn't process that it was Charlotte which is significantly farther. Geography lesson learned the hard way). It was Matt's cousin who was getting married and it was actually perfectly amazing. A GORG venue and tons of fun people. The girls were invited and considering we are going to Nashville without them in two weeks, we figured we would bring them. While they struggled a little (Livi fell asleep during the ceremony which I was THRILLED about but then she started snoring...) we all had an amazing time. All of them were on the dance floor until they dropped. 

They were also big fans of the photo booth: 

Weddings are just so happy, especially when the couple is flat-out adorable and their love is SO obvious. Next time we'll fly and it will be even better. 

And lastly, did I mention Matt is out of town?? He had to be in Virginia on Sunday afternoon (we dropped his car off there on the way), and yesterday he had to go back down to North Carolina until Thursday. Sorry, there has been no "Girls Only Weekend of Fun"  this time... it has been pretty rough. Counting down the minutes until tomorrow night.... 

Happy Wednesday!