Turtle Love

Before Riley started Kindergarten I was determined to find a method for organizing my paper clutter. When he would bring things home from preschool, I kept ALL of them, shoving them in the top of my hutch in the dining room. I saw this little tip on Pinterest and decided to give it a whirl.



Picture from iloveorganizing.com

I bought a black crate from Walmart when they were supercheap during back to school shopping. We had several file folders already so I just popped them in, but would like to get many more in the future. My crate is not NEAR as pretty as the one above, but it works. Every day I sort through the 400,000 papers he brings home, find the ones with cute pictures, funny writing, or something that just makes me proud, put them in the folder and recycle the rest.

Today he brought home a prime example of the papers I must keep:

 A wonderful drawing of several turtles. He did his best to sound out "turtle" and in the end named one of them "Riley Turde". HA!

I'm so proud of my sweet little Turd. :)

Hey! It's Okay,Tuesday!

It's okay to...

Jingle All the Way!

• have the DVR already being filled with holiday movies. I'm a sucker for the ones on the Hallmark Channel!
• wear flip-flops at the end of November. If I'm not getting out of the car, I'm not wearing shoes.
• to give the baby her Christmas gifts as I buy them. She won't understand that there isn't anything under the tree for her anyway!
• to understand exactly why they call early evening "the witching hours". From 3-7 PM my kids act as if they have lost their minds. And it makes me very close to losing mine.
• to really wish they would put Judging Amy on DVD. I loved that show!

Hey! It's Okay, Tuesday!

It's okay...

MMmmmmm...Come to Momma...

• to not like Thanksgiving food. I'm not a fan! (Except for pumpkin pie!)
• to stay at home in your pajamas on Black Friday.
• to go out and shop at 2AM on Black Friday - to each his own! I will be staying home. :)
• to be very excited about putting up our tree. I can't wait to see Gracie's reaction to the lights!
• to be thankful my daughter refers to Bratz dolls as "those bad dolls".

In Her Own Time

I love giving (and getting!) books for Christmas. I believe you can never have too many books, especially when you are little! This year I've carefully selected books for the young ones on my list and hope they enjoy them. The book I've picked for Grace is one that I originally picked up at the library and fell in love with it.

Ruby in Her Own Time is about a duck that hatches late, doesn't like to eat and won't swim. Father duck worries that she'll never do these things, but Mother Duck assures him she will "in her own time." And she does!

It's a bit hard to find (I don't want a used copy, but also don't want to pay $40!) but I will find it. There are a few other Ruby books that may be added to our library as time goes by.

I'm sure I don't have to explain why I love this book for Grace. She has delays now, but she can and will do anything she wants....in her own time.

Something Beautiful

Sweet, sweet girl.

I dare you to look at this and not smile!

My big girl.

Sister smooches.

Grace's favorite toys - her maracas that her physical therapist gave her.

These are just a few of the great pictures taken by Jeri Hoag. Grace wasn't an easy subject - her quirks with her eyes made it difficult I'm sure! But Jeri did an amazing job. Thank you! (And a super big thank you to the anonymous person who generously gifted this photo shoot to us! I hope God blesses you many times over!)

Hey! It's Okay/Not Okay Tuesday!

Shaking things up a bit with this weeks list!

• It's okay to dress up when you take your kids trick-or-treating. I didn't, but I wish I had. I have plenty of time to plan for next year! Suggestions?
• It's NOT okay to dress your child like she just fell out of a whore house. I was amazed at the spaghetti straps, short skirts, and booty shorts I saw on young girls. When your daughter is 20, she can choose to dress up as a "sexy pirate". When she's 12, it is YOUR job to make sure she is dressed appropriately for the weather and for her age. It's just not okay and it makes me sad.
• It's okay to prefer to watch Sponge Bob or Phineas and Ferb over any "grown-up" daytime shows.
• It's okay to NOT give two snits about the upcoming Twilight movie.
• It's okay to feel like you have to clean your house for the babysitter so she doesn't think your family is a bunch of slobs. {Got this one from a friend!}
• It's NOT okay to pass along your Pinterest addiction. Sorry! :)

Sunday Super Mom Fail

During the week I can pretty much keep a good routine. The house is never spotless, but it's presentable and I normally know what we're having for dinner by noon. But when the weekend comes, all that goes right out the window. By Sunday my house is a wreck and dinner is normally very late.

Tonight I had Riley try on his Halloween costume for the first time. He's going to be Luigi and since The Mario Brothers are a huge thing at our house, I was afraid he would never take it off if I let him try it on earlier. He excitedly puts it on and IT IS TOO SMALL. I convinced him to take it off and ran to Wal-Mart to try and exchange it. Of course they are all picked over and the only Mario related costume is Waluigi.

Not exactly the cute costume I'd hoped for.

I called home and got the "okay" from Riley to get Waluigi and was reminded that we hadn't had dinner yet. By now it's going on 8:00 - my kids bedtime! I picked up some frozen meals and headed for the customer service desk to make the costume exchange. Since I didn't have my receipt, they needed my driver's license. Which was in my wallet. In my car. Heading back out to the parking lot I realized I didn't drive my car, I drove my husbands! So I ran back to the customer service desk, told them I would just take the Luigi costume and headed home.

So my family got frozen dinners at 9 PM and my son will be wearing a tight Luigi costume for Halloween. And now you can feel better about the ways you messed up this weekend. :)

Tomorrow is a new day...