Continuing with my organizing theme for the week, today I’ve managed to box up all of our books that we aren’t using right now.
That has left a very bare bookshelf.
Now I just have to get working on making the bags/bins to put the toys in and onto those shelves. That will have to wait until I finish Nik’s quilt though!
Some of you may be wondering how in the world I get any work done around the house without a lot of toys for Ellie.
My answer?
Potato peels!
I know I blogged about this earlier but as I watched Ellie play with these yesterday while I made dinner, I realized that this really is a great developmentally appropriate game for her to play. She spend a solid 20-30 minutes transferring the peels back and forth between the two containers, completely absorbed. Once she’s a little older, we’ll probably do the same thing with containers of dry beans and a scoop but for now, peels are working great!
Continuing with my organizing theme for the week, today I am beginning to sort through and organize Ellie’s books and toys.
Here are the toys that we have for her:
There are a couple other little toys that we keep in the living room, which I forgot to add to the pile.
I know that this isn’t very many toys, compared to most kids her age. We’ve done this quite purposefully – both in number and kind of toys that we’ve welcomed into our house. Even with this few toys, Ellie still sometimes just flits from one toy to another without really playing with them (which is likely a consequence of having too many choices).
And here’s our bookshelf or at least the bottom three shelves of it. The bottom two shelves are board books, which she is reading right now.
I forgot to take a before picture so this is the best I could find in our files.
Here is where I am right now, in the process of sorting and boxing up the vast majority of our books.
That’s Ellie, pulling books out of the box about as fast as I could put them in!
My plan is to only have out 6-8 books at a time and we’ll probably pull out new books (and put away old) every week or so. With the toys, I’m going to put some of them away because she doesn’t play with them anymore. I am also going to make drawstring bags for anything that has multiple pieces and attempt to put some kind of applique on the front of each bag that relates to what goes inside. We’re going to start working with Ellie on the concept of playing with just one toy at a time and putting it away before getting out another one. We’ll store all the toys on the shelves of the bookshelf that I’m currently clearing of books.
Packing away all these books has actually been really hard/conflicting for me. It feels like we should have TONS of books out, you know? But really, all Ellie does with most of the books is pull them off the shelves and then I have to put them on again. I am hoping that with very few options, she’ll learn to settle down and enjoy the books that she does have. (And yes, I realize that this is an age/maturity issue as well as a “too many books” issue.)
All of this is prompted by our reading of the book, Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne. We’re attempting to simplify Ellie’s environment in order to help her to thrive.
I’ll keep you posted on how this plan works out.
Ellie’s talking! Here are Nik and Ellie, reading Good Night Gorilla, which is probably Ellie’s favorite book at the moment.
Let me point out that her “Uh oh” comments are appropriately placed in relation to the plot of the book! 🙂
Updated 4/8/13: I’ve changed the mixing method to an easier one, decreased the sweeteners, and changed the add-ins – all for a tastier, easier cookie!
Here’s a delicious recipe for you, courtesy of my old roommate’s sister’s friend, Michelle. We like to call them “Nursing Cookies” around here because Kristen made a couple bags of them for me right before Ellie was born with the explicit instructions that they were for me, and only me, as a nursing mom.
And once Ellie was born, I was SO grateful for them, particularly when I woke up ravenous in the middle of the night. So I’ve taken to giving them to my very pregnant or newly delivered friends with, “For Nursing Moms Only” written on the bag.
For all of us, call them breakfast cookies, eat them at any time of day or night, and enjoy!
Michelle’s Breakfast Cookies, AKA “Nursing Cookies”
yield: I make mine relatively small and usually get about 5 dozen
1/2 C (1 stick) of butter, melted
1/4 C brown sugar (original: 1/3 C)
1 egg
1/3 C honey (original: 1/2 C)
½ C peanut butter
¾ C pumpkin or applesauce
1 ½ tsp vanilla
Add and mix until combined
2 C flour (I use whole wheat but white is fine too)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
Add and mix until combined.
2 ½ C oatmeal
½ C coconut
½ C chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate
1 C chopped nuts
(or just use two cups total whatever good stuff you want to use – other options include sunflower seeds, raisins, or other dried fruit, flax seed, etc.)
Add and mix until just combined.
Drop by small spoonfuls onto a baking sheet. (These don’t spread out much at all so you can pack them onto the baking sheet fairly closely.) Bake for 12-15 minutes at 350. These stay great stored in the freezer and are delicious eaten frozen!
That’s what I get for choosing to quilt the whole thing with lines 3/8″ apart. I am close to 75% done anyway!
Continuing with my organizing theme for the week, today I tackled all three of our freezers.
Here’s my before pictures with the freezers (which are really not all that photogenic):
And here they are, organized, useful and beautiful (in their own special way):
As you may notice, we love to use boxes to organize our freezers. Try it!
Here’s my inventory:
and here’s my favorite part of that inventory!
We’ve got to get that thing planted under a tree this summer!
Next up? Ellie’s toys and books!
Today, Ellie discovered chocolate cake.
She was quite curious about what that brown stuff was on the table so I pushed a few crumbs her way. Then I moved the cooling rack to the middle of the table so she wouldn’t eat it all.
Surely I am not the only mother to feed her child chocolate cake so that she could get the dishes done?
And yes, in the interest of keeping things real, I’m showing you these pictures even though it is apparent that the cake is in multiple pieces on the cooling rack. Clearly, I didn’t wait long enough before trying to take it out of the pan, even though I’d buttered and floured it. We’re having dinner at our friends’ house tonight and I’m still going to take it, homely though it is. Cake crumbs still taste good right?
I think it looks rather respectable on Granny’s platter, don’t you?
The pantry is done, looks beautiful, and is so much more useful!
And proof that I even took inventory! Ellie was quite useful at this point – as I took down each bin, she quite industriously pulled everything out and then threw everything back in, while I wrote frantically trying not to miss anything! 🙂
This afternoon’s job? The freezers!
“Organize” is my key verb for the week.
Here’s my schedule:
Monday: Pantry
Tuesday: Freezers: the one in the fridge upstairs along with the upright and the chest freezers in the basement
Thursday and Friday: bookshelf and toys
Here’s my before pictures from this morning with the pantry:
As you might notice in the pictures, I already have a pretty good system going, with labeled bins. For Pete’s sake, I even have a Kitchen Pantry Map (that’s a Word file)! But all of that doesn’t mean anything if you don’t actually follow the system.
Since I took those pictures, I’ve managed to pull out almost everything. Then I’m going clean the shelves, inventory what I have, and put it all back in. I’ll post a picture later to show you my progress!
Salmon and Souvlaki 