This is some sample text.
Learn More
Uncategorized
10.26.12

i phone pics

Happy Friday everyone!  I only have a minute to post today so I thought I’d share a few recent i phone pics.
We went to the park one afternoon last week and were the only ones there.  Love that!
My kids had a ball.

 

 Especially this one.

 

I love this picture because it appears as though Kole actually sat and posed for me.  Um no.  He was running all around the fountain, sat and glanced up for 1.1 seconds and I snapped a picture.
I’ve gotten extremely speedy thanks to this boy.  And if you think my camera skills are fast, you should see me chase this kid down the grocery isles.  Lightning.


The fam on “walk to school day.”  Although Kenny and I were the only ones walking since the girls decided to ride their scooters.  They were so excited to ride all the way to school.  Right up until we started going up all of the big hills and they realized just how long of a hike it was.  Then they wore out and decided maybe driving to school each day wasn’t so bad after all.

Overall it was a good workout.  Especially for Kenny.  :)

Addison went to a birthday party and brought home these glittered beauties she made.  I said “oh how beautiful!  I love them!”  But was thinking now what in the world am I supposed to do with those?  Gear up for glitter all over the house.

Heading to school.  Poses in front of the roses.
Kenny just loves it when I do this.  We’re running late and he’s trying to get the girls in the car and Kole has escaped out the front door in his pajama’s and I say “let’s just snap a quick picture, shall we?”
In my opinion, there’s always time for a quick picture.  :)
We have a fun weekend ahead.  Our designer and cabinet guy (who are both from Utah) are traveling down to go over design and get all of the measurements for our cabinets and built-ins.  I’m so excited to have them at the new house!  We almost have things finalized for the kitchen and I can’t wait to go over details again in the actual space.  Toss in a Halloween party, a quick trip to the Pumpkin Patch (that we were hoping the girls would forget about this year but no such luck), a program at church, gymnastics for the girls and speech for Kole and I’d say things are booked.  Plus I started an organizing project that is half way finished and all over the dining room table and it’s driving me crazy.  Fingers crossed I can squeeze in a minute to finish it up.  Fingers crossed I’m still alive at the end of this weekend.  If I am I’ll have lots to blog about.  :)
Enjoy your day!
xoxo, Erin
Leave A Comment
Uncategorized
10.25.12

A wasted evening and a feature

Well.  I just completely wasted my evening.  I had grand plans to post something fabulous.  I take that back.  I had grand plans to post… something.  And then I watched Parenthood (so good by the way – made me cry).  And then I watched a few other shows.  And I ate chips.  Too many chips.  And now it’s late.  And I feel guilty.  For not posting something.  And for eating so many chips.  So now I’m just going to organize some pictures (you can see how I organize pictures on my computer here).  And then go to bed and call it a day.

And do better tomorrow night.  :)

p.s.  I was recently featured on the blog Skinny Mom (where moms get the “skinny” on fitness, food, fashion, and family).  They wrote and asked if they could feature me as one of Skinny Mom’s favorite family blogs.  I said um.. YES!  And thank you!  Then they asked me some questions and I answered them.  You can read those questions and answers here.  So fun.  Thanks to everyone at Skinny Mom!

K.  Now I’m off to bed for real.  After I organize some pictures.  And maybe just eat a few more chips? NO!  I’m putting them away.  Tomorrow night I’m going to post something real and eat carrots.

xoxo, Erin
Leave A Comment
Uncategorized
10.24.12

Garage Organization

Garage organization!  It has been on my mind lately.  And I’ll tell you why.  My garage is a MESS.  Seriously.  It’s driving me crazy right now.  Aren’t garages hard to keep clean?  They are such a catch all for anything there isn’t space for in the house.  Whenever life gets busy, my garage is the first thing to go.  

Plus, as you know, there is a certain little buddy of mine who has made it his mission to un-do everything I’ve done in this space.  :)

As soon as I get a chance I need to spend a few hours cleaning things up again, but the main problem with my current garage is that I never completely organized it to begin with.  We did a few things that help keep our garage in order…

like adding some storage above the garage door,

putting in hooks for our ladders,
hanging yard tools and coats on racks,

placing shoes on additional racks, 
tossing flip flops in a designated basket,
and of course, I went completely type A one afternoon and organized and labeled all of our mini odds and ends (screws, nails, drill bits, etc.).  I’ll never forget the day Kenny came home from work and I proudly showed him this.  He gave me a look that said you have now officially gone off the deep end… maybe staying home with the kids wasn’t such a good idea after all…  
:)


 The rest of the garage is a lot of storage sort of lined up along one wall.  “Semi organized clutter” I like to call it.  Boxes hold holiday decor but they aren’t labeled.  Kids’ toys are tossed around randomly.  There isn’t a set place for a lot of the stuff we have along this wall.  (I was going to take a picture of my garage mess today and then before I knew it, it was dark, but trust me – it’s not pretty.)  :)

“Semi organized clutter” is NOT going to happen in my next garage!  Every time I’m at the new house I spend some time hanging out in the garages visioning how I’m going to organize everything.  I can’t wait!  We are going to “lose” a lot of stuff in the move, let me tell you.  It will be a great opportunity to simplify.  If I wasn’t moving, I would pick a day and completely re-do my current garage.  There are so many effective ways to store garage items in an organized way.  Here are a few of my favorite organized garages on Pinterest that have given me some great inspiration…

Simple shelving is a great way to display items often used.  The bright colors of rain boots and baskets make the garage a much happier place.

Peg boards are perfect for organizing tools.  I’ve seen so many fun peg boards on-line lately.  Such an easy, in-expensive way to corral odds and ends.

Painting your peg board is a cheap and easy way to bring even more color to your garage space.  Who says garages have to be dark?  Love this idea.  

I also love these simple storage shelves right by the back door with extras like paper towels.  And how brilliant is the basket for balls!?  Perfect idea if you have a house full of boys! 
This picture shows how you can truly maximize your space by getting things up and off of the floor.  I love the way everything is lined up!  I’d be so happy to pull my car into that space every day.  

Another fabulous way of hanging/storing everything vertically.  

Love these long hooks for string and tape.  I have things like this in a drawer in my current garage and I am always digging through it trying to find something I need.  This solution is so much better! 

A wall of hooks!  Genius!  So easy to find what you need.  
Labeled baskets are another great garage option for keeping random odds and ends easy to locate.  

These last two pictures made my heart skip a beat.  Talk about organization!  Every single thing has a place and a label.  You sure wouldn’t waste time hunting for what you need in these garages!  I’m a big fan of clear containers because they allow you to easily see what’s located inside.  I’ll take it!  :)
Garages usually aren’t a fun space for people to organize, but what a great feeling once you do.  I think of how often I am in and out of my garage every day – emptying trash, getting in and out of the car, grabbing outside toys for the kids.  It’s a space I want to enjoy and these inspiration pictures have given me so many fun ideas for my new garage.  Hope they have inspired you too!

Happy Wednesday everyone!  

xoxo, Erin
Leave A Comment
Uncategorized
10.23.12

A roof! With some sap on the side

Hi friends!  Sharing a few pics of our new house progress.  I love the framing stage!  It moves so quickly and every time we stop by there is so much more to see.  Here are some pics from the last couple of weeks –   
Kenny standing on the girls’ upstairs balcony.  
Upstairs hallway.  Every time I walk up here I picture myself in my pajamas in the morning waking the kids up for school.  :)  It will be strange being on a different floor than them.  I think I’ll love it and hate it all at the same time.  

This is a picture of Kole’s room upstairs and you can see the outline of a door framed.  We discovered some empty space next to his room because the roof is pitched behind it so we are going to create a cool little addition.  We’re thinking of putting in a bookcase and making it a secret door that opens into a little hang out for him.  I love the idea of a secret door!  It’s so… secretive.  Although now that I’ve shared it with everyone reading this blog maybe it’s not so secretive after all.  :)  I’m picturing a fun space for all of his trains.

The girls beg to go to the new house so they can rake and play in the dirt in the back yard.  We could move in and not even put grass in that yard and my kids would be so entertained.  
Dirty – but entertained.  :)
These pics were taken a couple of weeks ago.  They were just starting the roof.  
 Kenny and Ad on the front balcony. 

 A view of the back of the house.  Roofless.  :) 
 This is how things were looking a little over a week ago.  

And this is a picture from last weekend.  We have half of our roof!  Very exciting.  Now it’s finally starting to look like the house that has been in my head for years just waiting to come to life.  :)

It’s a bit surreal seeing this house take shape and several times when I have been walking through it I start to feel emotional.  Partly because I’m sleep deprived (which always results in easy flowing tears!), and partly because I see our future in this house.  I see Christmas morning in the family room.  I see birthday parties in the back yard.  I see friends over for dinner – preferably prepared by Kenny at the grill so that I don’t have to mess up my kitchen.  ;)  I see my girls walking down the stairs all dressed up for their first date.  I see all three of my kids growing up and Kenny and I growing older together.  I see good times and bad times and every time in between in this house.  And sometimes it makes me want to cry.  Happy tears, but tears just the same.  I am a visual person and I love picking out cabinets and fixtures and paint colors and picturing what this house will look like when it’s finished.  But even more than that, I love picturing all of the memories that will be made in this house and how over the years this house will become a home.

And I am going to stop writing now because Kenny so enjoys teasing me when I get sappy and I have just given him an abundance of material for weeks to come.  :)

Enjoy your day! 
xoxo, Erin
Leave A Comment
Uncategorized
10.19.12

Busy week and a donut chart

YEA!!  It’s Friday.  What a week.  We have been dealing with so many house decisions this week that my head is spinning.  Every day for hours – phone calls, e-mails, meetings.  Today we spent three hours driving around looking at roofs with our roof guy and then I spent an hour with our window guy doing a final check on french doors before we order and then I spent an hour on the phone with my designer working out details for various bathrooms.  Kids have been fending for themselves.  Dinner has been whatever frozen thing I can toss in the microwave.  I am extremely behind on house work and even more behind on sleep.  And to top it all off, my laundry machine started leaking last week (when Kenny was in New York because of course those types of things always happen when he is out of town)  and my new washer/dryer hasn’t arrived yet.  It should be here tomorrow.  One week without a washing machine!  You should see the piles!  To be honest, I haven’t had time to do laundry anyway, so the piles would probably be there regardless.  But having no washing machine makes for a better excuse so I’ll stick to that one.  

Despite the crazy week, I am so excited about the house progress!  The upstairs is all framed and they are working on the roof.  The picture above is me with Ellie in her room.  It feels so real now that I can walk through the whole house and picture what day to day life will be like living there.  I’ll share more pics next week when I find the energy and time to sort through them.  :)

On another note – I have to share the charts my girls made that crack me up!  Ellie loves donuts so every once in a while during homework when we are struggling with her not wanting to stay focused I make a little deal with her.  (Homework is a necessary evil to my El – there are always too many things she would rather be doing!)  We can go buy a donut at the grocery store if she will buckle down and get her homework done WITH a positive attitude.  Yes. I often occasionally bribe my children.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  I was upstairs with Kole last week and told the girls to go get started on their homework and I’d be down to help soon.  When I walked downstairs I was immediately greeted by colorful paper taped to the wall.

I’ve gotta share a close up.  

First up is Ellie’s chart.  She went into great detail explaining it to me.  She added her name taped to the side so that I could move it up and down depending on how she is doing with her homework.

Doing great = donut girl!

Losing focus = OK!  Maybe.

Bad attitude = Warning Donut Maybe – Mostly not!

Not cutting it = No donut!  For sure.  

HA!  I had a hard time keeping a straight face.  Then I saw Addison’s chart and absolutely could not keep a straight face.  Let me translate…

Great day!  Never screwed up!  

 OK.  Sort of good.

Not very good.  :|
Very bad day.  :(
Classic.  
Those two never fail to put a smile on my face.  
Enjoy your weekend!

 I hope it’s a “gud” one.  

:)

xoxo, Erin
Leave A Comment
Uncategorized
10.18.12

Fall decor/organized junk drawer

I was going to make a fun “Fall to-do list.”  Something similar to my Summer to-do list:

Only of course it would say things like – visit a pumpkin patch, go to a Charger game, make apple cider, carve pumpkins, make a leaf banner, etc. etc. etc.  

BUT then I had a reality check.

My 2012 Fall to-do list: choose roof tile, last walk through for windows/doors, final decisions on which cabinets will be face frame, finalize all cabinet sketches (getting close to not being able to tweak things – yikes!), order fireplaces, go over solar panel bids, start looking at exterior rock, choose door hardware, start looking at bathroom tile and counter tops, meet with electricians to decide locations of plug outlets and light switches, etc. etc. etc.

Anyway.  You get the picture.  :)  All things fun for Fall will have to wait until next year.  I’m ok with that.  Especially since it was over 90 degrees on the coast today.

Things aren’t quite feeling like Fall around here!  (Love this recent pic of Kenny leaving the beach.  It makes me smile because he complains every time about how I over pack, but still ends up being a good sport and hauling all of the stuff for me.  Almost as sexy as when he loads the dishwasher or vacuums the floor…)

I haven’t had much time to decorate for Fall but I thought I’d share a few things I’ve done (even though they are pretty much the same as last year).  I’m so anxious to get into my new house and start mixing up my decor!  Patience!  Trying to be patient.  :)

I decorated my mantel the same as last year.  
Put this together and tossed a few other pumpkins around in random places.

And I developed some of our favorite Halloween pictures for my aqua frame.  
The girls love looking at these.  Here’s a closer look at some of their past Halloween costumes – 

You may notice that there are no pics of my little dude in the frame.  
That’s because once again I am showcasing his pics here:

And because his past Halloween costumes are both Christmas themed.  These pictures will be making an appearance in December instead.  I’m still trying to figure out what he should be for Halloween this year.  (Santa Claus keeps coming to mind – HA!)  I’m looking for a costume that he will actually keep on.  It’s such a bummer when they grow out of the “put me in anything and I’ll just sit and smile” stage.  We are SO past that stage and are currently in the “if it will make mom’s life difficult I’m gonna go for it” stage.

I didn’t have time to get too creative with my hutch, so it looks pretty similar to last year too.  Still loving the mini white pumpkins!

The next two pictures have more to do with my peace of mind vs. Fall Decor, but here is a before and after of my “junk drawer.”

 {BEFORE}

{AFTER}

Much improved!  It took a whole 10 minutes.  I can’t believe I let it stay messy for as long as I did.  I am constantly in and out of this drawer during the day for pens, sticky notes, chapstick, or a screwdriver to change batteries in a toy.  Sometimes the smallest organized spaces have the biggest impact in putting a smile on your face, don’t they?  :)

Enjoy your Thursday everyone!  
xoxo, Erin
Leave A Comment
Uncategorized
10.16.12

ALL THINGS CHRISTMAS!!

I’ve been working on my Christmas to-do list.  (SQUEAL!)  Maybe a tad early, but before you know it we will be decking the halls!  I like to be one step ahead on my Christmas planning so that I can enjoy the season with my family as much as possible instead of running around like a crazy person.  Although no matter how prepared I try to be, running around like a crazy person seems inevitable this time of year.  :)  So to help all of you get a jump start on your Christmas planning, I’ve rounded up some of my favorite past Christmas posts.  Everything from my Christmas wrap station, to decor ideas, to Christmas card ideas, to gift ideas, to how to organize your Christmas decor once it’s all said and done.  Just click on the link below each picture for all of the details.  This post is the MOTHER LOAD of all things Christmas.  Bring it on!  And happy planning.  :)  


Excited to make new memories this year.  :)


xoxo, Erin
Leave A Comment
Uncategorized
10.15.12

Disneyland re-cap

Disneyland!  I’ve recovered.  It only took me four days.  :)  Right after Disney my family went home and Kenny flew to New York for meetings.  I was left on my own with a messy house, overly tired girls, and a toddler who decided he didn’t want mom to leave again so hanging on and never letting go was the solution.  Last week was a bit crazy to say the least!  But we had so much fun at Disneyland.  Claire (my sweet niece) wanted a trip to Disneyland with her cousins for her 5th birthday and we were counting down to this trip for months!  My parents stayed with Kole and my sister’s 18 month old so we could enjoy some time with the girls.

Four adults with three kids.  Now that’s more like it!  Not a bad ratio at all.  Especially when the kids are these three girls.  They were SO excited to be together at Disneyland and they were on their best behavior the whole trip.  I have to admit, it felt pretty good to be there with no stroller!

Here are a few pics from our two days at Disneyland…

THE CASTLE!  C’MON DAD!!!
Alice and Mad Hatter!  My all time favorites.   

 Sweet Minnie.  

 Small World never gets old.  

Tea anyone!?
Mickey looks good even in horrible lighting.  I need to learn his secret. 

Just a spoonful of sugar!
 Boarding the boat for a Jungle Cruise.
Chatting with the Princesses.  

Addison and her little cousin Claire were so excited to see the princesses, but Ellie was anxious to head on to the next ride.  I was watching my girls chat with Snow White and out of nowhere felt a great big lump in my throat.  

I was flashing back to the last time we were at Disneyland when I took this picture.  It was three years ago, but it feels like it was last month.  My girls are growing up and before long the magic of the princesses will be a thing of the past.  Talk about depressing.  
Think I can get Kole into Jasmine and Snow White?  He’s already a fan of Tinkerbell.  :)
Speaking of the girls growing up, this was our first trip where they past the height requirement for all of the big rides.  We were so excited to take them on all of the fun stuff!  We tested the waters with a few smaller roller coasters (like the one in Toon Town which they loved) and decided we were ready for Space Mountain.   What we didn’t realize (until we were buckling our seat belts) was that “ghost galaxy” was about to take place.  Seasonal creepy looking ghosts they add to Space Mountain just for the month of October.  As soon as the ride started I knew we had made a mistake.  Pitch black, eerie screaming sounds, the roller coaster going up and up and up, and the scariest looking red skeleton head looming ahead.  WAY too scary of a ride for our girls.  I was sitting by Ellie and grabbed her hand and told her to close her eyes and it would be over soon.  I couldn’t enjoy one second of that ride because I was so stressed about the girls.  I kept yelling at El during the ride to just hold on, but it was so loud I knew she couldn’t hear me.  When we got off Addison and Claire looked as white as a sheet and El was in tears.  They saw her crying and then they started crying.  All three girls were bawling.  We all looked at each other like “what in the world were we thinking!!?”  Car and I kept saying “I don’t remember that ride being that fast!”  “I don’t remember that ride being that scary!”  We felt awful.  We all four declared ourselves the worst parents ever and tried to make up for it with lots of cotton candy and frozen lemonade.  
And suckers.

And toys.  :)

Luckily, we were saved by Thunder Mountain Railroad.  A roller coaster that the girls LOVED.  Still fast, but without the darkness and satanic monsters.  Bonus.  A much better option for our 5, 6, and 8 year old!  The girls loved it so much that we kept getting the fast past to do it again and again and again.  Picture above is Addie waiting for our turn on the ride…  
and here she is ready to go and waiting for me to join her!  
I always rode with Addison on this ride and the two of us would get laughing so hard.  My voice has been hoarse for days because of the screaming and laughing that took place on Thunder Mountain Railroad.  Definitely my favorite memory from this trip.  :)
 Taking a stroll through Tarzan’s tree house.

 Goofy is always a crowd pleaser.  

 Toy Story Ride at California Adventure.  Another favorite!
We spent half of one day at California Adventure and had so much fun.  We were able to catch the Pixar Parade while we were there.  I just love a good parade.  :)

 Seeing Toy Story friends made me miss my little guy!  I kept thinking “oh Kole would LOVE this!”

We ended our time there with the new CARS ride.  It was a blast!  
Definitely a must if you are making a trip to California Adventure.  
Aside from our Space Mountain blunder, the trip was a huge success!  We didn’t even mind waiting in lines because we were all having so much fun visiting and just hanging out together.  Kenny and I got season passes again and the lady at the counter said  “Looks like you usually have season passes but took some serious time off!  What happened!?”  I told her we had another baby and were in major lock down mode for a while.  
But not anymore.
As Ellie would say: we’re back!  
:) 
xoxo, Erin
Leave A Comment
Uncategorized
10.11.12

Re-entry

We’re back! 
Two full days at Disneyland.  
So much fun.
I’d love to tell  you all about it but I’m in a fetal position on my couch and can’t move.
We never left the park.
Never took a break except to sleep a mere six hours. 
We were HARD CORE this trip.
My parents were home with the babies so we had to make the most of it. 
And make the most of it we did!
Hence the fetal position.  
My sister’s flight home just landed and she sent me a text saying “Re-entry is a cruel joke.”
Cruel indeed.  
I am so not looking forward to tomorrow.  
What?  The house needs to be cleaned?  Sheets to wash?  Bags to unpack?  Clothes to fold?  Groceries to buy?  Therapy sessions to make up?  New house decisions to deal with?  Homework to catch up on?  A two year old to take care of?  Emails to answer?  3 newly gained pounds to jog off?  Appointments to keep?  A to-do list a mile long that I so enjoyed ignoring so that I could sing “It’s a Small World After all…” with my girls a time or twenty?  
I will be paying for this trip for a while. 
TOTALLY WORTH IT!

Now if I can just muster enough strength to get upstairs to my bed I will be in good shape.
And hopefully have the energy to share more tomorrow.
Glad to be home.
:)
xoxo, Erin
Leave A Comment
Uncategorized
10.08.12

Grateful

I can’t quite put into words how I have felt this weekend.  I have read every comment on my last post three times now.  Yes, children were ignored and laundry has piled high.  :)  You are all so amazingly sweet and articulate and thoughtful and sincere.  You made me laugh and you made me cry and you made me even more grateful that I started blogging in the first place. 
I wrote hoping that you would help me be a bit less scattered and come to find out – you all like scattered.  You relate to scattered.  Who knew!?  :)  So I will blog on in regular random fashion!  And I am saving all of your comments from that last post in an email folder so that I can pull them up to read whenever I want.  They will remind me that there are wonderful people reading my blog.  And how lucky I truly am to call so many of you friends.    

My family is in town (squeal!).  We went to the beach this weekend and I swear I will be cleaning sand out of my house and car and hair for a week!  But it was a great beach day.  Not too busy and perfect weather.  We have fun plans for the next two days and I am excited to take a break from the “norm.”  I will be back soon with lots to blog about.  :)

Thanks again.  Your kind words meant so much to me and I am incredibly grateful to all of you for your encouragement and support and friendship.

xoxo,

Erin

xoxo, Erin
Leave A Comment
Blogging
10.05.12

Random thoughts on blogging and a question for you

I have been staring at my computer screen for two straight hours now.  Granted, I’ve been catching up on recorded shows at the same time which is part of the reason I’m still staring at a blank screen.  :)  But the other part of the problem – my problem – is that I have so many random thoughts that are all jumbled up in my head lately about blogging and I don’t really know how to share them.  So this post will be a bit scattered since at the moment, I am a bit scattered.

When I decided to start a blog four years ago I did it for two reasons.  1- I love to write and take pictures and record memories so I thought it looked like something I would enjoy.  2- I wanted to share pictures of my kids and my life with close friends and family who lived in other areas.  So I started a blog.  And my family and close friends read it.  And aside from sharing what my kids were up to, I also started sharing what I was up to.  Because that was fun for me.  And I never once thought that people I didn’t know would start to read my blog.

But people I didn’t know started reading my blog.

And those people I didn’t know commented once in a while.  And that was exciting too.  It was exciting and it was a little scary.  I knew I’d never know who was reading and it made me feel a bit vulnerable.  For a while I seriously thought about making my blog private because I was sharing so much about my family and kids and life.

For a while I also thought about writing two blogs.  One about my family that would be private and one about my projects for anyone who was interested.

But I never separated the two topics.  And the reason I didn’t is because I couldn’t.  My family is everything to me and everything I do is about them or for them or because I need an escape from them.  :)  But regardless, it’s all about them.

(picture from a post on toy organization… supposedly)  

So I didn’t change anything about my blog and I kept sharing pictures and projects and the funny things the girls would say and the slightly annoying things that Kenny would say and how much I loved it all – even when it was slightly annoying.  And during the process I was “meeting” and connecting with all sorts of wonderful people.  And it made me love blogging even more.  Blogging has been a lot of things to me.  A creative outlet, a way to record the little things that I know I’ll soon forget and never want to, motivation to complete projects, an escape from difficult days being a stay at home mom to three wonderful but incredibly active children who leave me feeling a mix of blessed and exhausted at the end of each day, a way to make new friends – most of whom I’ve never met but who I still feel incredibly close to.  Blogging has been a huge blessing in my life.

Right now, I need a little direction when it comes to blogging.  I am completely scattered.  (Did I mention that yet?  That I’m feeling a bit scattered lately?)  I think my problem is that I have a lot more on my plate than usual with the new house and Kole’s therapy (which we recently bumped up to six days a week because he is showing a lot of progress).  I have very little time to do the things I love.  When I do find a 15 minute break to work on something for my blog I am completely torn!  I have so much I’d love to do and I don’t know which direction to go in.  Should I organize something on my list?  Decorate the front porch for Halloween?  Complete a page in Kole’s scrapbook?  Take a picture of what I’m wearing?  Share more new house updates?

I will always post about my family and what my kids are up to.  Those posts are the heart of my blog and the ones that are the most precious to me.  But because I am feeling so scattered lately when it comes to the other hobbies I write about, I would love some direction from you!

So here is a question that I hope you will take a minute to answer:  What kind of posts do you enjoy the most?  

I’m not planning to change anything about my blog, and like I said, the family stuff will remain the same.  It would just help me to hear if your favorite posts are about the new house, organizing, scrapbooking, decorating, fashion, etc. because I love to post about them all and right now I need some direction!

So direct me!  :)

I would love to hear from as many of you as possible!  I want to get an idea of what the majority of you come here for.  Plus it would just make for a really fun weekend.  :)

Thank you thank you thank you.  Thank you for sticking with me through this post.  I know how completely random it was.  Thank you in advance for taking a minute to answer my question.  And thank you mostly for checking in with me and making Sunny Side Up a part of your routine.  I am truly touched each day by the wonderful people who read this blog.  Your kindness and support mean so much and like I said, I consider you all friends.
xoxo,
Erin

xoxo, Erin
Leave A Comment
Food and Cooking...or lack thereof
10.04.12

Organized Recipes

Ok.  I finally organized my recipes.  Don’t expect to be blown away.  You know me when it comes to cooking! 

Which is why for the past few years I have simply thrown all of my recipes into this lovely little red folder titled:  Recipes.  I know.  My creativity with this one is unmatched.  

But lately my little red recipe folder wasn’t cutting it.  I had no room to add new recipes and papers were spilling out all over my neatly organized kitchen drawer.  I can’t have that now can I?  :)  Finding the recipe I needed was becoming such a pain.  But here’s the thing.  The reason I have never organized my recipes is because aside from the fact that I hate to cook (which makes me also despise recipes), I have never seen a system that I thought would work for me.  I know there are hundreds of ways to organize recipes,  but I didn’t want anything that would take too much time (like typing them all up in a binder) and I wanted something that I could easily add to without any work.  
Most of my recipes are torn out magazine pages,
handwritten from the kids like this recipe from Addison when she was in pre-school and just learning to write her name.  They are print outs from recipe blogs and e-mails from friends…  

OR they are typed or handwritten by me and totally trashed from having them out while cooking. 
 **Banana Bread recipe is here by the way and they are delicious!  You can tell I’ve made these a time or two.  I keep thinking I need to re-type this, but I kind of like it.  Looks vintage, don’t you think?  ;)
I wanted something that I could use to easily slip new recipes into their categories without much time or energy on my part.  

So remember when I went nuts in Staples over Martha Stewart’s office supplies?  
 And I bought this lovely little purse organizer?
And then I went back and bought a bigger accordion file…  

and I used it to organize all of my home decor inspiration pictures?  And I called it Pinterest – old school.  Remember that?  Well.  I’m sure you know where I’m going with this.  Those accordion files have worked SO well for me.  When my recipe folder started getting too full I knew one of these babies would be a great solution.

So I went back for a third one!  Because everyone knows the third times a charm.  And everyone also knows that if there is an excuse to go browse through office supplies, you take it.  (Ok – maybe not everyone knows that one…)

My recipe categories are:

Salads
Soups
Dips/Appetizers
Marinades
Breakfast
Dinner
Muffins/Breads
Desserts

I know.  Super simple.  Maybe not the best system for someone who is a major chef, but for me, this is perfect.

It opens so wide – plenty of room to add more categories and recipes once I get into my new kitchen and start cooking up a storm!  And by cooking up a storm I mean using the stove at least once a week. (I’ve always been a firm believer in baby steps.  What About Bob – have you seen that movie?  Personal favorite.  Baby steps to the recipes… baby steps to the fridge… baby steps to the stove…)

And of course it closes so nice and compact fitting perfectly into my organized kitchen drawer.  
And just to prove I actually DO cook once in a while.  This is what we had for dinner last night – 

The crock pot and I are the best of friends.  I just tossed in some chicken breasts and diced a few potatoes and some onion.  Then I sprinkled Parsley on it all because Parsley makes it look like you really know what you’re doing.  Made my house smell SO good!  My girls were like “mom!  what are you making!?  it smells so good!  is someone coming over?”  Then Kenny came home… “mmmm!  smells so good, is someone coming over?”

HA!  Made me laugh.  :)
Nobody was coming over, but we all enjoyed this simple meal (and the smell!) regardless.
Would love to hear how YOU organize your recipes! 
xoxo, Erin
Leave A Comment

Shop my instagram

View All Posts