Waffles:
My husband just discovered this method and I tried it this morning and FELL. IN. LOVE.

Use a pizza wheel. I still like to follow the straight lines of the waffle pattern. Shawn likes to cut waffles up like a pie. Follow your heart on that, but definitely pick up the pizza cutter to do it!

Sandwiches:
I can’t stand having to cut the crust off of sandwiches (my kids have learned to either eat them or just eat around them), but when company comes over, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. So, I’ve learned to grab this kitchen accessory:

It’s officially called a “Bash ‘N Chop Cutter” because you’re supposed to be able to ‘bash’ the garlic and then chop it with the sharp end. But, ask me how many times I’ve actually used it to chop any vegetable, much less garlic… Works great for cutting the edges of the bread and also cutting sandwiches into squares or triangles or ‘soldiers’ (long skinny rectangles).

Apples:
Don’t know if you have one of these lying around, but I LOVE my apple corer/divider. It makes chopping apples up into slices for the kiddos super easy. This one is a little more expensive, but I think I was able to pick one up at IKEA for about a buck…

Pancakes:
You could probably use the “Bash ‘N Chop Cutter” or the Pizza Wheel to cut pancakes, but I actually prefer to just make smaller pancakes to begin with. I like to make lots of little silver dollar pancakes and tell the kids to eat them in one bite, or just pick them up with their fingers (messy when you use syrup, but worth the extra hand washing to preserve my sanity). Of course, you could always use this MeckMom tip and buy a cheap condiment dispenser too…

So, those are my tips for you. What things do you do in the kitchen to help make kid food easier??

So, instead of living with the masses of piles everywhere, I started looking for ideas of what to do with it all to help contain it and keep it from taking over my entire house. I came across several great suggestions like these:

• Put the artwork into a plastic box that fits under your child’s bed. You can always add more to the box as it starts to build up again. And, you can usually talk your child into culling through the pile that’s been in the box for a while in order to get more of the new stuff in.
• Get a clean pizza box to store artwork (even some 3D artwork will fit in these). You can even have a box per child per calendar year stored away in a closet somewhere.
• Take digital pics of the faves and then recycle it all. (Talk about NO clutter!!)
• Hang them in your playroom or child’s room from a clothes line/string.
• Then, there’s the ever-present refrigerator door. (Can you find the door or handle behind all those brilliant crayon masterpieces?)

While these are all great solutions and work for some people, the problem I had with most of these was that the artwork was stored away somewhere that no one could see them on a daily basis. Or, if they were on display, there was just TOO much volume of work to keep up with it all on ONE refrigerator door.

So, we decided to do something different. I ran across an article about making a collage of your child’s artwork on a canvas and hanging it in their room. And while the task of putting things on a canvas seemed a little daunting to me, I liked the general idea of being able to put MANY pieces of artwork together into one larger piece of art.

For Christmas, we bought Kate a simple, wood frame from IKEA. We got the poster-sized frame so that we would have plenty of room to display LOTS of artwork. And the great thing about this frame, besides how CHEAP it was, is that it uses plexiglass for the front instead of real glass. SO nice for a little kid’s room where strange things happen to things that can break.

We took that frame, painted it her favorite color, pink, and then added several decorations to it to make it truly hers. She loved getting to personalize it any way that she wanted to with little foam butterflies and wooden letters painted to match her room. And I loved that the whole project, including frame, wooden letters, paint, and foam cut-outs cost less than $10.

Then we took her PILES of artwork and started culling through them all to determine which pieces we absolutely HAD to keep and which we could cut out just a special piece of, and which ones were truly recyclable. (This process, by the way took at least an hour! She comes from a long line of pack-rats, so it was inevitable that it would take forever.)

Once we had the ‘special’ pieces ready, we started to place them on the poster sized paper that was included in the frame. We took special care to cut things out with fun edged scissors, label the things that needed it, and arranging them just right so that nothing was covered up that was really important. Then, we glued it all down. (Quick tip: using liquid glue tends to make the paper wrinkle and even make marker bleed, so we wound up changing to a glue stick half way through the project.) When everything is glued in place, I have Kate take a marker and sign her name and date to the bottom of the collage. I think this will be a fun way to not only keep her artwork from this age, but also get to see a piece of her handwriting, too.

Then, all that’s left to is pop it into the frame (might wait for the glue to dry first, though) and hang it where it can be admired by all. We have Kate’s hung in her bedroom so that everyone visiting her can see all her special pictures. It’s been a great way to personalize her room even more and she loves being able to show off all her artwork to her friends and grandparents.

UPDATE: It’s been a few months since we did the original collage and there have been plenty more ‘special’ pieces of artwork generated in that time frame. So, we bought a piece of posterboard, cut it to size and went about creating a new collage of the current artwork. Once it was done and ready to pop in the frame, we just set the new collage on top of the old one in the frame, sandwiching the old collage between the new one and the backing of the frame, and voila! a new collage for her wall with all her current artwork.

So, this week’s topic was 5-ingredient recipes.  My kind of cooking!  Needless to say, I’ve spent lots of time perusing everyone’s creative ideas and have bookmarked several to try out.

The first recipe I tried was for Egg & Sausage Muffins at ISpeakBeanish. They turned out great!!  I added some cheese (hello – I AM a cheese-aholic!) and then I blended up some fresh yellow squash and zucchini to “hide” inside the egg mixture that you pour over the sausage. You couldn’t even taste the veggies (thank goodness, otherwise my family wouldn’t have eaten them) and the two oldest kiddos LOVED them.  We had plenty leftover for breakfast the next day and I’m about to freeze the rest to have on hand for whenever Shawn needs a quick breakfast to go with his morning coffee.

So, slide on over to ISpeakBeanish for her great recipe (she’s a Houston local, y’all!!) or to RocksInMyDryer for more ideas for dinner tonight and enjoy.  Oh, and then you have to tell me which one YOU did and how it turned out so I can be sure to add it to my list! :)

And this is where we all thank God for Google and the internet and other bloggers out there that write about the things that they do!  I ran across this article on using fresh herbs and how to pair them with foods.  Great resource to keep bookmarked and refer back to when you’re cooking and want to try something new, but don’t know which herbs taste best with which foods.

Just thought I’d share!  :)

Check out Lunch in a Box.

Let me know what you think and what creative ideas YOU have, too!

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I decided that not only did all the mess need to be contained better, but it also needed to move out of my kitchen completely.  The ‘formal dining room’ in our house is right off of the kitchen and we’ve turned it into a playroom – perfect spot for all of Kate’s art supplies.  But before I could move everything, I had to clean out a space on the tall table (away from siblings’ hands) to move everything.  (Don’t you love when one project requires a second and third project to happen first to be able to make the first one happen???  Blah.)

Finally, I got the table ready and then moved all the ‘stuff’ to the table.  Then, I cleaned up the rest of the ‘outdoor stuff’ that sits on the windowseat and found a big bin to hide it all in.  So, all the flipflops, sunscreen, bug spray, water guns, and sidewalk chalk are now out of sight!  And look how clean my windowseat looks now!!

Of course, by the time I got all of that done, I was exhausted and the kiddos were screaming for my attention (quite literally, I’m afraid.  Yes, I tend to be a tad “focused” when it comes to organizing projects! )  So, I stopped for the day and decided to come back to the art supply/artwork mess another day.  I think that’s actually a key – knowing when it’s okay to stop and come back to a project another day and not feeling like it all HAS to be finished immediately.  Especially when you have three little ones under foot.  :)

So, a few days later, I decided to tackle all her art stuff.  Luckily, I had already put some amount of organizing mojo into this area of our lives and had containers already in use.  So, all it took was a little re-thinking of how everything was working and what would make it even better.

She now has 3 magazine holders that are specifically designated for 3 different kinds of things.  One for workbooks, one for sketchbooks and CURRENT artwork (I’ll have to write another post about what I do with all her artwork that accumulates at such a FAST pace), and one for stationary (my daughter LOVES to write cards to people).  She has an art kit box (thank you, Tiffany, for that birthday present!) that houses all of her stamps, markers, map pencils, glue sticks, and scissors in neat little organized trays.  Then she has a stack of art projects like beading, mosaics, and stamping that require adult supervision. And the last box next to the bookcase is full of all her painting supplies, including smock and table cloth.  All of the crayons and coloring books moved to another section of the playroom in a three-drawer rolling cart where the youngest two could also access them.

When I was done, I called her over to the table and explained the system to her. (Lucky for me, she takes after her parents and actually enjoys systems!) She got it almost immediately and then called her daddy in to show him and explain each section to him.  Best way to learn is to teach it to someone else, right?

So, now, I just owe a huge debt of gratitude to Laura over at OrgJunkie for encouraging all of us to tackle this project.  And I’m SO in for the rest of the year, so keep your eyes tuned for my next project!  What’s YOUR next project?

But, I’m SO in on March. This month’s challenge has been the dining room. While we don’t have a formal dining room anymore (it’s now a playroom), the area in the kitchen where we eat was starting to get over-run by my daughter’s craft supplies. Since she’s a budding artist (she takes after her daddy), we have a little bit of everything and somehow it’s always on the kitchen table and the windowseat behind it. Here’s a ‘before’ pic for your amusement.

So, my goal this month has been to clean up the windowseat and therefore all the craft supplies and move them somewhere higher (where the 18 month old can’t get ahold of crayons to write on the floors and walls with) and more organized in ONE space.

Check back in with me in about a week and I’ll show you the finished project. Or, at least the ‘finished-for-now’ project. Because, seriously, is any project truly and thoroughly completed? Isn’t there always just ONE more thing we want to do to make it perfect? Or maybe that’s just the German perfectionism in me coming out…

Oh, and don’t you want to join me and all the other ‘freaks’ that are organizing their dining rooms this month? Add a comment below about what your next project is going to be!

I’m here to say that I L-O-V-E my sister for reminding me of this idea. And I L-O-V-E MeckMom for having this idea in the first place. And I’m going to the store tomorrow to buy under-bed boxes for all 3 of my kids so I can try this out.

I’ll let you know how it works. In the mean time, check out this link to MeckMom’s ingenious idea to keep my kids from emptying their drawers after I send them to get dressed!

There are a lot of downloadable grocery lists out there, but none are as good as The Ultimatest. Why is this one better? Comprehensiveness. Categorization. Cleverness. Helpful clues and cues. Creativity. And… it’s portable, unlike a lot of shopping list software that requires you to be in front of a computer.

The Ultimatest is a free downloadable PDF you simply print out, hang on the refrigerator door and mark up before you go to the grocery store. Just check off the things you need—no more writing out lists by hand!