Baby Clothes!

My mom saves stuff. Actually, she's getting much better. But when we had our first child, out came a box of stuff that she was saving. . . for when I had a child. . . from when I was a child. Well, among the stuff were outfits from the 70's that bring fond memories for her, but not for me. I don't remember being a baby. However, now that I'm a mommy I do understand. I love the tiny outfits from the tiny times. So, now these grandbaby outfits are all on display (nailed to the wall!) at my parents' house.

She also included a picture of each baby in their outfits to add to the "awwww" factor. Stinkin' cute.

Closet Doors

I find myself exceptionally annoyed with the doors in my home. The kids seem to fight over them constantly. There is banging, screaming, injuring, scuffing, stuff falling off my walls. . . So when we decided to have our 2 oldest share a room we realized something had to be done about the sliding doors on their closet, else we might lose fingers. So, we took them off like my parents always threatened to do.
I'm pretty happy with our Shelftrack "closet system" we bought at Home Depot. The drawer slides come off the standards, especially my son's, but my hubby tied things together with some cable ties at the back.

I Don't Bake

I don't bake sweets . . . much. I find that baking sugary snacks leads to . . . eating sugary snacks. However, I have a love affair with cookie cutters that stems from quality time spent with my grandma and mom as a child. I've been collecting cookie cutters for years with the fantasy of baking cookies with my children. While I had no children, I could store them safely away in a closet, knowing my future baking fantasy was safe. Now I have children that are old enough to bake with me and piles of bulky, rarely-used cookie cutters. So, when it is time to fill the kitchen with flour, I have to pull out ALL cookie cutters so we can practice decision making. This is not how I like to spend my fantasy time!!! But, "Hey!" I thought. "I can nail them to the wall!"

Now it's easy to see to make a decision. We spend all year making the decision.

Function or Beauty?

For the last 4 1/2 years, I have had a toddler and an infant concurrently. "How?" you ask. We've stacked 4 children pretty closely in age. Therefore, we have constantly had 2 diaper users and a one consistent trash-digging hobbiest as resident. Ah, a problem. It is important to have a trash for the diapers close by, and we weren't impressed with the Diaper Genie. Now, I prefer to keep things as pretty as possible. However, when stinky, yucky, doo-doo trash is strewn about out of my pretty, little, unobtrusive wastebasket, I start to rethink what is attractive. So, we asked ourselves, "How do we nail the trash to the wall?" And this is what we found:

Now we have our trash displayed for all to see. But, it is terribly convenient to the diaper-changing area, it's out of reach of our precocious toddler, and we can easily reuse our grocery bags. Beside the trash there is a little Sack Sock that we picked up at WalMart. I think you can usually find one at most craft shows or on Etsy.

Nail it to the Wall

My husband and I were both begotten by clutterers. Not your run-of-the-mill clutterers, but full-on, garage-sale-shopping, Sam's membership, that-might-come-in-handy-someday, antique-collecting clutterers. They raised us well and loved us lots, but we were not forced to put everything in its place, since often things didn't have a place to call their own. As a result, we are passionate about reducing clutter (which = chaos = stress), especially since we have 4 children so far. This usually means throwing or giving stuff away when there's no need for it. My husband likes to "store things as money" or not buy it before you need it. But, there are times when you actually need (or want) something, just not all the time. For these things, there is an obsession with finding a way to "nail it to the wall", and unspeakable joy that comes from finding elegant ways to do so. Come with us on our exciting journey to use the space we have in an efficient and organized way.