Just Like Mom

Tonight, after tucking the big boys into bed, I headed downstairs to get the littlest one.  The house was unusually quiet, except for his sweet little voice singing over and over a Mr. Rogers song, "Peace and quiet, peace, peace, peace."  He must love bedtime as much as mommy does.  The one year old stage is definitely one of my favorites!

Operation Organization: Part 1

 As some of you might remember in one of my earlier posts, I made a new years resolution to become more organized.   It has been a VERY slow process (I started in January and am not close to finishing my goal) but  slowly I'm getting there!  The two areas I wanted to focus on where to streamline our family's daily routine and organize our closets. Here are  a few snapshots of our progress.

This September we entered into a whole new realm of busy when Dawson started school.  Suddenly I had a lunch to pack and 3 boys to get out the door in the morning.   To help make lunch packing quicker I have started taking 15 minutes each week to fill a snack bin.  I take snack size ziplock bags, add snacks (ie. crackers, popcorn, raisins, cookies), and place them in our snack bin the pantry.  Then they are ready to throw in Dawson's lunch bag in the morning or in my purse for the other boys. Jen over at    I Heart Organizing had a similar idea!  ( I love her website by the way).

Another idea I came up with stemmed from a trip to Costco where I had found prepacked individual sized smoothies.  I thought this was  great idea, but a little on the pricey side, so I decided to make my own.  The most tedious process is cutting up the fruit, after that it's pretty easy.  Here's how we did it:

Cooper's Instant Breakfast

1.Fill the muffin tin with your favorite yogurt. (about 1/4 cup per section.)  

2. Add 1/2 cup of your favorite fruit on top of each section.

3. Cover with plastic wrap and place in freezer overnight

4. Bring out of freezer and let the pan sit on the counter for few minutes.

5. Pop out your fruit smoothy "cupcakes."

6.  Place all the "cupcakes" in a ziplock and store in the freezer until use.

7. When ready to make your smoothy pull a "cupcake" (or 2) out of the freezer add milk and a bit of honey or sugar to flavour.  ( you could also add flax or protein powder at this point)

8. Enjoy!

As for closets, I have managed to tackle a few.  The one with the biggest change was in the big boys room.  Their dresser was getting old and too small to store all their clothes. The dresser found a home in the garage and the closet was finally put to good use.   Here are the before and after shots:

Before 

After!!!

I picked up the shelves for the clothing and shoes at Zellers.  The totes and hanging organizers are from Superstore. They have a new line of kids decor called Jump Kids World. Very cute and reasonably priced.  The totes on the top shelf hold socks and underwear.  Each section of the hanging organizers is labelled with the days of  the week, so we only have to pick out our clothes once a week!

Heaven Is For Real

A friend of mine recently lent me this book to read,  Heaven is for Real- A Little Boys Astounding Story of His Trip To Heaven and Back.   It's the true story of a  three year old boy Colton, whose spirit supposedly left his body and went to heaven while undergoing major surgery.  His life was saved and over time he reveals his heavenly experience to his family.  I was a little skeptical at first about the book but in the end really liked it.    I always find the idea of heaven hard to wrap my mind around, it seems so far away and almost mystical. This book definitely has me thinking about heaven and the power of prayer in a whole new light.  If Heaven is just as Colton described, I can't wait to go there!  I highly recommend this book, whether you believe his story is legitimate or not, it's an encouraging and enjoyable read.