Our clean up game

So, as a parent, you can't totally control how much stuff your child brings into the house
{believe me, I try} but you can teach them how to organize it a little better. The best way I have found is to trick them into picking up. Every night before bed Peyton gets to choose two songs to play on her Hello Kitty stereo and we pick up and get her pajamas on before the songs are over. She *loves* it. It's like a little challenge. There is time for a little dancing while we pick up too!

Then we can focus on the more important stuff like reading bedtime stories.

Do you have any tricks to make things a little easier with your kiddos?

Swoop bags are genius.

Do you have them race each other?

Have you surrendered to all the toys? 

Maybe you could camouflage the rooms so you can't tell if it's a mess or not.

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Too much caffeine= progress

At least I think it does. Unless too much caffeine makes you clumsy and you end up breaking things. 

{guilty... 2 coffee mugs last week!}  

my Wednesday check list:

made sugar cookies for Valentine's Day

dropped off 8 garbage bags of clothes to Salvation Amy

fixed 1 ugly medicine cabinet and made it look a *little* better. 

{It was broken when we bought the house but we are waiting a little bit to remodel the bathroom. I lined it with grasscloth paper which is a *major* improvement.}

I had a little extra time to obsess about my new couch... new to me anyway. It's American Empire from 1810 and we are having it refinished and reupholstered soon.

I was thinking something like this:

Lee Jofa Eric Cohler Woods Brocatelle 

or these beauties from Kravet and Lee Jofa

The hubby wanted something classic and blue so we ended up here:

Maxwell Walker #150 Pool

It feels like velvet and it is crazy durable {100,000 double rubs!}I like to fill my house with patterns so a little solid colored fabric isn't all bad. We compromised, so I got nail heads and a tufted back that I wanted. I should be done in a few weeks...I'll post some pics soon.
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Our first minimalist birthday party

This weekend was my daughter, Peyton's 6th birthday. We decided to go super minimalist this year, which is nice for a birthday kinda close to Christmas. We invited 7 neighborhood kids over for artistic fun and some cake and ice cream... The best part was no gift giving. Your presence is the present.... and it worked! 

We made some of those sharpie mugs you always see on Pinterest. Just draw with Sharpies and bake them for 30 minutes at 350 degrees and they are permanent. Even a few dads decorated a mug. {cute!}

craft time:

 

They turned out pretty darn cute.



... and now for the treats.
Peyton is crazy about horseback riding so we *had* to have horse sugar cookies... and cake pops too. Once the sugar icing dried I added food coloring to the icing and made polka dots by dipping a chopstick in it. Don't laugh. It worked.

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