2 Weeks!

Well, I hope I am not jinxing myself here, but it's been 2 whole weeks. Two weeks the little miss has been sleeping in her own bed! Doing far better than I'd imagined. Most nights she's done great. Only a few nights of nightmares. I go in and either hold her and lay with her for a bit, or if it's early morning she comes in with us. A couple times I was in the twin with her half the night. We are back to doing stickers on the calendar and she gets ice cream on Fridays if she's slept in her bed all week. Last week she got ice cream. Not just any ice cream, but "dirt" ice cream. A little something Daddy got her once that worked like a charm. Vanilla ice cream with chocolate "dirt" on top and gummy worms. This week she didn't get any because there were 3 days without stickers. But that's ok. It's progress. She is doing good and she's proud of herself! We are too!

Pantry Make-Over

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Everything labeled and in it's place! Here are a few details:

1st step was to hang shelves on the door for vitamins, medicine, and spices. Got an additional slide-out spice rack to go on the top shelf (right). Next I picked up clear plastic storage containers at Walmart. (Better Homes brand are great!) Picked up the pretty green shelf liners at TJ Maxx for only $5.99!

Found free labels online, printed them up, and tied with ribbon. You can find them here!

Made the most of the space with extra wire shelves on each side of pantry and one large wooden shelf in the center. Amazing how much space is in there now!

                                    Pantry is now pretty AND organized. I am a happy woman!

Projects

Been cleaning and organizing like a mad woman these days. The cold and dull days of winter are a perfect time for sprucing up the place and getting rid of the clutter. I am addicted to Pinterest these days and have found so many great ideas!

1st up was the closet make-over. Well, actually it is the stairs leading to our basement, but it serves as a "hall closet". You could barely walk through there before:

Loved this idea below. Such a great place to store hats and gloves. Now we can actually find a matching pair when we need them!

Hung some additional racks and wa la! You can actually put everything away and still walk down the stairs without causing an accessory avalanche!

Next up was the pantry. Still in the works. Will post b4 and afters when complete. 

THEN we did Ruby's room. She's been saying she wants to sleep in her own bed when she's 5. Well, we did it a few months early. We asked her if we could make her a more fun room with play space and she said yes. We explained in detail what that meant and if she agreed, she'd be sleeping in her big girl bed from now on. "YES!" she said. "I wanna do it". After all the nightmares in Dec and Jan you may think me crazy for saying this BUT....we did it. We moved the big bed out. That's right! She is sleeping in her OWN bed. Now, mind you, it's only been 4 nights, but so far, so good! She knows she can come crawl in with us whenever she needs to.

Little miss was actually so excited with her new, large space. She ran around the room placing stuffed animals on window sills and the bed, saying she was "decorating". LOL, she insisted the bright orange Nemo fish should hang in the center. Wouldn't have been my choice, but hey, it's HER room, so there it hangs.

A lot of toys were moved upstairs from the playroom, making both rooms less cluttered and more organized. Fun for her, too!

She seems real proud of herself for sleeping in her big girl bed. We are darn proud of her, too!

Loved the over the door shoe rack and was, therefore inspired to reorganize the closet while I was at it.

Been crafting a bit, too, and found inspiration on THIS blog to make this for the hub for Valentines.

Making these little "trees" is super easy and adds a pretty little touch.

 Been a busy bee and I'm not done yet! Pantry is almost finished then I'm making a craft room on the 3rd floor. So great to have time to do this right now.

With Ruby's birthday, Easter, Songkran, Spring, a play/dance recital, ice skating lessons, horseback riding, and who knows what else... the coming months will be packed with activities! Taking advantage of this "down" time to work on projects I've wanted to do. Feels good!