The Projects

I have been really busy doing tons of fun stuff around here--I am so excited to tell you about it!!

I've recently begun planning Family Home Evenings for us, and it has been awesome! Tagg has actually enjoyed the short lessons, and I've really had fun coming up with stuff that I think he might understand! I immortalized my favorites: "Tagg, will you put Mommy, Daddy & Taggert in the temple? Temples make our family together forever!" - The kneeling/hand-folding/head-bowing/eyes-closing/Tagg-replica paper doll (and our sweet boy practicing how to pray) - The smiley face happy lesson (I put things that make him happy--juice, a Star Wars guy, an Oreo, etc. in a bag and had him pull one out at a time. Then I asked "Does _____ make you happy? Then put a smiley face on it!" The night culminated in Brigham covered in almost as many smiley face stickers as Tagg was!) - And the puzzle that had a scripture telling about Jesus doing service on the back of each piece and revealed a picture of Him when the pieces were all removed (that FHE was the precursor to an FHE where we went to a friend's house and mowed her lawn for her... I don't like sacrificing family time to do service, so we decided to do it together! Tagg even helped me push the lawn mower without even being asked! :)

Another project I have undertaken is becoming the family haircutter. The Mommy Salonnie has evolved into our very own Great (or at least getting better all the time) Clips! As you know, I had been cutting Tagg's hair for a while. I used to do it in the shower, but then I decided to get a little more professional: Now I sit him down on a stool in front of a movie, swirl that cape around him, arm him with a sucker and cut away! With that success under my belt, one day I realized that since my hair was so uneven and grown out, if I messed up cutting it it would only look different, not worse! So I gave it a shot and am so excited about how it turned out!! What do you think?! Well, last but not least, Jed and I had thrown around the idea of me cutting his hair, but we were both a little freaked out about that since my last clipper incident (back in high school) was... well... an incident. So, we finally bit the bullet about a week ago and, although it took an hour, it turned out GREAT! Jed even thinks so--and kept on saying so!--and he doesn't just say that ;) Combine all these haircuts with the fact that I do Brigham's hair too, and I'm saving us about 50 bucks a month! Yahoo!!! :)

Tagg started to adore cuddling up with the couch pillows, so I figured it was time for him to sleep with one. So I took some stuffing out of an over-stuffed animal he never plays with, used some leftover fabric and sewed one by hand! Later on, it became apparent that he needed a cuddle pillow as well as a head pillow (just like Mommy & Daddy :), and that his beloved little "poo-ee" (pillow) was getting quite dirty, so I whipped up another pillow and fashioned some pillowcases out of an old, holey sheet! ...Just in case you were wondering, none of the projects on this entire post cost one penny! --It's quite amazing how useful the little odds-and-ends laying around can turn out to be! (And how much your house feels like a store when you can actually find and use it all!)

This project has been my baby for the past little while... All of a sudden, I got the itch to organize. I have gotten lots of cardboard boxes for free from local businesses and have used them to stash all our stuff!

Left Column: Tagg's Room--Random baby stuff we don't use anymore, labeled in detail/All Tagg's baby clothes, put into boxes by size/My precious movie boxes (a bit improved over the original product)

Middle Column: Our game/craft/wrapping closet! My pride and joy is the wrapping station on the floor there: Each of those gift bags is full of gift bags of a certain category (girly, Christmas, neutral, baby), and they are accompanied by a box of all the tissue paper I have saved from presents I've gotten, a box of gift boxes, and a bag of ribbons saved like the tissue paper! The rest of the closet pretty much speaks for itself (especially if you blow up the picture and read the labels!! ;)

Right Column: Garage--Jedediah came out and helped me in the heat of his own free will one day! Made the job SO much more doable and enjoyable!/Garage/Laundry Room--stuff we barely ever use/Random stuff I'm storing in the Dance Room, like extra blankets & pillows, cookbooks, and music books.

Left Column: My bedside table: Just not full of crap I don't ever use! Yay!/Dresser drawer with organized boxes in it: Jed & Jess Memories, Gabi Memories, Tagg Memories, and the guest book from our wedding!/Tupperware bins in our bedroom--one for the books and journals I use frequently and one for Jed's Legos.

Middle Column: Our room--My closet: Boxes of maternity stuff and the like/My closet: a deliciously organized box of cd's, a box of shoes I hardly ever wear, a box of candles, one for decorations we aren't putting up, one full of photo albums, and one with winter clothes (wishful thinking ;)/UNDERNEATH MY SINK! One bin for the products and appliances I use when I make my hair curly and one with straight-hair stuff! "But where are the rest of those darn products we have but never use cuz we don't even like them" you ask?

Right Column: Our bathroom closet, from top to bottom, left to right--Cleaning supplies. Box of lotion, box of band-aids & Neosporin, box of sunscreen, aloe & bug repellant. Box of shower and bath stuff, box of sore muscle stuff, box of wraps & braces. Box of general beauty/hair stuff, extra toilet paper rolls, bag of haircutting supplies, clipper box. Box of extra sheets, barf buckets, humidifier that probably doesn't work. Lovely stack of towels, box of extra show towels.

YAY!

The kitchen was fun to do, too. And--I didn't even have to redo it to take these pictures, even though I did this project weeks ago! I've been actually keeping all this stuff organized!!!!

I'll go left to right and top to bottom, but this picture isn't super organized, so good luck following me!

Drawer with appliance/product information & camera accessories. Cleaning supplies cabinet above the stove. Coloring supplies/extra utensils bag drawer. Pantry!!!! (I clean out Prego jars and use them to store my grains, flours, sugars, etc...! It works great!) Box of over-the-counter meds (detail from the medicine/candy cabinet we'll get to soon :). Saran wrap/foil/Ziploc bags/bag of twistie ties I save for some odd reason/bag of rubber bands/pot holder drawer. Folders with all our medical information in them (Another detail from the medicine/candy cabinet). The not-as-junky-as-it-used-to-be junk drawer!! (It's actually functional!) The drawer for my washcloths, pan scrapers and drain stopper. Underneath my sink! (Used to be gross--not anymore!) Teeny drawer perfect for my envelope of receipts and coupons I'll probably forget to use even though they're ridiculously accessible ;) The medicine/candy cabinet you've heard so much about!--Includes a section for vitamins, a box for past prescription meds, medicinal creams, OTC meds, folders of our medical info, and--of course--candy (the reason we need all these meds! ;)

Holy COW!!! I have had lots of fun doing this, and it's really great to know where everything is in our house! Hooray for barely any storage space and improvising and free boxes! (BYU roomies, can you even believe it?!)