Wow! I don't care if each and every one of you 19 new followers clicked follow simply in an attempt to secure a label maker of your own, I still felt the love after my desperate plea for more followers. I had a lot of fun over the past few days watching my numbers grow and reading each of your comments. I appreciate the fact that no one called me out on the nonsensical-ness of my competitive nature that lead to the contest but, instead, gave me props for my honesty!

Ten years ago I attended the wedding of a best girlfriend... known her since we were in seventh grade, lived together all through college, and shared way too many laughs to recall.

When she tossed her bouquet, it landed square in my hands, at which point her dad-never one to care too much about impressions-cupped his hand around his mouth as if her were at a wrestling match and began shouting, 'Rigged! Rigged!' Well, if he were a follower of my blog, he may be shouting that same word again today. With four entries (new follower herself, posted on FaceBook, and brought two new followers along), Holly Lemly is the winner of the GRAND PRIZE! Pookie was excited to pull Aunt Lala's name from the bowl of contestants, and I'm excited to ship her this and this and this!
Holly, I hope you love each Favorite Thing as much as I do, and thanks so much to all my new followers. I will do my best to keep you entertained!

What We Gonna Do Today?

Each morning for Carter begins quite similarly: she wakes up around 8 and eagerly calls my name; for some reason she has never thought of getting out of her bed or leaving her room herself. Murphy and I burst into her room and greet her with a cheerful made-up song, 'Good morning to you, my sweet little Pooks!' Immediately, she asks, 'What we gonna do today? Pymnastics? Aspen Academy? Chick-fil-a with Pierce?'
As her little schedule has gotten a bit busier, I've been trying to think of a fun way to show her what each day will entail. I did a bit of online searching for ideas and couldn't find much beyond typical calendars. Since Carter's only three and a half, I wanted something that would be fun, interactive, and not require reading.
Since Hubby is traveling for work, tonight was the perfect time to get busy on my project. Several folks responded with interest and positive comments on my Little Things Project, so I thought I'd share details of how this one came together, too.
Once I had a fairly clear mental idea of what I wanted to do, I made the only logical first stop: The Container Store. Here I picked up several necessary pieces to begin my project: a white magnetic tabletop dry erase board, a magnetic bin to hold the activity cards, dry erase pens, adhesive magnetic squares, and a magnetic dry eraser.

Then I ran by Target for some photo paper to use on my home printer and some self-sealing laminating paper. The last item I needed was some card-stock, and at home I had some nifty, glittery pad left over from a project I did last fall. 

Once I had compiled all the necessary supplies, I tucked my girls in bed and got busy. I went through my digital photos to find ones that best depicted various activities. (I had to do a little bit of Google Image searching for a couple pictures.) I then printed them out, glued them to the card stock (which I had cut to exactly 4"x6" so that the laminating process would be simple), and wrote the name of the activity on the card. 

Rather than making 'playdate' cards for each

of her friends, I used a group shot from her birthday.

It's funny that flying is such a 

pertinent part of her young life.

Here's a look at all of the completed activity cards; each has a two magnetic squares attached to the back.

I love the way I turned what's essentially just a daily calendar into something much more fun, and I can't wait to show it to Carter in the morning! 

(Of course, I've already thought of lots activities I missed when making the cards... holidays, special treat days, snow days, throwing pennies in the fountain days, splashing in puddles days... But, since it's nearly midnight, and  I have not even begun to think about packing or writing sitter instructions for a weekend trip Hubby and I are taking tomorrow, I suppose the completion of this project will have to wait till another day.)

Color Me Organized!

Generally when Hubby calls me at 5:30 pm to inform me that he will not be home for many hours, I go into a mini-panic/slight depression. I so appreciate having a second set of hands for dinner and bedtime for the girls, and I love our alone time in the evenings. Yesterday, however, when I got the call, I got an ever so small twinge of excitement. I had had a project on my mind all day that I knew I would never get done unless I was alone. So, I whipped up a frozen chicken pot pie for myself, tucked the girls in bed relatively early, and got busy.
I tend to be a pretty organized girl (at least in theory, anyway), and I like things put in their place. After a year of tweaking and the purchase of my label maker, I have finally gotten the playroom just so. However, Carter has a new genre of favorite toys that had me thrown for a loop: The Little Things; that's what we call them. Over the past year she has increasingly collected more and more small things that just haven't had a good storage spot. We'd tried different boxes and bags, but nothing seemed to be just right for containing the growing number mini-animals, dolls, and figures. As of yesterday morning, this darling mouse backpack contained The Little Things.

As you can see, this was definitely not an organized system. Buzz Lightyear laid beneath beetles and lizards which were being trampled by ponies whose families were being separated. It was not pretty and it made me a little shaky to see. When a recent vacation yielded a 12 mini dinosaurs to add to The Little Things, I knew an organizational intervention was necessary.
Yesterday morning, I set out for a trip to the Container Store. I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for, but I knew that I would know it when I saw it. I spent awhile debating between plastic and fabric containers with lids or without. As it turned out, I ended up with these these containers:

 As I left the store, I still wasn't positive that they were what I was looking for, but (as always) I knew I would just return them if they didn't work out. So once the girls Murphy was soundly sleeping, and Carter was using her 'wings' to practice 'flying' off of her bed, I got to work on my project. First I separated all The Little Things into categories and threw away all the unnecessary little accessories (how many Halloween hats do Little Ponies really need?) I knew that I wanted to create a simple system that Carter would be able to maintain. My initial thought was to use my handy-dandy label maker for each section, but I quickly realized that my darling 3 year old does not yet know how to read. So then I got this idea...
First, I took pictures of a couple items for each category:

Next, I printed each picture on my home printer and used a post-it note as a template to cut the pictures to just the right size to fit into the compartments:

Then I used my label maker to make labels for each section. Despite that fact that Carter can't read YET, I do want to help her to begin associating words with pictures:

Next, I stuck a label to each picture and covered it with clear contact paper:

Finally, I used my hot glue gun to attach the labeled pictures to the containers:

And, lastly I put all The Little Things in their appropriate compartments ... VOILA!

I am SO PLEASED with the way this organizational project turned out. The linen colored boxes make them perfect for storing on the bookshelf in Carter's pink and chocolate-colored room just above Murphy's reach (as The Little Things can be chocking hazards!) I showed Carter the boxes as soon as she woke up this morning, and she was almost as excited as I was about them!