Kids Room Part Two

Last week I posted about cleaning up and organizing my son's bedroom closet(Bedroom Closet).  I also rearranged his bed, desk and added a storage unit into his room. 


His room is small and he has three big pieces of furniture, which are the bed, desk and dresser.  We bought these pieces to last till he goes to college, so they are not going anywhere.  The bed is really a bunk bed, but his little sister is using the top bunk for now until she gets here own bed in a few months.

I moved the desk over in front of the window.  The dresser is in front of the window as well.  The window is really big, so he still gets lots of natural light when he wants to have it. 

I placed an IKEA storage unit in between these to pieces.  It holds art stuff, games, drawing books and a place to recycle paper.

We are thinking of selling our house next year and I would like to paint his room a more buyer friendly color.  Plus, we painted this room at least 4 years ago and it is time for a change for him.  I was thinking of a pale blue or light gray.  Gray seems to be a popular color. I also want to paint the trim and doors white. I just don't know whether the gray will go with his furniture color.  Any ideas?

The big bookcase is gone from his room and has found a home in our living room area.  A posting on that coming soon!

Parties I linked up with:

Sugar Bee Crafts
Beneath My Heart
Home Happy Home
Southern Lovely
Polkadots on Parade
52 Mantels
Delightful Order
Two Yellow Birds Decor
Hating Martha

Easy Menu Monday

First off, I wanted to share this contest going on over At Two Yellow Birds Decor.  I am looking forward to going through my Pinterest boards and finding something fun to make! 

We have a busy week happening here!  I am starting off the week with an easy dinner.  I have actually posted about this recipe before, but I am doing it again for Easy Menu Monday.  It is super easy and super yummy.  Try it with whatever brands you like and enjoy!

Lickity Split Lasagna

Here is the simple recipe.  I am still using the cards with food stains.  Yikes!






Ready to put into the oven!

Hot and steamy!  Don't hate me cause I love the cheese!

Ready to eat!  Plus, leftovers for lunch for a couple of days. 

Enjoy and have an Easy Menu Monday!

Parties I linked up with:

Cowgirl Up (Button is on my sidebar)

Dwell on Joy

My Favorite Finds

The Real Housewives of Riverton

Fantastical Sharing of Recipes

What's up with us?

Hi everyone!  Here I am doing another weekend post.  During the week just doesn't seem to be working for my blogging at the moment.  Next week is my last week at my temp. job, so hopefully my blog and all my blog friends will be getting more of my attention.

I have done some organizing and rearranging around the house which is a super great thing! First off my son's room. He is a typical nine year old boy, which means messy. I have told others I think it is due to his artistic talents that he cannot focus on cleaning up his room. I shouldn't be so hard on him really. He does try and since we started the new chore chart it has gotten cleaner. Here are some pics of his domain before:

All the pics from above are of his closet.  I emptied everything out first.  I went through and put small things back where they belonged.  I took out the big box you see and put it in the garage.  It is full of school papers.  I plan on buying some sturdier boxes to hold all that paper and some mementos.  I kept the shoe organizer on the door and just threw out things he did not want or use anymore.  Some of the games stayed in the closet and others found a new place to stay.  Here are the after pics of what I did:

What a difference.  I had been meaning to do this for months and finally did it this weekend.    Some things found a new home here that were once on his bookshelf like the books and lego boxes.  There are two large lego boxes on the floor too.  So. many. legos. 

My next posting will be the bookshelf and the rearranging of his room.  Have a great day tomorrow!


Parties I linked up with:

The Gunny Sack
The Real Housewives of Riverton
a bowl full of lemons
Tales of a Trophy Wife
Polkadots on Parade
Hating Martha- Featured at Stinky Linky Party 

Visit to Art City Austin

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.  I usually do not post on the weekends but I wanted to share what we did today. 

First off, my mom came down yesterday afternoon.  She had some stuff to pick up and she stayed overnight.  We took her to Top Notch last night for burgers, onion rings and fries.  Top Notch is in several scenes of the movie Dazed and Confused.  We love going there and last night was yummy!

This morning we took our old furniture to the Pflugerville Clean Up Day.  So nice to get that stuff outta here!  Mom headed back home and we headed to downtown Austin for Art City Austin.  It was our first time and we had fun.  There are artists from all over the US showing and selling their creations.  My son loves to draw and he took pictures with his camera of stuff that he really liked.  There was so much to see!  So many talented and creative minds sharing their gifts with all of us.  I wish we could have afforded to buy something!  Maybe one day!  Here are some pics from the event and of the kids making their own creations!

Zoey on the swing                                                      Spin Art

Shrinky Dinks are cool

Let's build

Posing

Terry bought the kids a geode.  The artist helped them crack it open to reveal the beauty of nature.

                                                  

                                                    One half looks like a heart. 

We ended our trip with Linner(our new word combination for lunch and dinner)  at Chuy's!  Sorry no pictures!  We were to busy stuffing our faces!

Chore Chart

Ah chores!  I love it that my oldest who is nine can do many chores now.  It has taken a big load off my husband and I in the evening.  We are less stressed and have more time to do other things.  Chores for kids are awesome.  Plus, we are teaching him how to be responsible, save money and keep organized!  Wow!  Did I mention chores are awesome?

I have tried a couple of different systems for keeping track of chores and have failed big time.  I am hoping this latest idea will work and keep him going to get the chores done and the money in his pocket or money bank!

I typed up and printed out the chart. I placed it on the clip board and tied a marker on it with some ribbon I had here.

I put up a Command hook at the end of our top cabinet in the kitchen.  This way he can see it and reach it!
I then hot glued some ribbon onto the back of the clipboard so I could hang it up.

Finished!  Pretty easy right?  I can always tweek the layout if need be and add or take away chores.  My son seems to really like this system of keeping track.  Maybe it is the prospect of earning $5.00 a week. 

As you can see the chores are pretty simple for a kid his age.  We started letting him clean the kitchen just a couple of months ago and he likes to do it.  Most times.  He only has to do the kitchen on Wednesdays for now.  Everything else he does Monday - Friday.  He gets a $1.00 for things marked with an * and .50c for things marked with this ^ symbol. 

I almost forgot to mention, this did not cost a dime.  I had everything I needed here at home.  Reduce and Reuse!  Woo-Hoo!


Parties I linked up with:
Mess For Less
Hating Martha

Busy Weekend

Wow!  What a busy weekend!  We drove down to Brenham on Saturday afternoon to celebrate my Grandma's 83rd birthday!  We had barbque and it was yummy.  Grandma made homemade rice salad, like potato salad but with rice.  It was delish!  My mom made banana walnut cupcakes from scratch and mmmmmm!  Yeah, they were good.  She also made some chocolate ones and added cherry filling which makes a box recipe super yum!  She used cream cheese frosting and then the kids helped her put on green coconut and peep bunnies.  They had fun!

On Sunday we drove out to the The Falls Resort in New Ulm and had a brunch.  Then the kids had an Easter egg hunt and later we made a visit to the park before heading back to Pflugerville.

Sorry about all the pictures, but they were all so fun and cute!

I have not done my Easy Menu Monday in awhile and I am afraid it will be next Monday before I get back to it.  I am working on a chore chart for my son and a family meal plan.  I will post both of these when I am done.  This new computer has alot more bells and whistles than my old one.  I am learning how to use it slowly! 

Hope your Monday is awesome!

Spring Wreath

Hello everyone!  I have not been here for a week and I have missed it so much!  Our computer went kaboom and so today we bought a new one!  Yipee!  So happy to be back and hope everyone has been great! 

I do not have a big post today but I wanted to make sure I got on to see what everyone was up to.  I did manage to make a spring wreath for our front door.  I did not take any pictures while I was putting it together but here is an after picture.

For my first wreath, I think it turned out nicely.

I bought all my items from Hobby Lobby:

Straw wreath
yarn
stick pins
ribbon
flowers

I took the plastic covering off the wreath to wrap the yarn around it.  I am not sure if this was a good idea or not because it made a huge mess, but that's what I did. 
While wrapping the yarn around it, I would place a small stick pin in every so often.  I used pins with yellow heads.  It took awhile to wrap this little thing, but after about 3 to 4 hours I had it done.  I went back and did a second wrapping but didn't take as much care to the placement of the yarn.  I was tired!
I cut the two flowers and just stuck them in the wreath.  Then I took the ribbon, cut how much I wanted and tied it to my wreath hanger.  If I want to change out the ribbon, I just untie it from the hanger.  Pretty easy.

Well, that is all for today!  Again, I am really happy to be back!  Woo-hoo!

Parties I linked up with:

Six Sister's Stuff
Crafty Texas Girls-Cowgirl Up
Southern Lovely
One Artsy Mama
Shaken Together