Home (and other) projects

My January organizing and de-cluttering fanaticism continued through this past week.  I just haven't lost steam yet, so I'm going to keep going until I'm over it.  

OK, this is not organizing or de-cluttering, but we did have a beautiful sunset last Tuesday.

On Saturday Maryellen hosted a Pinterest Party for my ladies group.  Everybody had to make a recipe from Pinterest that they have never made before.

And then we did a craft found on Pinterest: painting rocks.

The best part about this craft is that it puts absolutely no clutter in my house. I put my day and night rocks in the front yard.  I'm keeping my heart one to use for Valentine's Day and then it will go in the Valentine's Day box in the garage for the rest of the year.

After I got home from the Pinterest party we went to IKEA to get some stuff to organize the pantry.  I had the pantry really well under control after we first moved in, but especially in the last 6 months, things have gotten very messy in there.  We stopped at the park on the way home.

I knew exactly what needed to be done so it didn't take me very long to organize everything.  It looked fantastic when I was done.

I was able to make space on a lot of the shelves by moving stuff and getting rid of other stuff.  I decided to move our popsicle molds into the pantry from a drawer in the hutch in the dining room since there was extra space now.  When I did that I finally found the little rubber bumpers from the door stops.  I had removed them when we moved in because they are a choking hazard.

They have been replaced.

Another thing I found in the pantry was a chocolate bunny from Easter.  He was buried under all the kids snacks.  That was the main thing I wanted to organize because the snack section was such a mess.

On Sunday he got chopped up and baked into some muffins. 

After breakfast I decided that I really wanted to move this pot that sits by the front door.  I was just tired of it being in the front yard.  It's not particularly pretty and I'm tired of having to constantly plant new flowers in it.  The biggest problem in moving it somewhere is that it is HEAVY.

We rigged a dirt moving system out of the wagon and a sheet.

But even without dirt, the pot was too heavy for us to move.  So Michael went next door to see if our neighbor, Jesus, could help.  They came back with a dolly, loaded the pot and moved it to the back yard.

Ahhh.  So much better.

I had somewhat thought about planting herbs in the backyard, but Elliott had such a good time just playing in the dirt that we decided to leave it just like this for now.

Once the pot project was done we were mentioning to Jesus that we had a tree expert come over to look at our tree a few weeks ago, because it is tilting over even more than usual and roots were coming up out of the ground.  The tree guy said that the tree is still really healthy and its roots are really strong.  We're not in any danger of it falling over, but he said it was pretty bottom heavy and right heavy.  He gave us an estimate of $250 to trim it up, but he pointed out exactly which branches we needed to cut out.  Jesus said that he could help us do it, so he went home, got his chain saw and came back.  

This is before.

During

And after.

We re-wrapped it with lights as soon as we were done and it looks so much better now.  It's way less shady in its current state, but I'm sure it will fill in again soon.

And finally, Spencer has school pictures again on Thursday, so I found this great 75% off outfit for him to wear.

The pants and sleeves are too long, but it was either go a little too big or a little too small.  I think it will look fine.  I'd like to order one 8 x 10, so it's not like I'm looking for perfection here.