Home Tour With ATwist: Kitchen

I am so excited about this home tour with a twist.  I've already gotten so many great ideas from comments here and my Facebook page.  Thanks to everyone who's been helping!! I've already gone out and bought some spray paint for a basket I have, thanks to Latoya from The Scott's Crib, and thanks to my friends over at We Know Stuff, I'm re-evaluating the kind of art I want to add into the space.  My creative juices are super flowing, so of course I'm ready for the next part of my tour.

I was watching HGTV (while the boys napped, side bar.... it is fabulous to have them on the same schedule!!!) anyway.. I decided it was a great time to snap pics, and since they're still sleeping it's a great time to post (wow that was a long sentence).  So here they are!  Welcome to my large, but pretty bare kitchen ; )


This was my Kitchen when we bought the house... we basically have only painted and added blinds.

This is it today.  When you stand by the mudroom door, you face my kiddie zone.  I have some projects Munchkin does, and his learning poster.  Uuumm... yes those are Little Bear's first birthday balloons (from a month ago).   I think I have issues because I just can't seem to take them down.   Anyway the balloons are attached to our back doors, there is actually the appearance of three doors but only one opens.

So glad you can't see the floor under there (and the wall, and side of the cabinets for that matter).  I used to have a mat but it got so gross I tossed it and have yet to replace it.

The Plan:

I want to add some fun word art in the space over the back door.  That is assuming I ever take the balloons down.  I like what Latoya did with her word art, but I'm thinking I may go vinyl.

A look to the left and you'll see the sink area.  I don't like a lot of things on the counter (as you can see).  I think this stems from living in very tight quarters when I got my first apartment, with almost ZERO counter space.  I guess I've just never moved on.  I don't think there is much I can do there, but I am totally open to opinions.

Sorry it's so dark.  My camera doesn't take great pics... and hubby's camera (which I used) takes great clear pics, but the flash is broken, plus it's raining out... ah such is life.

The door in the corner is my pantry, then next to the fridge is my toast and coffee area.  Ever since I completed my command center, it has become the new clutter zone.  I want to add a pantry sign in the space over the door... possibly.

2

Yes, those speakers are the same ones I removed from the command center.  I just can't figure out where to put them.

 The Plan:

I would like to add a chalk board menu somewhere.  I'm thinking the side of the upper cabinet.
What do you think?

Okay... this is my kitchen table.  I love it!  The color, the height... everything.  It's just plain.  Help!  I can't add a runner...  I had one there for a day with near disastrous results.  I used to have a vase of flowers.  You can see them on the command center way in the background.   I don't want to add another vase because it gets in the way when we're eating dinner.  I was constantly either moving them out of reach of Munchkin who could reach them from his chair, or moving them because they blocked the view of my hot hubby while we ate ; ).

Yes yes yes... I have plastic on my chairs, I'm that lady.  I've already scotch guarded them, but they're close to white and I've to sets of sticky fingers to protect from.  So far so good.

The Plan (so far):

Add a bowl of lemons.  I figure it's low and it will add some bright color.

You've already seen my command center, so I won't spend a lot of time here.  The two doors on either side lead to the Dining Room.

The last area in the kitchen is this blank wall (get used to these, there are a lot to come on this tour).   I think the possibilities are endless.  A neighbor of mine who has an almost identical home, has a hutch here.  It's beautiful, I just don't see the need for any extra furniture or storage for that matter.  What do you think?   I don't quite have a plan yet except some art... but I want to do something awesome.

Thank you for joining me on another section of my Home Tour with a twist.  So far we've seen:

The Laundry Room

The Mudroom

Once again... I encourage the comments, suggestions, ideas... but please be nice : ).

Leiah

Home Tour With A Twist

Over the past almost year of me blogging, I've seen some amazing home tours. The host leads you through amazingly decorated spaces, beautiful art and craft work. Flowers, clocks, pictures, vignettes, everything a warm welcoming home should have. My home does not include these things. For this reason I have hesitated on posting a home tour, but you know what? I'm ready! In an effort to be personal and honest I'd like to welcome you to my big ol' undecorated home.

First a little background. Two years ago (well about two years ago) my husband and I found and purchased our dream home. We have been extremely blessed, and sometimes we are both on edge waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because we moved from a much smaller space we had pretty much no furniture for our home. Over the last two years we've been slowly purchasing furniture pieces for our home. My hubby's goal was to get furniture in each room, and then start to focus on decorating. Well, now it's time to decorate.

So on to my home tour with a twist. As I lead you around my home, I'd like to run some ideas off of you.. my readers (that's assuming peeps are reading). I need ideas, opinions (please be nice), and perhaps even some tips. This is of course a plea for comments (hi, my name is Leiah and I'm addicted to comments). Please join me as I decorate our home. Some areas need lots of love, some not so much. Some things I will make, some I will purchase. I will continue this home tour and include updates as we complete projects. Let's start shall we?

I'm starting my tour in the mudroom. This is the entrance my family uses daily, it needs a bit of love (well the closet I'll show needs lots of love).  To the left is the Laundry Room, although you can't see it in this photo.  It is sadly one of my favorite places in the house now. Straight ahead is the mudroom closet.  When the doors are closed it looks perfectly pretty (well I guess not pretty, but definitely neat).

I think it's a pretty sad excuse for a coat closet once you actually open the doors.  There aren't many coats (mostly because it's only Fall), That would be two of hubby's shirts, sometimes I hang them in there to dry (a duh, I should have put some kind of hanging system in the laundry room).  There's no light so it's hard to see the mess that has accumulated on the top shelf.

LOL, I had to add this... it took like 10 shots to get a pic without Blue in front... every time I'd move him he'd be right back in the middle.

This is a close up of the shameful floor.  Little shoes, big shoes, white shoes and black shoes... I literally have a Dr. Seuss book in the closet.

This is the other side... just as messy and miss used.

The Plan for this closet:

Possibly add paint (only if I can find a color that we already have enough of that will work).

Add baskets to the top shelf for neat storage

Get all the non-essentials out.

Add some type of shoe organizing system

* See The Updated Closet Here

Get matching hangers (I just think it'll look neater)

Now it's your turn! Do you have any ideas or tips for this space?  It really needs help.

Back to the tour.

When you step into the mudroom to right is where we drop our shoes.  The Rosey house is a no shoes house... it helps a ton with floor cleaning, which is the most neglected area in my home.

The Plan for this corner:

Add a mat on the floor to catch the extra water and grass that can get tracked in.

Add a bench and hooks on the wall.

I'm toying with the idea of building a bench.  Most of the ones I've seen that I like won't fit (it's a pretty small corner) or they are unbelievably priced.  The problem is I've never built anything from scratch and I'm kind of worried it'll look crazy.

Your Turn!  What do I do? Has anyone out there ever built something like a bench.  I want it strong enough to sit on and I'd like to add a basket or two for more storage.

Anyway, when glance slightly to the right you can see that this entry leads straight to my kitchen.  Do you see the door that's open? 

 This is whats behind it.  A small can't do anything with it corner. 

 The Plan (it's a small one)
Add an umbrella stand.

Directly across from this cozy little corner (before you get into the Kitchen) is a Powder Room.

Yes, we are still potty training.

It's pretty basic.  Recognize the color from the Laundry Room?  See the little sad frame.  It's my poor excuse for decoration in here.  SMH.

So here's The Plan for this powder room.

 I'd like to add a bit more art on the walls.  Possibly replacing the tiny square that's there.

Add stripes.  We have a lot of metallic gold paint (leftover from another room), I think it will work great in here.

One day* change the lighting (I hate the builder grade, dressing room lights).

One day* change the mirror along with the sink fixtures.

Your Turn!

Please help, any cute ideas for powder room art? Or inexpensive upgrades?

* - projects like these will probably not happen for quite some time.

So that is it for my Home Tour With A Twist.  I hope to hear from you! I also hope to post back soon with updates as I finish them.

Tot School - Uu is for Umbrella

Munchkin is 32m, Little Bear is 13m

The Week at a glance:

Theme: Fall

Letter: Uu

Word: Umbrella

Color: Brown

Shape: Circle

Number: 21

Last week in Tot School we focused on U is for Umbrella.  I didn't find a lot of U or weather books in my stash so we continued to read Things That Go.  Munchkin loves this book so he  didn't mind.  He had a lot of fun using the dot marker i have.  I haven't gotten a chance to get the do a dot markers, but I found this bingo marker at the Dollar Tree last week and it works fine.  This was Munchkins first experience with a dot marker and he loved it.  He really was attempting to get the U's but his aim is a bit off... lol.  I got the printable for free from here.  

We played a fun game I've dubbed "Under"  we walked through the house (okay it was when I had some cleaning to do) and Munchkin crawled under things... he had a blast, and Little Bear just giggled in delight at watching his brother be so silly.  Unfortunately I wasn't carrying the camera around (cleaning remember?).

I also brought out the stacking blocks I have.  When they come out, Munchkin always requests the magnetic letters too.  He loves pouring them from container to container.  I try to get him to sort the colors into the different blocks but he is totally uninterested in that.  Sometimes he serves me up a yummy letter soup as he calls it.  I was pretty happy that he was able to correctly put them back nestle them all together in the correct order when it was time for clean up.  Usually he asks for my help.

We also played with our wooden color blocks.  I am trying to practice AB patterning with Munchkin.  Sometimes he says "wook mommy I made a pattern".  He gets the idea of the two colors, but doesn't quite have the idea of patterning yet.  He'll have lots of fun while we practice.  He loves driving his little cars on wooden block roads.

He loves it even more if there is a tunnel to drive under.

While Munchkin drove on wooden block roads, I practiced in and out with Little Bear.  I am super excited that he is finally putting items in and taking items out on command.

We used brown finger paint (chocolate pudding) to have some fun.  I really focus on colors for Little Bear.  Munchkin is very good at colors so we have started working on shades; light, dark, bright...etc.

They look like they're having fun here right?  Not so much, about a minute after I snapped this shot, Little Bear realized there wasn't much more to eat so he started screaming.  Please understand anyone who has heard his scream walks away with ringing ears.  I'm pretty sure sometimes only the dogs can here him it's so high pitched.  Simultaneously, Munchkin started asking for another pudding.  When I declined he threw a fit that could have earned us a spot on Super Nanny.  So basically we won't be doing this again for a while.

On Friday I decided to reorganize the storage closet where I keep our Tot School things.  When I organize I typically pull everything out and place everything back in.  I wanted Munchkin to be able to reach the activities and toys he's allowed to use and get the other items out of his reach.  I found a roll of blue ribbon from Munchkin's birthday party (seems like forever ago).  Little Bear enjoyed playing with it longer than I thought he would. 

I usually only take out one learning toy or activity at a time so the boys were pretty excited and (I think) a tad bit overwhelmed at having everything out.  It did give me an opportunity to do a bit of review and find a lot of things I forgot I had.

Join us next week for Vv is for Vegetables.  Want to see some other fun Tot School Posts?  Check them out here.

Friday Five

Hellooooo (in my Mrs. Doubtfire voice), welcome to the very first Friday Five! I'm just about wrapping up my Master Binder Series and I actually enjoyed it. So it thought wouldn't it be cool to do a weekly feature or series. And thus Friday Five was born (yes yes I know, no Ands at the beginning of sentences, but this is my blog and I can be grammatically incorrect if I want to... But I digress)

Anyway, Friday at five (at least I will try my hardest to be at five, tonight I had a bit of an issue with the scheduling so we're a tad bit late) I will post five things.  Perhaps five random facts, or five favorites of mine,  maybe five things I ate.   Who knows, I just thought it'd be fun and perhaps you can get to know me a little better (this is of course assuming you do want to know me better..
 ; )
So here it goes. The first (slightly late) Friday Five: Random Facts

1.  I love pink (but I'm sure you can tell looking at my blog)

2.  I hate to iron.  I have since I was a kid and my father used to make me iron his shirts.  It is a true testament of how much I love my husband that I iron his shirts.

3.  I played on the girl's state soccer team when I was a kid. It was awesome, our uniforms were hot pink (no kidding) and I still have my jacket in the closet.  I secretly (well.. Maybe not so secretly) hope one of my boys loves soccer as much as I did.

4.  I'm not a huge fan of chocolate.  I mean I do love a good brownie sundae, but given the choice between a slice of chocolate cake and another dessert... Chances are I'd go with the other.

5.  Christmas is my absolute favorite time of year! I love the cheesy movies, the good will toward all, cookies, giving (and let's be honest... getting), and I am extra excited because Munchkin is at an age where he understands the whole idea (of presents... But you know what I mean).

Tt is For Transportation

Munchkin is 31.5m

During our Tt is for Transportation week we didn't follow our normal schedule, so I didn't get too many pictures.  I was in the process of redoing our laundry room and it proved to be a big project (which everything is when you have 2 toddlers).  I also (for some strange reason) decided to start potty training Munchkin. Yes I'm insane... I know that now.

Anyway we did get to read Things That Go fifty million times. Munchkin was also able to play with the Cars Tot Book I made for him (which I didn't take a picture of... duh). You can make your own... It's pretty simple I made it on Sunday night while I watched Jersey Housewives (sorry... I love the drama).

For snack one day I made graham cracker traffic lights.  I saw a similar idea using sugar cookies and frosting, but I didn't feel like baking (remember... busy week?), plus I thought the graham cracker and peanut butter would be a bit healthier.  I used chocolate sprinkles and peanut M & M's (yes full of sugar but hey... whatever)

For cooking day we made orange wheels (homemade potpourri).  Not sure if I did it correctly but I was expecting a much stronger orangey cinnamony aroma. It smelled great while baking (really great), but after that it was (still is..) a bit of a disappointment.  But Munchkin enjoyed himself shaking cinnamon, and that's what really matters.

I find when I read posts about what other kids are doing I imagine how Munchkin will play and learn.   It seems as though the kiddos follow the directions perfectly and clean up nicely.  Munchkin almost never uses activities the way I planned.   Sometimes he literally is only interested for a minute or less, then he turns it into his own game or activity.  Take this muffin sorting activity I put together.  I found these transportation erasers at the dollar tree.  I thought perfect for sorting.  Munchkin thought perfect for piling and driving.  I just wanted to add this bit of info because I can snap pics of him doing the activity for one second (which I did).  Then the next second he's is doing his own thing and I just wanted to keep it totally honest.

This week is Uu for Umbrella(weather). We will be following a Fall Unit during all of October.   For more great Tot School posts and ideas check out 1+1+1=1.

Thanks for reading,

Leiah

Potty Insanity

So to prove that I am absolutely insane I decided to start pottey training the same time I decided to redo the laundry room. Uh... Yeah... Nuts I know. I just can't help myself. I have crazy amounts of patience when it comes to situations. You know; tantrums, long lines, annoying people. However I have no patience when it comes to things I want or want to do. I've wanted to do this for a while.

Lol.. I just erased a super long rant about messy diapers because it seemed a bit too gross, so let's just say I'm tired of changing messy diapers. Munchkin is 32 months old now and I know some will say wait till he's 3, but I can't wait. He'll be 3 in only four months and I figure not much will change in that time.

Anyway, I've googled like crazy (haven't read any books because I feel like you can find anything on the net). I've found some great info and some funny stories. So armed with some fun potty books for Munchkin, the Elmo Potty DVD, a sticker chart, big boy undies, and a few potty chairs... We started. So far things are going. He hasn't been in a diaper in almost two weeks, only pull-ups when we leave the house and nap/bedtime. We've gone from quite a few accidents to only one per day. At some point I have to ease up on taking him to the potty and let him tell me (which he hasn't done yet), I don't see that happening in the near future.

Wish me luck... No seriously I need it. Do you have any advice or funny stories about potty training? I'd love to hear them. Thanks for reading.

Leiah

Tot School - Ss is for Space

Munchkin is 31.5m and Little Bear is 12m.

                                 

We've been doing Tot School for 3 weeks now and we are going strong. Munchkin looks forward to "table activities" every morning. I try and stick to a weekly routine. It helps me plan and helps to teach Munchkin the concept of days of the week.

Music Mondays - we get out the instruments and rock out... Seriously, we rock.
Totally Technology Tuesdays - Either we explore on the Internet, or they get to use the iPad.
Nature Walk Wednesdays - sometimes I get lazy about getting the boys outside, I make sure we get out and stay out for a good amount of time.
Cooking Time Thursdays (I couldn't think of anything with a TH)- We make something that goes with the theme or letter of the week.
Fun Project Fridays - I actually used to do this in my classroom as a teacher and the kids really looked forward to it. Munchkin loves it too, well he likes anything to do with glue.


Here's our Ss is for Space week.


We put A is For Astronaut and Kitten's First Full Moon in our book basket.  I thought Munchkin would love A is For Astronaut with all the great outer space pictures.  He instead preferred the adventures of a cute kitten chasing the moon with all black and white pictures... go figure.

I also put together a letter S basket. Munchkin is really into pretend cooking these days and used it to make me lots of pretend meals.

 Little Bear was not interested in the strings I cut for him at all.  He did love the shake bottles though.

Munchkin had loads of fun dressing in a space costume I made... As you can see he wouldn't slow down for pics.

He also practiced matching planets.  This is one of the few activities that he completed start to finish.  These print outs are from 1+1+1=1. Carissa offers awesome printables which are mostly free.

We also played with a semi-sensory bin. It should have had more items in it, but I only put in stars and black beans. Later in the week I added pom poms for the planets. Both kiddos played with this everyday.  I think I'm going to make one for a fall theme.

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 I had to watch Little Bear like a hawk, because of course he wanted to taste things. This is Little Bear after I told him "No Mouth!" lol... I told him again just so I could see the cutie pouty lip. Mean mommy.



Just an FYI, sensory bins can get pretty messy.  be prepared with the vacuum or a broom.  The beans on the carpet were not too hard to get up.  As you can see I tried to keep this activity on paper.   Not so much.

For lunch one day I cut Munchkin's sandwich into a spaceship and also made a star from a leftover pancake.  Grapes are his favorite fruit (this week) and I almost couldn't get a picture before he had to eat them.  Needless to say the S went first.

We cooked Moon rocks. It's just canned biscuits cut into pieces, rolled into balls, fried, and covered with powdered sugar. He of course loved them.

Munchkin had a great time shaking them in the sugar.

 For art Munchkin painted with orange and yellow, when it was dry I cut stars and a moon shape. Munchkin likes using the glue stick. Lol... I thought I had black card stock in my scrapbook stash... Turns out he didn't mind it being brown.

Munchkin actually took two seconds out of his very "busy" schedule to work in his Kumon book.  He literally has a two minute attention span which I suppose is normal.  We managed to complete two pages!

My Tiny Tot.  I attempted to get him to put pom poms in the cups.  Nope... he prefers to eat them.  Oh well. : )

 I'm a bit behind on my Tot School posts so look forward to Tt is for Transportation later this week.  Check out more Tot School here.