January 9

Isla has graduated to sitting in the front of the cart when we are out shopping. Up until now, she was usually hanging out in her bucket car seat in the back of the cart while we shopped. I have been getting tired of lugging her around in that carseat...too heavy! It is a bit more of a hassle to get her in and out of the car seat in the cold weather and deal with getting her bundled up in a coat, but I think it is time. Isla definitely seems to be enjoying the new view!

Since making this move, Daniel and I have noticed that she (and her helmet) receive much more attention. I was nervous about what people would say about the helmet before we got it. I thought I would be self-conscious about her every time we were out in public.

Really, we didn't get many comments at all about the helmet. A few people at church asked about it. Several older ladies thought she was wearing it to protect her head in case she fell down. But overall, the helmet received little or no attention when out in public.

Until Isla started sitting up in the cart. Now that she is a bit more visible, I guess the helmet is drawing more attention. We have received a lot of stares and gawking lately, as well as several comments on the helmet. Most people comment on how cute it is, especially the flowers. But one lady at Wal-mart this week asked, "Is that a hard hat or something?"

I actually prefer for people to ask me about the helmet. I would rather them know why she is wearing it than make their own assumptions. I'm a little too shy to initiate conversations with people who are staring at her though. I rarely bring it up with strangers, unless I can tell that they want to ask about but aren't sure how to ask. So I'm always happy when they initiate the conversation themselves.

Going out in public was originally one of my biggest fears about the helmet. I was just worried what people would think about it. As soon as we got the helmet, that fear disappeared. Who cares what people think or say about her? She is still sweet and adorable and our precious little girl. She is happy wearing it. We are happy with her wearing it. That's all that matters!

January 8

Book Organization

I love books. Someday, I dream of having a library in our house where I can put all of our books together. Until then, our books are spread throughout the house on various shelves.

We do have a lot of books. I don't know how we end up with so many books, as I don't ever just go to the bookstore and buy books. Though I do have a weakness for buying kids books at garage sales.

In order to keep our house from being overtaken by books, I try to go through all of our shelves and clean them out a few times a year. That is what I have been doing for the past couple of days, and I have filled up a huge tub with books to sell at our garage sale.

I am also trying to create more toy storage in the basement playroom. To open up some shelves for toys, I wanted to put some hanging shelves on the wall for books. I found this idea on Pinterest. I asked Daniel if he could make them, he said, "Sure!" and then he made them. And I love them!! These shelves are on the playroom wall, and I am putting all of our board books here.The shelves are low enough that Audrey can take off and put away the books by herself. I ordered a beanbag to put here and make a little reading nook. I am brainstorming ways to finish decorating the space, so I'll post another picture someday when this project is finished.

All of our picture books are stored in Audrey's room. They are never this neat. It usually feels like we have a ton of books, but once I straightened them up and organized them, the shelves look empty. I think it might be time for some new picture books! =)I also have a basket in the living room with both picture books and board books that I try to rotate occasionally, so there are always books readily available for reading!In the dining room, all of my fiction books are housed on these shelves. Now that I have my nook, I am really cutting back on the number of books that I buy. I have decided that eventually (I'm not quite there yet) I only want to own physical copies of books that I really love and would want to read again and lend to friends.
In the piano room, we have all of our Bible reference books, Christian books and other books from our college days. I forgot to take a picture in there, but there is another whole bookshelf full of books.

And more books in the piano room closet! The middle shelf holds all my piano books. The rest of the books is my collection of juvenile fiction. Many of these are my books from my childhood. The rest are from garage sales. It is a bit of a sentimental hobby for me to collect these kinds of books. I am trying to collect all the Newbery Medal books and pretty much all of the books that I remember as a kid (I read a lot when I was a kid!). I refuse to pay more than a quarter for any of these books, but they are pretty easy to find at garage sales for that price. My favorite is when I find them for 10 cents a piece. I am determined that at least one of my girls will grow up to be a reader and will enjoy reading these books as much as I did.Whew! That is pretty much every book in our house. And that's AFTER I cleaned out all the shelves. Maybe I need to back through and clean them out again!

January 7

Adventures in Breadmaking

I LOVE bread. Seriously, I could eat a bread only diet and never get tired of it. I have the tools to make all kinds of homemade bread now, so that is what I am going to do. Homemade bread is so delicious, and so far, it has been much easier to make than I expected.

Daniel got me The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook to go along with the breadmaker. It is full of recipes that look really good, and I am excited to try them all. The first recipe I tried in my bread machine was a white whole wheat bread, made with 100% white whole wheat flour. All I had to do was dump all the ingredients inside, and the machine did the rest. The loaf was perfect with a crunchy crust while still soft and chewy inside. It was delicious!

Last night, I made whole wheat pretzel bites. I used the breadmaker on the dough setting. Once the dough was ready, then I had to do more work. It took a little bit of time, but the whole process was fun. In the end, they actually tasted like real soft pretzels....so yummy! The only problem is that the pretzels are only good fresh. We had a bunch leftover, so we tried some today. They are definitely not good as leftovers and should only be eaten right out of the oven.

Then tonight, I decided to get a little bit more creative. I used another recipe from the Bread Machine cookbook, a garlic focaccia bread. It probably would have been good by itself, but I added mozzarella and Parmesan cheese (and some pepperoni on Daniel's) to the top. I cut the bread into strips, served it with pizza sauce, and we had yummy cheese sticks for dinner tonight. They were just as good as any pizza restaurant cheesesticks, but much less greasy. It was fun to have something different for dinner too. I don't think Audrey agreed. She passed on the cheesesticks, and just chose to eat her green beans and dip them in the pizza sauce instead. Choosing green beans over breadsticks?? I don't know how she is even my daughter!!

So far, I'm three for three on successful bread machine recipes. I'm sure I am due for a major flop sometime soon!!

January 6

It took her about two weeks, but I think Isla is just about over whatever virus she had. She has been sleeping all night again and napping better, and she is back to being extremely happy. All you have to do is look at her, and she will laugh and smile and get so excited. I love my happy girl!Check out the side of her head:The bulge that was on that side is almost completely gone. Isla has only been wearing this new helmet for a week, and it has been sporadic wearing. The helmet was leaving red marks on her head, so we had to very gradually ease her into this one. Yet, even with the limited wearing, those bulges are nearly gone already. I'm really impressed. Her head looks so good. We have another appointment next week, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we can begin to at least discuss a possible end date for the helmet!

We have been doing tummy time without the helmet, as I think the helmet makes it much harder for her to keep her head up for long periods of time. Our physical therapist thinks she might really take off rolling over and crawling once she is done with the helmet wearing. For now, she tolerates tummy time and even acts happy, as long as you keep her distracted with new toys and silly antics. As soon as you stop and she realizes she is on her tummy, she gets mad. It is tiring. But fortunately, Audrey is around to help me, and between the two of us, we can usually keep her happy for a while.
"Don't take too many pictures of me on my tummy, Mom. People might start to think that I actually like it."

January 4

Organizing Kids' Clothes

The first time I pulled out all of Isla's clothes and began to put them away, I was overwhelmed. How were we going to fit all the clothing for both girls in a space that was currently consumed with clothing for just one girl?

My girls have way too many clothes. I just can't help but buy clothes for them, especially when I find a good deal. And then there are the grandparents and aunts chipping in too! The result is a whole lot of little girls clothes.

My project yesterday was to organize their clothes: pull out things that no longer fit or are no longer worn and put everything else in order. The key to making everything fit in their room is to clean things out on a regular basis. I think I do a fairly good job of staying on top of this, but it was definitely time for some organization yesterday.

This is probably extremely boring to most of you, but since I love reading other people's real life organization tips, I'm sharing mine as well.

This is the girls' dresser. Audrey is super thrilled to show it to you, can't you tell??
We inherited this dresser, and the drawers and shelves are really big. That's nice because it can hold a lot of clothes. But it's also a pain, because it can hold a lot of clothes...and those clothes get disorganized very quickly.

Right now, Audrey's pants are in the top left drawer and her pajamas are in the drawer below that.

Inside the door, Isla's pajamas are in the basket on the top and Isla's pants and white onesies are in the basket on the bottom. To try to take advantage of some of the empty space, I tuck her sleep sacks in right next to the baskets.Then there is the huge drawer at the bottom. I have tried to divide the huge space into smaller spaces with baskets. Audrey's socks in one, Audrey's panties in one, both the girls tights and leggings in one, and Isla's socks in the last one. Behind the girls' socks, I tuck the diaper/panty covers that coordinate with their dresses. This system works okay, but it gets messy quickly...especially when Audrey helps put the clothes away.

In the closet, I hang all of the girls shirts, dresses and one piece outfits. Isla's on the left, Audrey's on the right, and empty hangers in the middle to separate the two spaces. This is mostly in season clothes, but there are some of next season's clothes hanging up on the ends as well.Again, the key to making this work is frequent purging of clothes that are no longer being worn. This is the pile of clothes I pulled out yesterday. I have a system for these clothes as well. In our basement, I have two storage areas with tubs for clothes: one for clothes that we are going to keep and one for clothes to sell in our spring garage sale.
Right now, everything Isla outgrows goes straight into the garage sale pile. For Audrey's old clothes, I evaluate whether I think it is something Isla might wear. If I don't think I will ever put Isla in it, it goes straight to the garage sale pile. I'm not really sentimental about clothes, and I see no reason to hold onto clothes that we are not planning to use.

Then there are the bows. Oh the bows! My aunt keeps us well stocked with bows and hair accessories. Currently, Audrey's clips are stored liked this.
Hanging them like this works really well, because it is easy to see and pick out what you want quickly. The biggest problem we have is getting them here. We lose bows ALL OF THE TIME. I bet we really own twice this many clips, but they are all lost somewhere. Before taking this picture, the girls and I went on a bow hunt to comb the house for missing bows. We didn't find very many, so I really have no idea where all the other bows have gone.


Isla has her own collection of bows to wear with her helmet. But since they are Velcro, I can't hang them like Audrey's. So, her bows are all stored in this box along with some headbands. It's a little more of a pain to find what I'm looking for this way, but I don't really know what else to do with them. There you have it, our system for keeping clothes and bows organized! Thrilling reading, wasn't it? I really do find it fun to organize things and read ideas for organizing things. I just need to figure out how to stay organized once the initial excitement of getting organized is gone.

January 2

My friend Heather and I are continuing our tradition of trying to view all the Oscar nominated movies this year and as many movies with best acting nominees as possible. Tonight we saw The Descendants. It's a great movie; I really enjoyed it.

I have already seen The Help, The Ides of March and Midnight in Paris. A few other movies on our list to see this year with potential best picture and best acting nominees include: The Artist, Moneyball, Hugo, War Horse, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Tree of Life, My Week with Marilyn and Young Adult.

So, that's a bit ambitious, and I know we won't really watch all of those in the next two months. But it will be fun to try!

January 1

Happy New Year!!

This is year four for my little old blog, can you believe it? I'm thinking it's time for a new look and layout. I'm going to be working on that this week.

I'm also thinking it is time for a new name for this blog. "Emily's Photo Blog" is kind of generic and not really very accurate. This started as a photo a day blog, but it has morphed into something else now. I'm not really sure how to describe it.

The problem is I stink at coming up with clever titles for things. I have no ideas; I need your help! Anyone have any ideas? Nothing TOO clever or witty, otherwise people might expect my writing too actually be clever and witty. We don't want any false advertising.

My last thought for today: I'm planning an organization theme for this month. Something about a new year makes me want to get myself in gear. I need to get my family and my house and my life in order. I figure if I force myself to write about organization, it will help motivate me to get things in order around here.