Tag Archives: Kids

Rain, Sunny Skies & Clean Cars

Posted on May 2, 2015 by Julie

Today’s post is part of my 31 Days of Gratitude Series. Follow me here and on Instagram as I share an attitude of gratitude during the month of May. Feel free to join me by sharing what you’re grateful for using the hashtag #31daysofgratitude.

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We are having a very wet spring. After a few years of severe drought, I am so grateful for the rain. We really, really need it.

I am also grateful for sunny skies following the rain and temperatures in the 70s with low humidity.

It’s perfect car washing weather.

I’m thankful for kids who are eager to earn a little extra cash making our cars squeaky clean.

It’s a good day!

Happy Saturday!

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POSTED IN: gratitude, Kids, rain

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Gearing Up for Summer Boredom

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Julie

My kids have only 8 days of school left and they can’t wait until school is done for the summer!

If you’re like us, the kids are happy and occupied until about mid to late July. Then, boredom hits.

What to do?!

After scouring the Internet and looking through activity books, I came up with this little bucket last summer:

It’s filled with craft sticks that each have an activity written on them.

Whenever the kids complain that they’re bored, I tell them to take out a stick from the bucket — no peeking!

You’ll notice that most of the activities are fun but there’s a chore or two in there as well. There are even some educational activities. The addition of those have made my kids think twice before they tell me they’re bored.

Here’s what’s written on my “boredom sticks”:

Build a fort
Play a board game
Ride scooter or bike
Make book marks
Have a dance party
Hot rock art
Make kool-aid Popsicles
Draw pictures
Paint
Water balloon pinatas
Pencil mosaic art
Play “Hide the Thimble”
Make your own board game
Make home-made snow cones
Plan a field trip
Balloon ping pong
Make paper airplanes
Play with the cat and/or dogs
Hopscotch
Raise money for charity
Tie-dye shirts or pillow cases
Marshmallow gun fight
Use binoculars (go to park, etc.)
Nature scavenger hunt
Art Project
Nerf war
Make water balloons
Drive-in movie night
Jump rope
Lemonade stand
Sport of your choice
Go Ice Skating
Sidewalk chalk
Learn magic tricks
Go swimming
Go on a picnic
Learn origami
Build something
Play catch
Blow bubbles
Find a snack recipe and make it
Run through the sprinkler
Find good dinner recipes
Play on the swing set
Read a book
Go to the library
Do a science project
Write a letter
Do the dishes
Wash your bike
Vacuum
Learn how to type
Scoop poop in the backyard
Weed the garden
Clean your bathroom
Dust
Wash car
Clean litter box
Practice spelling
Practice math facts
Clean your room

A few of these chores have opportunities to earn money. For example, we pay our kids $1 for every grocery bag they fill with weeds when weeding the garden.

This year, I will be adding “puppet show” to the jar. Last year, my son found a site that taught me how to make home-made muppets and I ended up making 5 or 6 of them and they put on a lot of puppet shows.

(I plan to share about muppet making in another post. It’s actually very simple!)

Another idea to add to the bucket is to make a movie. The movie programs on iPods and iPads are amazing. My son has made some very cool movies. I think I’m also going to add “pitching a tent” or “camping in the backyard.”

The “I’m Bored” bucket has helped us fight summer boredom. I hope it helps you, too!

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POSTED IN: Kids, Summer

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Tween Girl’s Room Reveal

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Julie

I know it’s taken me forever to get these pictures posted, but I’m finally ready to reveal my daughter’s updated bedroom!

Here was her room before:

She didn’t like the pink (I chose it when we moved her in to this room when she was 6 months old) and she thought it was too “baby-ish” and “princess-y” (her words, not mine). This was last year when she was turning 7 (was this room really too baby-ish for a seven-year-old?!).

So, as part of her birthday gift, I painted the walls lavender (she wanted bright purple, but I told her a lighter color would enable her to go bold with accents and fabrics) and got her a new bedspread from Pottery Barn Teen (shopping in the Teen catalog was a little sad for this momma!).

The result is a room that we both love and I really think it suits her personality! (Who knew a 7-year-old could be right about this sort of thing?)

I really wanted to get her a “girlier” bed, but my husband didn’t see the sense in it. Unfortunately, he doesn’t want me to paint this bed either so I’m stuck with the dark stain. He bought this bed at Ethan Allen about a year before we met, then it was ours until we upgraded to a king-size bed. Our son had it for awhile until we got him bunk beds. Now it’s hers and it works great for sleep-overs and it’s in perfect condition. It’s just kinda masculine to me but we’re making it work (sometimes that’s just the way life is, isn’t it?!).

My solution was to camouflage it a little by hanging her quilt at the end of the bed and adding lots of pillows and stuffed animals at the top.

The armoire was a Craig’s List find a few years ago and was in our play room/catch-all room for a long time. I painted it and brought it up here. It’s perfect for holding all her books, rock collections, Webkinz clothes, diaries, pens & pencils, etc.

One of my favorite features of the room is the collage wall.

All the bright colors, animals, etc. really bring my daughter’s personality in to the room.

The black-framed freckles print is my personal favorite:

The frame is from Hobby Lobby and the print is from this Etsy seller.

I saw it over at Tatertots & Jello a long time ago and made a note to get it for my daughter’s room.

She has never liked her freckles and I used to feel the same way about mine when I was a kid. I absolutely love her freckles and I want her to feel like they’re special!

The other items are from here and there.

I also love the chandelier wall decal.

It’s from the Land of Nod. Of course, now it’s on sale on their web site — aack! (I hate it when I miss a good sale!)

My daughter is a huge animal lover and has an addiction to stuffed animals, so they’re all corralled in various bins and baskets.

Another feature my daughter and her friends love is the magnetic chalkboard I created behind her bedroom door.

I’ll have to post a separate tutorial for how I made this, but it’s just several coats of magnetic paint, and then a couple of coats of chalkboard paint painted directly on the wall, and then trimmed out with molding from Lowe’s. It gets a lot of use and she has a lot of fun with it!

I store all the chalk and an eraser cloth in a little tin bucket on the wall.

Both the bucket and the little doggie-tail hook are from IKEA. I added the twine so the pail could hang from the hook.

My daughter has now turned 8, so the entire room took me about a year to finish, so obviously we took our time.

It started with paint and a new bedspread, then eventually I made new curtains and we added things here and there.

It was worth taking our time and we are both happy with the results!

Thanks so much for reading today!

Related post:
Updating My Daughter’s Room

Linking up to:

Between Naps on the Porch
DIY Showoff
Alderberry Hill
Silver Pennies
Mod Vintage Life
Uncommon Designs
Under the Table & Dreaming
Savvy Southern Style
Elizabeth & Co.
The Rustic Pig
Cozy Little House
DIY by Design
No Minimalist Here

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POSTED IN: Kids

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Updating My Daughter’s Room

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Julie

I mentioned at the end of 2012, that I still needed to finish up the room re-do I started for my daughter last year.

She’s about to turn 8, and she’s growing up way too fast. She likes peace signs, animals, her iPod Touch and everything that is bright and sparkly. She doesn’t really play with toys anymore and she is an avid reader. She really is becoming a “tween” already — yikes!

Before we painted her room last year, it was pink and looked like this:

She thought it looked too “princess-ey” and “baby-ish” and she wanted it to look more grown up.

She wanted lavender. Actually, she wanted bright purple, but I convinced her a light lavender would be better and we could go bright with accessories.

She agreed to trust me and we painted the room lavender, bought a new bedspread, made new curtains and that’s about as far as we got.

We’re still not completely done, but the room is really starting to come together. Here are a few sneak peak photos to give you a taste of what’s to come.

She is loving it and is sooo excited! I think the room fits her personality perfectly and I’m anxious to see the final result, too!

We still have a few finishing touches before it’s all done. We’ve created many things from Goodwill finds and even updated Hobby Lobby items to fit the color scheme. Most everything we’ve gotten was on sale or free from our attic.

Just to give you a taste of what we’ve done, the cute puppy picture above looked like this before:

It was $12 at our local Goodwill. Originally, I was going to paint the frame and make a LOVE or PEACE wall decor. But, my daughter had a puppy poster she bought from the school book fair that was getting all frayed on the corners from falling off the wall one too many times. The little puppy had a gold tag on it’s collar that matched the frame perfectly, so we decided to keep it as is.

I cut out the puppy and put it on some pretty wrapping paper I found at Wal Mart for just a couple of bucks. I put it in the frame and VOILA!

This cute little caddy from Hobby Lobby was an adorable shape, but the garden dragonfly design wasn’t really right for the room.

So, I bought some pink polka dot scrapbooking paper and traced the shape of the box on the back of the paper. Then I cut it out and used Mod Podge to glue it over the dragonflies. That was it!

I think it’s so cute! And, it holds her diary, iPod, ear buds, flashlight, etc. and sits on the night stand next to her bed.

We also made this little picture out of a frame we already owned and scrapbook paper I had on hand.

I simply printed out a peace sign I got from Microsoft Word’s clip art and cut it out with my Exact-o knife. I used an Elmer’s glue stick to adhere it to the blue paper and then put it in the frame.

All of these projects were so easy and inexpensive. We were even able to work on them together!

We are so excited her room is almost done! Now her big brother wants a makeover – ha!

See…decorating is addicting! Haha.

I’ll be back soon with a complete room reveal. I hope you’re enjoying your weekend!

Linking up to:

Jennifer Rizzo

It’s Overflowing
Lovely Crafty Home
The Shabby Nest
Blissful and Domestic
Funky Junk
Silver Pennies

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POSTED IN: Girls Room, Kids, Kids Room

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Back to School Shopping

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Julie

The kids made it back to school yesterday. And, although I was looking forward to having the house to myself and getting my own chores done the day was a little bittersweet.

(The kids weren’t really going to school in the dark…it just looks that way!)

My oldest (on the left) started Intermediate school and it was a very emotional day for me! It was our first year being in a carpool (we have always been able to walk to elementary school) and the first year I have not walked him in to the building on the first day to get a picture of him with his teacher. It was a big change. In addition, I have heard some not-so-positive things about his home room/math teacher so I think I had bigger nerves than he did! Sometimes it’s so hard being a parent!

With the big move to Intermediate school it means he now has a locker. I heard through some other moms that it was hard to fit a backpack into their small lockers so they recommended going without one. So yesterday we discovered that juggling his stuff is going to be a challenge without a backpack. We bought him a large binder with a zipper that he can bring back and forth to school (recommended by the teachers) but when it came to his lunch, a snack and a water bottle I discovered that what we had just didn’t cut it. We needed to find a lunchbox that could accommodate his lunch, a snack and a water bottle. So, I checked out Target right after I drove carpool to see what they had.

Apparently, everyone but me bought a new lunch box for school because there wasn’t much left except Superman and Sponge Bob lunch boxes. Not cool.

So, when I got home, I logged on to PB Teen (because he’s too grown up now for Pottery Barn Kids, sniff, sniff.) After browsing I decided that I’d better let him shop when he got home to pick out what he likes. At first he found this:

But when we tried to put it in our cart we discovered it was sold out. So, then he chose this:

But he couldn’t decide whether or not it would be considered cool to get his name embroidered on it. And, if so, what color? Then, as he was thinking about that, he asked me if I could find any other lunchboxes that he might like. So, again, I hit the web this time googling “lunchboxes.” Did you know there is a site called “lunchboxes.com“? You can browse kids lunchboxes and lunchboxes for everyone. There are 43 different lunchboxes for everyone. Amazing.

LLBean has lunchboxes, so does Amazon, The Container Store, all the big box stores websites and more. You can even find “earth friendly” lunch boxes that help you pack nutritious and environmentally friendly lunches. I have browsed and browsed and I’ve come to the conclusion that my son does not need to know about the endless selection of lunchboxes available. There is such a thing as too many choices. I think I’ll tell him, it’s either a Superman lunchbox or the PB teen one. All the others are for girls.