So Long Man Cave!

Over the weekend we finally packed away Little Smiling Man's bouncer/exersaucer.  In all reality we could have done it a couple of months ago since it's been quite some time since he'd let us put him in it, but it's had a few extra uses for him so we waited.  First, since he learned to pull to standing he's enjoyed playing with the toys while standing next to it.  Second, since almost the day we brought it out he's loved playing under and behind it.  So we dubbed the bouncer Little Smiling Man's "Man Cave"! 

Often, he'd pull a few toys underneath and sit there playing, occasionally peeking out to check out what the rest of the family was doing.  Sometimes he'd just go down there to hang out and possibly to escape Mini Muffin's attentions(?).  Other times, he'd head behind the bouncer to play with whatever he'd squirrelled back there days before.  However, his favourite thing to do in his Man Cave was to play with and disassemble the foam letter tiles we had stacked behind it.  Mini Muffin even joined in at times, treating them as little puzzles.  Did you know that the outline of a foam tile 8 also makes an excellent crown?  Or that the center piece of an O makes a great play phone?

Since it's tricky for adults to manoeuvre the Man Cave, we generally just let it be, and soon there was a massive mess of foam letters back there.  Every few weeks we'd tidy them up, but generally they were just left as a jumbled pile for playing.  Below is a picture of Little Smiling Man from before Christmas playing behind his Man Cave.  The tiles had recently been straightened so there's still a semblance of a pile - picture them in their normal state, as one big mound of disassembled tiles.  Fun for kids and rather unsightly for everyone else!

Playing with letters in the Man Cave

Post Man Cave - easily accessible and untouched!

Sunday night, after the bouncer was packed away and the kids were in bed, my husband and I decided to at long last tidy up the letters.  Since every single tile had been disassembled there were quite a few to put together.  I'd find a matching pair and my husband would put them together and stack them.  We joked that it was a bit like being a Sesame Street Muppet - we had to tidy up and organise our letters before bed.  To us it sounded like a task worthy of Bert and Ernie!

Now that everyone has easy access to that corner, it seems to have lost its allure to Little Smiling Man.  The tiles have remained untouched for five whole days!  However, I suspect he'll rediscover them at some point and we'll have the same old mess; just with easier access to clean it up.  Who knows, maybe Little Smiling Man will even return to his Man Cave someday when the bouncer is returned to the corner for his future sibling.

Freezer Meals!

I've always been a planner.  My mom recently commented that I'm the same today as I was as a child - I have a plan, a backup plan, and a plan for every eventuality I can imagine. As such, it's really no surprise that I've been thinking about and planning how my household would run with two busy kids and two busy working parents.

One of my big concerns is providing healthy suppers with lots of variety, and being able to get those suppers on the table within minutes. We are, after all, a hungry tribe when we walk in the door at 5pm, and at that point it's definitely too late for a snack to get us through to dinner. And so, prior to my return to work last week, I went all Once A Month Mom and filled my freezer full of wholesome dinners that could be on the table in moments. My goal was to have two meals a week for the first two months ready to go in my freezer, so a total of 16 meals. And my window to make it happen was nap time. It was a busy week of cooking!

First, I spent some time planning. For recipes, I pulled from our favourites, got ideas from the internet, and scoured my cookbooks. I chose to freeze fully cooked meals to minimise my on the day prep time. Next up was making a list and shopping. Given more time I would have waited for meats to come on sale and worked my recipes for what was available, but in a pinch Costco is certainly a good source of high quality, competitively priced meats. Then with my fridge full of veggies and about 10 lb of meat, it was time to get cooking!

By the end of the week, my freezer happily contained:
4 meals of Meat Sauce
3 meals of Thai Coconut Chicken
2 meals of Rosemary Chicken
2 meals of Lemon Ginger Chicken
3 meals of Swiss Steak
1 meal of Meatloaf
1 meal of Sloppy Joes

Each one needs a side on the day, which will ideally be set up the night before (e.g. rice measured into the rice cooker waiting for water and power, veggies chopped and waiting in the fridge to be steamed).  Each meal, with the exception of the meatloaf, is also frozen into a large, labelled freezer bag.  So, the night before the meal can be transferred from freezer to fridge, and later poured into a pot for a quick heat before we can all dig in.

Now, here are my tips for a freezer meal cooking frenzy:

• Plan ahead - recipes, groceries, order of cooking and storage.  Bonus points if you can sequence your prep to minimize the dishes afterwards!
• Wear running shoes - unless you have a cork floor or an ergonomic mat, it's definitely worthwhile to wear supportive shoes - your back will thank you!
• Freezer bags save a tonne of space!  Lay flat to freeze and they'll stack nicely in your freezer.  Plus, removing excessive air is easy with the help of a straw.
• Label everything - it's amazing how similar things look when they're frozen.  Imagine the disappointment of defrosting what you think is chili and discovering that it's actually meat sauce.  As someone that experienced this (but didn't realise until I was at work with no other lunch options but a container of meat sauce), I can tell you it's not fun.
• Keep a tally of what's in your freezer - I put my list on my meal planning white board in my kitchen.  This way you can keep track of your meal options, and theoretically none of them will get lost in the far reaches of your deep freezer, never to be seen again.

So, how is it going so far?  We didn't use any freezer meals for my first week back.  Little Smiling Man had a fever after only one day at daycare, so I was home with him for two days, making meal prep relatively easy.  This week, we've had leftovers or cooked quick meals like stir fry each night so far.  However, tomorrow meat sauce, pasta and mozzarella are on the menu!

Tomorrow Night's Dinner (thawing in progress!)

Mini Organizational Project

This week, I finally got around to an organisational project that's been hanging over my head - Little Smiling Man's diaper changing station.  Just like his sister, he was cloth diapered.  Mini Muffin was cloth diapered until 18 months when I wanted a few months of laundry break before Little Smiling Man's arrival.  Although I was sorry to give it up, the timing for us was right.  For Little Smiling Man, I regretfully had to stop cloth diapering him at 9 months.  With his allergies and super sensitive skin, cloth diapers presented one too many variables for my troubleshooting process.  That, and adding liners to protect the diapers against the almost constant use of both prescription and zinc creams became very tricky with my wiggly change table acrobat!  Three months later, it was definitely time to update his change station from cloth diaper configuration to our current reality of lots of creams and disposable diapers. 

My other piece of motivation - the old configuration was cloth diapers in the drawer, and disposable diapers and creams on top of his clothing shelf.  My little guy now loves pulling whatever he can reach down from any surface he can find.  What a mess... and it's only a matter of time before he figures out how to get into the creams!  So, I decided to pack away the cloth diapers, and move all of our diaper changing gear into the drawer.  Clean surfaces are the way to go with this guy!

Diapers waiting to be packed away

Top of shelves - lots for little boys to get into!

The process was pretty quick in the end; I have no idea why I put it off for so long!  And, I now have an organized and convenient drawer for all of our diaper changing needs.  My stash of 26 pocket diapers (which I love and am still sad to not be using), are all snug in a vacuum packed bag in my linen closet, ready to go whenever they are next required.   

After - everything is happily inaccessible to little hands

Packed up until next time!

And, I feel great that it's finally done! 

Baby Clothes Organization

In light of my 2016 organisational resolution I posted here, I thought I'd share an organisation project I did back in the fall - baby clothes!

When Mini Muffin was born, I had good intentions and a plan to keep all of her baby clothes organised and well stored for future use. As she outgrew each size I folded and bagged them, labelled and put them in a large storage bin. Easy! Until nine months that is, when her bigger clothes no longer fit in a single bag. I ended up just stuffing them into a storage bin, and the sizes started to be intermixed. Then the bins got full, and I resorted to a clear plastic yard waste bag. The clothes were definitely in a state of loosely organised chaos. And that's not to mention the outdoor gear, shoes and socks!

Fast forward to Little Smiling Man's arrival. At that point, I realised the problem with my original organisational scheme. The beautiful gender neutral clothes that I'd received at my baby shower were now mixed in with girl clothes.... in neatly labelled bags by size. Digging through it all was a pain, I missed a few items, and that was before I reached the nine-month-stuff-it-in-a-bin 'organizational scheme'. And now there were boy clothes being added to the mix that also needed to be stored in case a third baby should need them.  The baby clothes situation was quickly getting out of hand!

When Little Smiling Man was growing out of his six month clothes, and Mini Muffin's 2T clothes also needed to be packed away, I decided to take action. I'd been thinking about how to best organise them all, and had a plan that I thought would take an afternoon to complete. It took a few afternoons, but I'm really happy with the result!

Before I began, there were four large storage bins that were stuffed to the brim, two stuffed diaper boxes, and two yard waste bags. As you can see in the picture below, it was pretty out of control.

Before... Everything overflowing and disorganised

Conveniently, the week I started this project vacuum storage bags went on sale at Costco. Perfect! So, I started with the smallest clothes and worked my way up. First, I put all boys and girls newborn pjs together, since I'd want both options to be washed and ready to go prior to a new baby's arrival. I then sorted newborn girl and boy clothes into separate bags, since these I'd pull out and wash for use after the baby was born (and thus after gender was known). Next, I pulled out all gender neutral clothes and pjs, and stored them together; one bag for up to six months, and one bag for larger sizes. From there, each size got an appropriately sized vacuum bag for each boys and girls clothes. And, since I'll want to reuse these bags, I tucked a card with gender and size inside before vacuuming them closed; this way everything is labelled without the bags being marked. Also, as I worked I weeded out the clothing that was still in good condition, but that I hadn't really liked and so would unlikely use again. These were separated out for donation to charity.

Since outerwear is something we'll be digging into seasonally regardless, I put boys and girls outerwear together in a single vacuum bag. Baby Hallowe'en costumes also went together in a single vacuum bag. And finally, I sorted shoes and socks by size and gender in labelled kitchen freezer bags. 

And that was that! I packed away the sealed vacuum bags, and the end result is shown below. Two diaper boxes for donation, and four large storage bins containing newborn to 2T girl clothes, newborn to six month boy clothes, outerwear, shoes, costumes, and an 'on the go' bag for each gender of sizes in the process of being grown out of. Much more manageable and sustainable moving forward!

After - boxes for donation, bins for storage

To summarise my tips -

• Store gender neutral clothes separately for easy access regardless of gender.
• Just because it's in good condition, you don't have to keep it. Donate what isn't functional for you.
• Good quality vacuum storage bags significantly reduce overall storage space.
• Having a variety of vacuum storage bag sizes is a bonus; toddler clothes take up much more room than newborn clothes!
• Experiment with filling the vacuum bags before getting too far into the process.  How you fill them impacts their shape after being vacuumed shut, so you need to make sure that the final dimensions of the bags will work with your storage space (bins, closet, etc).
• One well labelled bag for each size and gender will make it easy to find what you need later.
• Store shoes separately from clothing as they don't compress, so will make everything take up more room.  One bulky bag of shoes is much more convenient than shoes interspersed amongst clothing.

All in all, it was a pretty fun organisational project.  It was certainly nice to be able to take some time to turn my learnings from Baby #1 into a smarter set up for Baby #2 and any subsequent siblings.  It even helped me rediscovered some larger size gender neutral pjs that Little Smiling Man will soon grow in to.  And of course, I am thrilled for the more efficient use of closet space now that the yard waste bags have been eliminated! 

Planning an Organised New Year

Happy 2016!  I truly hope that this year brings health, happiness and peace to one and all.

We spent a lovely New Year's Eve together, as a family.  We had a nice dinner with a set table, candles, and some of our leftover Christmas crackers.  Dinner is always more fun when wearing silly paper crowns!  After dinner, we played by the Christmas tree for a while, and did a countdown at 7pm.  Then, off to bed!  I'm glad we called it an early night since Little Smiling Man had a rough night, so every minute of sleep was precious!

Looking back, 2015 has been a very busy and fantastic year.  On the family front, of course the biggest change was the addition of Little Smiling Man to our family in March.  We are so blessed.  2015 also saw Mini Muffin turn two, and really grow into her own little person.  It saw me begin my maternity leave, and grow into being a mother of two.  We had three family getaways; a trip to Vancouver to visit my in-laws, some cottage time in the summer, and finally our trip  to Niagara and a water park just before Christmas.  2015 was also the year that my sister got engaged, and my cousin got married.  On the home front, we started and finished a basement renovation (which straddled Little Smiling Man's arrival).  It was a full and fulfilling year to be sure.

Looking forward, 2016 is shaping up to be pretty amazing too.  My sister's bridal shower and wedding are coming up.  I was honoured to be asked to be Matron of Honour, and look forward to helping make her special day perfect.  Mini Muffin will be Flower Girl, and Little Smiling Man will be the Ring Bearer.  It promises to be a wonderful occasion.  2016 will also see Little Smiling Man learn to walk, turn one, and develop some language skills.  Mini Muffin will turn three, and continue to be awesome.  We're undecided on family getaways, but I'm sure we'll figure something out.  And, I'm sure there's more exciting stuff coming in 2016, so stay tuned!

As part of looking forward, so many of us think about resolutions.  My resolution is to continue the organisational progress I made in 2015.  When our renovation suddenly started in late February (mere weeks before Little Smiling Man was due to join us), the house got turned upside down.  The large, messy, 'stick it in the basement' storage area needed to be fully emptied.  Most of our 'storage' (e.g. junk) space was lost, and everything needed to find a new home either in our home, the recycling center, the dump, or an appropriate charity.  It was a major undertaking!  I developed an overall vision of what would be stored where, and began the jigsaw puzzle of making it happen.  One closet needed to be cleared out to make room for another item, which in turn made space for something else, and so on.  In the weeks leading up to our new arrival, I made a point of cleaning out and organizing one thing a day - a closet, dresser, cabinet, etc.  A couple of months after Little Smiling Man joined us, I finally finished.  I can happily say that in 2015 I went through and organised every single storage space in our house.  It was very rewarding; clutter was reduced, we realised we had things we'd forgotten about and could make use of them, and I learned about more local charities to help me rehome quality goods.

Therefore, for 2016 (and each year going forward), my goal is to clear out and organise every storage space in the house at least annually.  One of the great things is that the more clutter I get rid of, the easier the task becomes!  In order to make my goal realistic, I decided to spread out my organisational endeavours over the course of the year.  This, led me to... organise my organisational plans!

So, in preparation for the New Year, I set about getting organised.  I started by listing every storage space in the house.  Then, clarified how many times I wanted to go through it.  The vast majority of spaces I plan to go through once a year, but there are exceptions.  For example, the front hall closet and bedroom closets need to be gone through twice a year as part of the seasonal clothing switchover.  And, I've committed to clean out my pantry once every three months to help minimize food wastage. 

With these details included, I defined which spaces would be small, medium, or large jobs.  And, finally started assigning them each a month during which to be completed.  I also front end loaded 'the plan', since I expect the fall will be a busy time for us.

My last step, was to transfer my plans onto the family calendar.  Rather than assigning a day or even week to the task, I listed them by month to give myself maximum flexibility.  I also added monthly tasks of catching up on filing (something I am so woefully behind on at the moment that I'm afraid to start), and cleaning out the snack containers, art projects, mittens and toys that seem to accumulate in my van at an alarming rate.

"The Plan"

And with that, my resolution was set.  I feel ready to tackle the New Year in an organised fashion, and hope to be able to report back on my progress!