New Year's Eve

Just like last year we had a blast with our friends the Browns on New Year's Eve.  We had an appetizer, or snack dinner where we just have snack foods, let the kids eat what they want, and keep going back for more.  So here is a picture of the spread.  Yum, yum, yummy! (Except the olives, I didn't eat those!)

Here are the kids chowing down.

Clockwise starting at the top: Krista, Andrew, Emma, Melissa, Bradley, Ethan, Maeley, and Amelia


The kids had a blast riding scooters around in the basement for quite a while.  Then I got them cozy upstairs in our bed with a movie on so that we could rock it out with Rock Band.  I wish I had pictures of it, I know Nicole does so maybe I can get them.

I put Andrew to bed around 8 and the others stayed up until midnight.  Earlier in the day I made sure that they each understood that if they took a nap they could have a chance to stay up.  I was amazed to have 5 kids napping at once.  So about 11:55pm we turned off Rock Band and turned on the TV to watch the countdown and ball drop in NY City.  The kids thought it was gross to see us and everyone else kissing.  Then we got them all in bed.  Emma and Maeley spent the night, so all the girls slept in Melissa and Amelia's room.  Poor Bradley felt left out, but at least he had Andrew, right?  We played a little more Rock Band and went to bed around 3:30am.  When I went to check on the girls Amelia sat up and said she didn't feel well.  So Ryan took her bed into Krista's empty room and I got her a bowl.  Good thing I did because she threw up 3 or 4 times that night.  When I was up with her around 6:50 am I heard noises from the other girls.  They were all bouncing around after staying up past midnight and without the sun even rising yet.  So I told them all to go back to bed.  Emma and Maeley were so scared they didn't get out of bed until I went in and told them they could.  Cute girls.  Then everyone, except Ryan & Amelia, went to the Brown's house for AWESOME Belgian waffles with homemade coconut syrup.  Yum!  The left over waffles I brought Ryan he said were the best he'd had.  Good food, great friends, and wonderful memories!

Even more organizing, somebody stop me!

So I did some purging the other day and ended up with an empty shelf in the cabinet over my desk closest to the fridge.  I have been trying to figure out what to put there that isn't food or cooking stuff.  Then I had the idea (while trying to take that nap earlier) to put my cook books there that I don't use often.  I have the Joy of Cooking and my own notebook full of recipes that I use daily and the others I rarely use. So those ones went in that empty space which gave me more room to spread out some precariously stacked bake ware. Why don't I purge those rarely used cookbooks?  Honestly I don't know.  So anyway here are some before & after pics.
Before pictures of the cabinet over the microwave and to the left of it.

After pictures of those cabinets and the one to the right or the fridge.

So there you have it. And now you can sleep well because you are bored to death!

More organizing...

I don't have any before pictures, but here are the afters. This set of cabinets are what Ryan and I worked on yesterday. They had gotten a little out of hand, but the baskets really help us to keep thinks together. The desk is a daily battle. I clean it off at least once a day because everyone drops their stuff here.

It's that time of year..for the organizing bug.

 

Well, these pictures were turned in Picasea and now they aren't.  But you get the idea.  This is my laundry room on New Year's Eve.  I guess I wasn't in the mood to fold laundry or wash much either over Christmas.  I told Ryan the folding machine was broken.

This is my laundry room today.  Ahhh.  Doesn't that feel nice?

 These are the baskets I have to put everyone's folded laundry in so they can take it upstairs and put it away.  I labeled them and hung (well Ryan did) three on hooks to have counter space to fold.  Thanks Mom for instilling in me the love of a pretty laundry room.

Some before shots of Amelia & Melissa's closet.  To be fair most of the mess was Amelia's junk.  I threw away enough to almost fill a kitchen trash bag.

After photos of the closet.  I put all the blankets in the green bin.  First I had to dig it out of the garage and scrub it in the bathtub.

Amelia's purse rack inside the closet on the left.  Ryan also put up one of these in Krista's closet.  I think that maybe my girls are learning to love bags just as much as their Mom and Grammie.

The last after shot of the closet. One plus to not getting to this for a while is the blue box at the top is Amelia's Valentine box from last year.  I figured since it is now only a month away I'll save it for her to use again.  The clear plastic shoe box below that is what I call a treasure box.  My kids each have one to put the things that they want to keep that I don't want to see.  If is doesn't fit they can't keep it or they have to get rid of something else.  I cleaned a lot of junk from hers to make room for new treasures, but saved a lot of sentimental cards and things.  Now I don't feel like crying when I open their closet.

Junk drawer in the laundry room.

The after of that drawer.  Maybe now it can't be called a junk drawer.


Most of the work done on the laundry room was done earlier this week, but the junk drawer and closet were done today.  All in all I feel pretty good about a few hours of well spent time.  Now I think I will shower and maybe get a nap before the little ones wake up!