A few accesories to unite an open space.

So as I've mentioned before our home is an open concept layout. As you walk through our door you can see into our kitchen, dining room, living room and laundry room. With kids and for entertaining I love having an open concept home. However, I sometimes get discouraged when it comes to decorating. I like everything to flow nicely, even my decor. Here are a few tips on how I decorate to ensure each room is defined but yet blends together nicely. We chose to use neutral colors for the base of our home. For example, the walls, furniture and curtains are all neutral colors. We add some color with our decorative accents. I have some maroon and green decorations throughout our home for a pop of color. I recently hemmed my curtains in our living room because they were covering our baseboard. I used the extra material to create decor around my home to unite the rooms.

Here are the curtains I hemmed. I love the pattern on them and wanted to incorporate it into the other rooms in our home.

I used a large piece of fabric to place on top of our shelving unit in the living room.

I framed a piece for our laundry room.

I used a small piece and draped it over a basket in our laundry room.

I framed another piece for our dining room.

Here is a view into our home from the door as you walk in. As you can see having a few similar accents ties the space together nicely.

Here is a view of our laundry room from the door. More of the accents are visual creating a unified space.

I love decorating and had a lot of fun creating some decorative accents out of extra fabric! What are some decorating tips you have?

A great way to organize toddler's books.

My kids love books! We read to our little ones every night before bed and often throughout the day too. This being said it's obvious we have A LOT of books! Storing books for little ones can be difficult because they want to be able to get to the ones they want to read and they do this by looking at the covers of the books if they can't yet read. This is why bookcases don't work so well for toddlers and preschoolers. If they can't see the cover of the books then they end up pulling out all the books off the bookcase and it is hard for them to put them away after. I started putting books in bins and it seems to work wonderfully! They can easily see which books they want to read and once they are done can easily put the books back. Of course we do still have bookcases so what we do is rotate the kids books from the bookcases to the bins. This allows our kids to discover "new" books (they aren't brand new but new as in different) and keeps them interested in reading.

I keep a few bins in their room and also some in our living area. I was surprised at how many books fit into the bins and how nicely they fit.

This method of storing books has been working for not only our four year old but for our one year old also! How do you organize your kid's books and keep them interested in reading?

A thankful craft...

It's no secret I love crafting with my minis! It is a wonderful time for them to express themselves and share some quality time with their mama! I wanted to teach my four year old the meaning of being thankful so I explained that being thankful for something meant being so happy you have that something in your life. I then asked him what he was thankful for and had him write it down on some leaves that we made.

Dylan glued the leaves down then we made some acorns that he also glued down.

This was not only a fun craft but also meaningful. It taught Dylan what it meant to be thankful for something and gave him the opportunity to reflect on what he is thankful for. Not to mention it warmed my heart hearing what he is thankful for! Love love love these precious moments with my kiddos! We hung his artwork on his bedroom door as a daily reminder to be thankful for all the things he loves : )

An organized entryway...

I love entertaining. I love filling my home with friends and family and sharing good laughs and food. Our home has an open concept layout which is great for entertaining, however, we didn't have a good spot for guests to place their belongings such as coats and purses. We have a coat closet but it is not placed by the entrance. Even for our family it is difficult not having "drop zone" where you can come in take off shoes coats etc. So with the holidays and holiday parties coming I decided to get my wheels turning. I didn't want to spend much money on creating an entryway "drop zone" so I searched my home for items I could use to create this area. Right by our door on the right as you enter there is a space I could use for this new entryway I wanted to create. I had a console table there which I could move to make the space more functional. Here's what I came up with...

I used an old coat rack I wasn't using and painted it the same color as our walls making it blend in nicely. Then I screwed our his and hers baskets into the wall. I slid a shoe tray under this little bench we had in our basement and voila an organized entryway for FREE!!

Our keys hang right by the door so we can conveniently put them where they belong as we walk in.

Our his and hers baskets work so well for us that I wanted to make sure they were a part of our entryway.

This bench works as a place for guests to place their belongings and it's also a great spot for my kids to sit while they put their shoes on. The shoe tray slides nicely under the bench so we can keep our boots and shoes right by the door.

I knew what elements I wanted to have for our entryway, a coat rack, key hook, his and hers baskets, a place to put shoes, and a bench. I was lucky enough to find what I needed to complete this little project right in my own home! We love our new "drop zone" and have already had guests over who love the convenience of our new entryway. I would love to hear how you organize your entryway!!!

Storing hand me downs...

I love hand me downs! Especially baby clothes because those little bundles of joy sure do grow fast so their clothes barely get used making hand me downs practically new. With two boys hand me downs are a given. I am pretty particular on hand me downs though and want to make sure my younger son still has descent clothes. This being said I try to take very good care of my older son's clothes in anticipation that they will soon be used again by my younger son. Of course some clothes get torn and stained (especially active boys clothes) but the clothes that are in good condition I save for Blake. This makes for a lot of clothes and the storing process is very important not only to keep them organized but also to make sure they stay in good shape. I was using plastic bins to keep all of our hand me downs in but before long plastic bins were taking over all our closet space and creating too much clutter. So I decided to try the "space bags" out...

The space bags come in different sizes (we used the large size for clothes) and all you do is put the clothes in the bag and vacuum seal them once they are full.  They hold soooo many clothes and keep them all air tight keeping them safe from insects and dust.

I organized the clothes by size then put a label on the bag.

They slide right under my son's bed where they are out of the way and also very easily accessible.

Space bags have made organizing and storing our hand me downs sooo simple! We just love them!! How do you store your hand me downs?

The dreaded laundry...

I want to apologize for taking so long to post something! It's been a busy few weeks but I have a lot of plans for this little blog of mine so please stay tuned! I hope everyone had a great Halloween! We had sooo much fun with the kids! Dylan (our 4 year old) was Batman and Blake (our 1 year old) went as a dragon. They had so much fun trick or treating and I think we had just as much fun! My mom and dad were able to join us and that just made their night! O.K. O.K. enough rambling, now for the topic of this post...LAUNDRY ughhhhh! Is it just me or is laundry like the worst chore EVER?! I have always had a major problem keeping up with our laundry and as our family expands so does the laundry boooo!! I have tried different methods of keeping up with the laundry but they all ended in failure : ( Until the method we are currently using popped into my head one day. With most problems that I have (and can do something about) I usually follow a few basic steps. 1. Identify exactly what the problem is. Which in this case is not so much putting the laundry in the washer and dryer but instead, folding it and putting it away. 2. Brainstorm. I usually write down my ideas. Any and all of them. 3. Then I look through my list of ideas and implement the ones I think will work best for our family until we find what works. So like I said, we tried a few different ideas which didn't work for us before trying the method that we are currently using and LOVE!! It is soooo simple but works sooooo well! So here it is our laundry system that actually keeps us on top of laundry!!

I bought these four laundry bins at the dollar tree. They fit right in our linen closet in our main bathroom (please excuse the ugly floors they are an upcoming project for us in the near future!) There is a bin for each family member and as soon as there is a full load it gets washed and dried. I take the clothes right from the dryer into whose ever room the laundry belongs to  and put it away. The reason this works so well for us is because it eliminates the need to fold and sort the clothes before putting them away. By just focusing on putting away one family members clothes at a time it cuts the "putting away" process in half! We have been doing our laundry this way for months and it is still working wonderfully for us : )  

Two little men and a princess!!

My hubby and I are, as you may or may not know, expecting our third child in March! We are sooo excited and defiantly could not wait to find out the gender of our baby. We are not so good at the whole waiting thing... So last week we anxiously went to our ultrasound appt. and once we knew our baby was perfectly healthy we wanted to know, PINK or BLUE!!! We have two little boys who we ADORE and would be so happy to have another, but I think deep down we were hoping for a little girl. So the results are in and we are happy to announce, IT'S A GIRL!!!!!! My husband had a feeling the whole time it was a girl but I thought for sure we would be blessed with another boy. When the ultrasound tech told us we will be having a girl I instantly I started dreaming of dresses, bows, ruffles, dolls and so on and so on! You see my boys are my world and I couldn't love them anymore if I tried! But knowing this is our last baby I'm excited to be able to experience raising a daughter also! My mom and I are incredibly close and I look up to her so much so it has always been a dream for me to have a daughter to share that mother daughter bond with. My older son was THRILLED because he has been wanting a sister since we told him we were expecting and our younger son is still to young to understand but I'm sure he will be just as happy! I feel so unbelievably blessed to have such an amazing husband who is already an amazing father and two boys who I love more than I think is humanly possible and now to be adding a little girl to the mix. My heart is filled with joy and I know with a wonderful daddy, a loving mommy and two of the best big brothers our daughter will be blessed as well!   So now that we know the gender of our baby the fun begins...SHOPPING!!!!