Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Toy Hiding

Busy's really been into cooking so we decided for his 3rd birthday to buy him a play kitchen. It was surprisingly pretty easy to find a gender neutral kitchen. So I ordered it online with the confirmation email saying it'd be delivered next Thurs/Fri. Which was perfect, because his party is on Sat.

I came home today to find the Step 2 Play kitchen I ordered for Busy teetering on the edge of my porch. How the Fed Ex guy managed to throw a 4'x3' box so it barely made it to my porch is beyond me. I wasn't expecting it until next week, so I thought I had plenty of time to devote to where to stash it.  My plans were further complicated by rain so I had to think fast to get it inside to keep the box from getting any wetter.

Can you possibly imagine how hard it is to hide a toy kitchen from your almost 3 yr old until his birthday party? I managed to push it inside and slide it to the dining room.  It's not really heavy, just unwieldy - especially with half the box being wet from the rain. I thought maybe I could slide it under my desk and put a sheet over it. Wouldn't fit. My next thought was my husband's side of the bed. Better his than mine, right? Plus, his side is closer to the outside wall so I thought it might go unnoticed. No such luck, it wouldn't fit there either. Our house is about 1100 sq feet, and only 2 bedrooms, so I really don't have a good place to store this monstrosity. I thought maybe I could shove it up the attic stairs (where I hide everything else) but the box is too wide to go up very smoothly.

So, I was stuck with where I hide all my other presents, my closet. You know, the place where I can't find anything anyway, so who on earth would notice a 4'x3' box?  Except the box is bigger than my closet!! This 100 year old house only has 3 actual closets and they are TINY! We have a nice wall of Ikea storage to make up the difference but certainly not big enough to store a play kitchen. My closet actually only holds my shoes - it's a teeny tiny shoe closet.  I parked the box in front of my closet and draped a sheet over it. It's as tall as my dresser, so I'm hoping it will just look like an extension of the dresser. Do I really think my child is this stupid? No of course not, I have no idea how I'll keep it hidden. When you have a small house, there is really no such thing as an 'off limits' area.

And of course, now I can't get to my shoes. I plan on using this as an excuse to wear sneakers for the next 1-1/2 weeks until his birthday party. All I have to say is, Busy better love this kitchen!

Monday, June 28, 2010

Blog - Revamped

One of my goals this year was to expand my blog. Since we're about halfway through the year, I'd say I'm not doing so well. But, a goal is a goal, and so help me, I'm going to accomplish this goal! So I thought the best way to kick it off, was to say a big THANK YOU to Christy from Skinned Knees: and Other Childhood Misadventures  Take a second to check out her blog.  She also has an Etsy shop and I can't help but be compelled to help support a fellow SAHM.  She's actually hosting a giveaway for Owl Say in few weeks and she'd sent me a reminder email. So I hopped over to her blog and was very impressed by the banner and layout.

It just goes to show that all things happen for a reason and her email was perfect timing. Because I needed help...serious help.  See, I'd been working on my blog all week. No literally, all freakin' weak. I mean, there are only so many hours in the day I can actually work on the computer without completely ignoring my family, but I still spent an inordinate amount of time changing colors, background, layout, headers, fonts, looking for the perfect buttons (ridiculous how long I spent on this alone) and was absolutely not at all happy with my end result. I just couldn't put my finger on what I disliked, but I knew it wasn't right. So Christy offered to help.  She just couldn't have been any nicer and I'm so appreciative of her offering to help!

In just a few hours, I'd accomplished what I'd been striving for all week. She suggested I change the background to white and she made me the great Navigation bar as well as Ad buttons and a blog button. I still need to do some tweaking, but I figure I can fine tune things as I go.

So what can you expect in the next few weeks?  Actually, the next few weeks are going to be quite busy. We have fun July 4th plans, celebrating an aunt's 90th Birthday, a Superman themed 3rd birthday party (complete with a vintage Superman cake - I promise pics), the occasional movie review, redecorating a 3 yr old's bedroom, my 13th wedding anniversary, new product Giveaways with generous hosts and more!!