what to do with all of those pesky batteries?

It seems like everything we need batteries for takes a different kind. AA, AAA, D, C, the list goes on. I honestly can't remember where I found this because I would love to give the person who came up with this genius idea credit but what can ya do. We had so many half used packages of batteries laying around that I needed to put them in one, organized place. It's so simple. I don't know why I never thought of it before!

We purchased the container at Ikea for like $3 and you can move the dividers around to fit your needs but if you aren't lucky enough to have an Ikea near you, I bet you could find something similar at any craft store. If you want the same container from Ikea, you better hurry! They are discontinuing it soon. Then I used my handy label maker so I can find which kind I need easily. I'm thinking of using the large space for used batteries because *someone...ahem, the hubby* keeps forgetting to take them to be recycled on campus. 


Just thought I would share this great organizational tool! 


-Little Wife Power House

i'm a monster.

Okay, so most of you probably know [since I'm probably friends with most of my readers on facebook] but I had a day of from being a mom/wife. Allan took Holden to the zoo for the afternoon and I could do whatever I wanted.  

Well, I started off good. Cookie dough + couch + Gilmore Girls = heaven. Here I am making the delicious cookie dough in my Anthropologie apron that I love oh so much.

  

Then my "to do" list started to kick in. I started to think of all the things I would love to do but can't because the only time I can do them is when Holden naps. but I have to work when Holden naps. What did I decide to do with my free time?


ORGANIZE MY CLOSET
CLEAN OUT THE GARAGE
see? what is wrong with me?


I was going to post before and after pictures but the before wasn't that terrible and I figured I'd just list my "must have" items to keep your closet organized!

• Real Simple's Purse Organizer
• Ikea's Scarf Organizer [not the prettiest thing but is genius in my opinion]
• Some kind of shoe organization system. I have tried out quite a few and was never happy until I found this one! I had to buy two because I have too many shoes :)
• I also purchased a few of these front drop organization cubes from The Container Store for only $9 each. I used them for my higher heels.
• Any plastic/cloth storage bins for the miscellaneous things that seem to hang around in my closet. I have 5 [two for bathrobes, one for "delicates," one for swim gear, and one for clutches]. I found mine at Big Lots for $1 each. 

I'm also a little OCD and have my closet color coordinated and separated into long sleeves, short sleeves, dresses/skirts, dress shirts. I don't think it would make sense to anyone else but I have to have it like that or I go a little crazy...

 I {love} my organized closet!

Do you have any "must have" organization tools? I'd love to hear!


-Little Wife Power House

a little here and a little there

My current project is the upstairs playroom. I'm glad I started early because it's been more work than I first anticipated but it's going to look SO good when it's all said and done. I'm really looking forward to posting before [I think I have some somewhere...] and after pictures. You won't believe it's the same room! I've been picking up things here and there. Today's find was baskets to store/organize Holden's toys.

I found this deal through melissa at 320 Sycamore [I've been finding a lot of deals from her blog lately!] I appreciate a good deal. For President's Day, Michael's wicker baskets are 50% off plus you can use an additional 20% off coupon. I saved some serious dough today which makes me ridiculously happy!


Wanna see the baskets? 

Filled with toys...

I also got a few smaller ones. I like having different sized baskets on hand for organizing. Now all I need are the shelves! IKEA, Allan?! :) I also picked up a bread basket - finally! I've been wanting one forever!

Happy President's Day, everyone! Hope you're enjoying your 3-day weekend [if you got today off]!

-Little Wife Power House

i [heart] Target

I'm a little obsessed with Target. I'm going to have to start limiting myself to one trip a week because I go there for one thing and end up spending at least $70! It's a problem. The first step is admitting you have a problem, right? Well I'm Jen Anderson and I have a Target problem!! I know I'm not alone in this. Lately I've found some great deals - especially in the dollar section. Melissa over at 320*Sycamore found these wonderful tin buckets for a DOLLAR each! Within a few hours I was at Target cleaning them out. Sorry for those who shop at the Target off Eldorado...they're cleaned out of these awesome tin buckets! 

I've already found so many great uses for them! Holding my baby boy's bath toys...

Finally...somewhere to put all of our "every day" items that are always hanging around on our bathroom counter! 

Like Melissa, I love the look of my extra hand towel rolled up in our guest bath. 

To hold some items that are usually strung about under the sink...

There are so many great uses for these buckets. I find buckets/bins/etc very helpful in keeping things organized. I can't wait to figure out what I want to do with the ones I have left! The possibilities are endless! You can visit Melissa's post HERE to get a few more ideas. 


A few more great recent Target finds [I'm telling you because they may still have them if you're interested!]


1. left over Valentine's decorations. $3.73 for this cute cookie jar!

2. Gilmore Girls complete seasons 1&2 for $14.99. Did anyone else love this show? [besides my sister, Julie, and SIL, Casey]


3. buy Just Dance 2 and get Just Dance Kids free! I love the word free! $30 value. Just Dance 2 is fun and a great workout. I highly recommend it! 


Enjoy the weekend! Spend time with your loved ones. I know I will be :)


-Little Wife Power House


PS Look what we are having for breakfast...

Just cut a whole in the center of some homestyle biscuits [I used the top of our salt shaker] and fry them up! Dipped in sugar and some in nutella. Soo unhealthy but soo good...

still getting organized for 2011...

You guys have all read my crying about how busy I am. I know - get over it...we all are! This week I feel more on top of things. I've been using some new things to help me stay on top of things as well as working on Holden's schedule. Here are a few things I've been utilizing to help me keep on top of things. 

The Whiteboard Calendar 

I love this for most of the obvious reasons. It helps me keep track of appointments, birthdays, commitments I've made, etc. It reminds me when we get paid and when certain bills are due. You can erase it after the month's over and start with the next month's busyness. I'm a big fan of crossing things off when the day is over [loved doing this with my planner] and I get to cross it the day off here since I no longer use my planner. [Why don't I use my planner anymore? Well, I used to look at it all the time when I was working full time on break or whenever - frankly because I was bored - and now I just don't ever remember to pull it out.]

The Weekly Activities Sheet

Aren't those magnets adorable? Heather got them for Holden [he loved the packaging of course] but I may have stolen them for my own use :) You can find them here made by NookNook. My friend, Staci, came up with this excel spreadsheet for weekly "activities" [don't you love that she didn't use chores? makes it a little better, eh?]. I love excel spreadsheets and checking things off. It gives me a sense of accomplishment. Find her post about her spreadsheet here. I had her e-mail it to me, tweeked it to fit my schedule/house chores, and laminated it so I could use it over and over again. I hung it right on my fridge to constantly remind me that it's better to get a few things done every day than have a HUGE cleaning day [usually on the weekend. ugh!]

Cork/Magnet/Chalk Board 

Don't you love Target?! I find the best things there. This was only $20 and I've already gotten a lot of use out of it. I'm going to be using the cork board to pin my Market Street coupons for the week. Right now they usually go in the laundry room and sometimes I forget them in there. This board is right in our main hallway so I walk past it like 20 times a day. No longer out of sight, out of mind! These hangers are perfect for my Chalkboard Hearts, aren't they? It will be fun to find all the places we can hang them. I like this chalkboard for the things I wanted to get done that day that I just...didn't. So I can get to it tomorrow, right? ;) The thing I like best about this board? It's where I put Allan's chores :)

Hope this gives some of you ideas on how to get things under control for 2011. I'm sure you guys are already on top of things though! 

-Little Wife Power House

PS. Want to try a yummy black bean chili recipe? Go here! It's what we're having for dinner tonight.

what we've been up to lately...

Sorry I've been MIA. We've been busy bees trying to get our house in order. Remember how I was so stressed? Well, I may or may not have had a mini-stress breakdown. Sometimes you just need a few tears to make yourself feel better. I do at least. I felt like I didn't have enough time to be the best wife I could be, the best mom I could be, the best employee I could be, the best church member I could be, etc. I think my standards were/are maybe too high. Allan saw how stressed I was so he jumped in where he could and offered to help me clean the house this weekend! My hero!!

My house has been a MESS. Yes, I've been organizing things but everything else has been chaos. I wanted to be to the point where I just had to do light cleaning each week...not a massive day of cleaning every few weeks. Who wants to do that on a weekend? Not us! We cleaned the house from vacuuming, mopping, laundry, to bathrooms, dishes, etc etc. I feel SOOO much better. 

Now that my life is somewhat in order, I can blog about what we've been up to lately! 

Lori & her boys came over to make Pocket Pop Tarts. They're essentially home-made pop tarts! And the best part is that you can control what goes into them! We used nutella & strawberry & grape jam. The nutella was a-maz-ing [even though I only got to have a bite]. The jam leaked so we're gonna have to work on that. Lori's idea was to freeze the jam in ice cube trays and use that in the oven so it doesn't melt as easily. I'll keep ya posted!

 

Late Night Organizing

I've had a busy, tiring day. I guess just kind of busy but for some reason I've had a hard time getting doing anything. I didn't do anything of note today except laser hair removal, Primary Presidency meeting, BIG LOTS, and organized my pantry. And spent time with my wonderful family - that was the best/most important/most enjoyable part of my day.  


I love Big Lots. A lot. I've never really been in there except a quick stop to pick up some Christmas cookie cutters Lori tipped me off about. It's a magical place filled with lots of cheap things. Okay, maybe not magical but it's awesome. 


I got LOTS of great organizational bins, tupperware, and even some paper towels for $5. Score! 


Today's challenge from A Bowl Full of Lemons was to organize my pantry. I didn't have the energy to do it all day so I've been putting it off but I knew if I didn't do it today, I probably wouldn't do it so here I am at 9:00PM on a Saturday just finishing my pantry and blogging about it. Does that make me lame? Yes. I can live with it. My pantry is soo small and it was a mess before. I'm pretty proud of the after picture if I may say so. 


Here's the before & after. 

Organizing - Day #3

Today's challenge was to organize your dresser drawers. Luckily for me, they are already pretty organized. We have a lot of picture frames on top of it though, and they were in serious need of windex. 


Before

Getting there...

After

Kind of boring in pictures, I know. But it looks so shiny in person! Since I didn't have to spend very long on the drawers I decided to go through my sweat pants drawer[s] and closet and get rid of things I haven't worn in 6+ months. Here is the damage:

I'd say that's a significant amount of clothes! Family: better let us know if any of you wanna go through the pile before we go to goodwill! Again - it feels good to purge the unnecessary. 


-Little Wife Power House

Organizing - Day #2

Today Holden & I went to the mall with Blair, the lucky gal who won the Bento Box. I rarely get to see Miss Blair so it was a treat. We exchanged some stuff at Baby Gap, got some make up at Sephora, tried one some shoes at Nordstrom for Blair's wedding, etc. We love us some Blair time. She was so great helping me with all things Holden. 


Then we went to Target so I could feed my new organizing addiction. I purged & organized our "junk closet" [if you're following The Challenge, today is organize your linen closet...but we don't really have a linen closet so "junk closet" it was.]

Before

21 Day Organization Challenge

So I was reading a friend's blog today, Life's Sweeter With Chocolate. I'm usually not crafty enough to do a lot of her projects but today she introduced me to another blog that I feel I will become a frequent reader of...A Bowl Full of Lemons. She is doing a 21-day organization challenge. It's fate. One of my resolutions is to finally get my life organized again and BOOM! Today's challenge was to organize your tupperware cabinet. Mine has been out of control for a while. I wish I had taken a "before" picture but I didn't and my "after" picture doesn't show all of its organized glory but oh well. 

I found the buckets at The Container Store for $3.99. I went there solely for the buckets but don't ask me how much I ended up spending. I separated them [and labled :P] into lids, bento box items, and small glassware. I could only fit in 3 buckets since I need the upper space for mixing/salad bowls so the actual tupperware is stacked within itself but I think that will be easy to keep organized. 

I also organized my "junk drawer" which is my nightstand drawer. Once again, no "before" picture. I will get better at that. Promise. I found this organization gem at The Container store, as well.

Can't wait to see what tomorrow's challenge is!

By the way, I am in momma heaven now that Holden can sit in his high chair. I can get so much done in the kitchen! Hello [a few minutes of] freedom!

-Little Wife Power House