Cutting the Chaos, Week 6!

Hello everyone!! This weeks project is a little different, but turned out SO fun and cut out a lot of chaos at our house this week. My darling little Skylar had her 5th birthday yesterday!! For ever she has been dreaming up a grand birthday party with every kid she has ever met, piles of presents and cake and treats as far as the eye can see.

Well, thats great in theory, but when I really started trying to plan it, the timing was not great. We are moving in 3 weeks, trying to save every penny that we can, and in general just trying to simplify until we get into our new place. But here was the problem: How could I still do something special for my little darling without breaking the bank and throwing me into a nervous breakdown? ;)

This is where a stroke of genius came into play :) You may remember a recent post where I talked about how we eliminated enriched flour and high fructose corn syrup from our home, well the hardest thing for my kids to let go has been their breakfast cereal! They LOVE all the sugary stuff, and have been pretty sad to see it go. This is where I came up with the idea for our very own Princess Cereal Birthday Bash!! When Skylar woke up on Sunday morning this is what she saw....

I simply chose 4 of her favorite cereals, incorporated 4 of her favorite princess, and WALAHHH! A breakfast fit for a princess :)

Ariel's Underwater Treasures (Lucky Charms)

Jasmine's Royal Jewels (Trix)

Princess Aurora Puffs (Cocoa Puffs)

Cinderella's Glass Slipper Squares ( Cinnamon Toast Crunch)

Add fun glass jars, cute ribbon, and adorable chipboard cutouts of princess and there you have it!

Skylar had such a fun morning trying out all her favorite princess cereals :) She also kept saying, "Mommy, this is the best birthday ever!"

So if you are ever feeling like me and a birthday party is just too overwhelming, try something like this! Just find something simple that your child loves, tweak it to fit their personality, and instantly you have a hit!

In the coming weeks I have a feeling I will be overtaken by CHAOS!! You can expect a few posts on packing and organizing, and definitely dejunking :) Hope you're all having a wonderful week, and getting closer to being more organized so we can all enjoy the fun things in our lives!! :)

Birthday Boy!!

Britton's birthday fell on the day before we came home from New York so we decided to wait to celebrate. Well you know how life goes, one thing after another came up and almost 2 weeks late we FINALLY celebrated our little man turning 1!

Today I want to write some of my favorite things about the little boy that has completely stolen my heart.

* Britton LOVES taking baths. As soon as he hears the water running he takes off for the bathroom and its all I can do to keep him from diving head first into the tub! He loves having water dumped over his head and screams like a maniac when we have to take him out :)

* Britton is all boy! As soon as he sees a ball or a car he knows just what to do with it. He loves it when we toss balls to him and is quickly learning how to throw them back.

* Britton is very....hmmm......busy :) Just like I had to do with his oldest sister, all I do is follow him around all day and make sure he is not getting into anything life-threatening. Today for the first time he opened up the front door and tried to escape, luckily the other two little mothers in the house notified me of the break-out attempt :)

* Britton gives the best kisses! We are talking open-mouth, slobbery kisses with the "mmmwwwhhawww" and everything. Even though he is pretty stingy with them, once he starts you can't stop him :)

Britton is an absolute joy in our home. Some days when I have felt overwhelmed or inedequate the BEST part of my day is going into Britton's room and seeing his face light up when I walk in. Those are the moments that are all worth it. I love you Buddy Boy, and Happy Birthday!!

Cutting the Chaos, Week 5!!

Well here we are on the 5th week, and I'm still going strong :) I usually have a lot of great ideas and even better intentions, but always tend to get busy and have a hard time sticking to things. I am glad 5 weeks into this crazy thing I am still finding some ways to cut the chaos. The project for this week was not original, crafty or very cute, but oh so needed in my life!!

A few posts back I mentioned my love of couponing. It takes a little while to get into it, but once I did I went a little crazy! It was just so exciting to feel like even though I don't bring any income into our home, I can have a huge effeect on how much of that income leaves the home :) Although recently as we have tried to eat a little bit healther I haven't been using the food coupons AS much, I still love all the toiletries I get for amazing deals. Anyways, with all these coupons floating around I had to have a way to keep them organized, right?

You would think so :) This is a pic of my previous, ahem, system (if you could call it that!)

I would cut out all my coupons, group them into categories, and then paper clip them and throw them in the pile. Hmmm, see that huge pile of coupon inserts on the right? Those are all the ones I was behind on that still needed to be clipped. I loved the idea of clipping coupons, and for months was able to keep up with it, but NO MORE!! Not only did it take me hours to clip the coupons and organize them, but then to dig through the pile of paper-clipped categories and try and find the ones I needed, it was just too much!

My sister-in-law Crista introduced me to this brilliant method of organizing your coupons. If you visit different coupon sites like I do, you will notice that they always tell you where the coupon you need comes from (i.e., Red Plum 5/2). So now instead of spending hours clipping every Sunday I simply stick that weeks inserts in a plastic sheet and put in a binder I got on clearance at Walmart.

This way as I am making my grocery lists I can check the coupon blogs and ONLY cut the coupons I will actually be using that day at the store. Isn't it beautiful?! :)

I can't tell you how wonderful it feels to have these organized! Just one more way I am trying to Cut the chaos so I can enjoy all the fun things in my life!!

Do you coupon? If so, how do you organize your stash?? :)

Cutting the Chaos, Week 4!!

Holy moly...what happened the last few weeks! :) I tell you people, I took on the chaos, and the chaos won! :) But never fear, it didn't keep me down for long and I am here with another project I am doing that I know will significantly cut the chaos in my life :)

The inspiration for this project came a few week ago as I was on the verge of hysteria as my insurance company was calling me, demanding Brittons social security number or else his coverage would be terminated! Only one problem, I couldn't find it anywhere! Having a hard time visualizing it? Here is what I looked like as I dug through all of our paperwork...

(I stole this pic from my awesome friend Emily's blog...hope you don't mind Em :)

It really was ridiculous! I realized I had never recieved it in the email, and not only that but to get it I needed his birth certificate....hmmmm, never got that one either. Are you seeing a trend here?? I am so completely unorganized with our important papers! Something had to change! So after doing a little research (ie, blog-hopping :) I found this amazingly ridiculous blog you MUST check out immediately:

http://www.executivehomemaker.com

This blog was created by the mastermind Laurie behind my all-time fave blog, Tip Junkie! On this blog she has an entirely FREE printable for an Executive Homemaker Binder. It was exactly what I needed to start off my pitiful attempts at organizing. I also love her motto, "Organize your life so you can get to the fun things about being a mother, wife, and woman!" Amen Sister!! I tell you, I was not having very much fun running to the vital records office, then standing in line at the Social Security Admin for 2 hours :)

Anyways, she completely lays out for you how to get organized with categories like Daily Tasks, Monthly Planner, Family info (this is where I included all our important papers and immunization records for the kids) Expense and more! It is a great starting point, and I added things that I knew would be helpful to me and left out some things that I don't need.

You can't imagine how good it feels to have all of our important info in one place! Now when I need to call someone in the ward, I go to my binder. When I need to see what this months Food Storage item to stock up on is, I go to the binder. When I leave the kids with the babysitter and they need an info sheet, you guessed it, I go to the binder! :)

Now I realize I am probably the exception to the rule and you all have already done something like this years ago. But if for some reason I am not completely alone in this and you are feeling a little overwhelmed with it all, check out the blog and get started on a binder today! Mine still needs alot of work and it will constantly be changing and needed to be updated but it is a START! Hope you all are having lots of success cutting the chaos in YOUR lives, I am slowly but surely finding some success in mine! :)

Wake-up Call!

Before I get to the point of this post, I have to tell a quick story. And to understand this story you need a little bit of background on ME :) Here's the thing, I tend to be a very "all-or-nothing" type person. This can be very good, but also very bad. When I am "all", I am unstoppable. But if I feel like I can't be "all", I tend to do the other part...."nothing". The funny thing is, I'll just be going along with my life when something will happen and a switch will go off in my brain making me go "all" on some aspect of my life. This is what happened to me a few weeks ago:

Skylar was complaining of some health issues in a sensitive area and I started to do a little research. After I checked her out and did some research online, I came up with my diagnosis :) I was horrified with what I found. What she had was caused by dehydration, lack of excercise and poor diet!! I felt like the worst mom EVER! In all the research I did it was very uncommon for children to have this condition, and that made me feel even worse. Here's where the "all" kicks in! In one fail swoop I completely changed the way our family eats. Out with the enriched flour, high fructose corn syrup, and processed foods. It's hard to change a lifestyle, but when you think your childs health is at risk, it suddenly becomes much easier!!

Now are you ready for the funny part? When I took Skylar to the doctor to get her issue checked out, it turns out I was totally wrong!! :) She didn't have what I thought she did, jokes on me! So here I made this huge lifestyle change, for really no reason at all :) BUT, that doesn't change the fact that I am glad we did. A few weeks later I am seeing that I need balance and to be a little more flexible, but I am still really happy with the changes we have made. I quickly wanted to post some of my favorite things that I have found in our quest to be a little bit healthier, simply in the hopes that you will do the same! What are some healthy things you give your kids to eat? I have a pretty easy time with meals, but snacks are a little bit harder for me. Here are a few of my fave things: (and just a sidenote, I am no nutritionist, but I feel pretty good about giving my kids these things!)

My kids LOVE these Annie's Homegrown Bunny Snacks. They taste just like Teddy Grahams and Goldfish, but they are all-natural and made with whole-wheat flour. You can find them almost anywhere I think, I like to buy the variety pack at Costco.



Yogurt is one of my kids favorite things to eat. I really thought I was giving them a healthy snack, not realizing that the second ingredient listed on Gogurts is high fructose corn syrup! So needless to say I was thrilled when they recently came out with Simply Gogurts. I know, I know, these still have a bunch of sugar, but they did take out all the high fructose corn syrup and artificial colors and flavors. Its better at least, right? :)


Finally, we LOVE us some hummus!! I get any old brand of pita bread, bake it in the oven for about 7-10 minutes and bake our own pita chips. My sister in law introduced me to this particular brand from Costco while I was in New York. It is our fave new snack!!



I think one of the biggest obstacles for me when it comes to eating healthy is the financial aspect. Let's get real folks, it ain't cheap!! But after talking to my husband and looking at our budget, we decided to take the money out of our entertainment fund to add to the grocery budget. I feel like it is an investment in our health, one that I am sure will pay off in the long run.

One more sidenote: I don't think there is anything wrong with yummy, unhealthy treats!! The problem in our house is that those kinds of foods were no longer special treats, they were snacks that the kids could eat all day. So take what I am saying with a grain of salt and if you ever have the Johnson's over, don't worry about what we will and won't eat!! I have decided you can't control the situation everywhere you go, and thats just fine!! I am simply trying to teach my children (and really my husband and myself too!) how to live a little bit healthier life :)

Now don't forget when you comment :) to leave me all of YOUR wonderful healthy snack ideas!!

The Johnsons Take Manhattan...

Ok, we were actually only in the big city for one afternoon, but we did have a fabulous time on our trip to New York!! I can't wait to take some time and blog all about it, but these highlights will have to suffice for now :)

* Playing freeze tag in the backyard
* The best prank EVER played on a missionary :)
* Our sweet nephews baptism (love you Cam!)
* Staying up WAY too late playing games
* Trying to squeeze the double stroller onto the jam-packed Subway at 6:00 pm
* Paul getting his pic taken with the Bull on Wall Street
* Going to the Bronx Zoo, weather was perfect, kids were perfect...Hogle Zoo is looking pretty
sad!:)
* Seeing my kids absolutely fall head over heels for their cousins in New York ( and you too
Becky and Alan!)

See, it really was a fantastic trip :) Thank you SO much to the Barney family for being so so wonderful to us! We loved seeing you and can't wait to come out again soon. Every time Skylar talks about you guys she gets a little teary-eyed, but then says "We're going out in the fall mom, right?"

And for all the masses wondering what happened to Cutting the Chaos, fear not!! I did get sidetracked with our NY adventure, but on Monday it will be back up and running. Just to keep you excited I will be diving into ways to organize coupons, birthday parties on a budget and much much more! I am quickly realizing I will never run out of chaos that needs to cut :) In the meantime, feel free to check out these posts on some systems we have put in place in our home that I couldn't live without!

http://ptskjohnson.blogspot.com/2010/03/whats-for-dinner.html

http://ptskjohnson.blogspot.com/2010/01/i-love-me-plan.html

Hope you're all having a wonderful week! :)

Something is missing...

and I just figured out what it is. This blog is seriously lacking some testosterone! :) It's been WAY too long since I featured this little man, and he is just to cute to ignore any longer.

Britton is something else, I tell ya! This is one sweet little boy. He loves to play with cars and the basketball hoop that his cousin Kade gave to him. He loves his bottle and REALLY loves whole wheat bread, oatmeal, and blueberries. He does NOT love string cheese, raisins and white bread....funny, huh?!

He doesn't say much beyond the occasional Mama and Daaad...but I am convinced he can sing part of the chorus from "Best of Both Worlds" by Hannah Montana, he certainly hears it enough with his two crazy big sisters :)

Britton has been my calm this last year. You can't help but smile when you see him, and he brings out the best in both of his sisters. His mellow personality is much-needed in a family with two intense little girls and I hope he stays that way. He is starting to really become a ham, and loves when we all sit on the couch and just laugh at his silly antics!

Ahhh....that feels much better! :)