Recently, our mornings have been a chaotic mess that end with me arriving to work way, way late. Part of our issue is related to living with a preschooler. I mean, he's four, so of course he wants to "just do this one thing first," or find a particular toy for show-and-tell, or splash around with the water while brushing his teeth, resulting in a wet shirt and last minute wardrobe change. Those slow poke distractions are part of the struggle, but I think they'd feel less irritating if I had my sh*t together to begin with. So, I've resolved to start waking up earlier and also to get more organized. I thought it might help to have a designated family calendar and place for writing to-do's and shopping lists, so I put together this kitchen calendar / mini-command center.
For this project, I painted an old cork board and we mounted it beside the fridge with a chalkboard positioned below. B loves the chalkboard, he "writes" notes and grocery lists on it. Earlier today, he was wiping it off and said,"I need to move this chair so I can set my towel on it." Hmm, good idea, kid! During his nap, I sewed a button and piece of ribbon to a cloth napkin and screwed a teacup hook into the chalkboard frame. Voila, a place to set his towel!
I'm hoping this little command center will help us stay organized and get out the door in a timely fashion. Fingers crossed! P.S. - Look who snuck up on the sofa while I was taking photos! Sneaky 'ole gal. She's normally very camera shy so I snapped a quick photo before shooing her off.
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This year, I made these "I'm Wild About You, Valentine" cards and printed them on white card stock that we had on hand. Then I used a hole punch and string to attach a menagerie of little plastic animals to the cards. B had so much fun helping me tie the little strings and telling me which animal each friend would like best. Too cute.
The most time consuming part of the project was painting the cinder block walls, but the rest went pretty quickly, I painted the floor using Valspar porch and floor paint, then Jesse helped me put in a new faucet and toilet seat and hang a large mirror. He also used scrap lumber to whip up a little shelf to go over the toilet. Since drilling into cinder-block is a big pain, I hung a roll of toilet paper from some twine looped over an eye bolt. Honestly, I think it would be better located in front of the toilet, but so it will probably get moved. The shower surround and basin are also painted, but obviously that isn't a good long term solution. I'm thinking we might try to do a corrugated metal surround, like 
