Back to school...drop zone

This is back to school week for us.  Little Bit starts 2nd grade on Wednesday!  School supplies are labeled and the backpack is loaded up.  Do you have a specific place for backpacks in your home?  One thing that helps us function smoothly before and after school is our mudroom drop zone.  This is our entry off the garage that we use almost 100% of the time to enter and exit our house.  I just love this bench.  It is a great catchall area whether we are coming or going.  

Little Bit and the hubs have their bags hanging on the hooks.  We also hang our coats here during cooler weather.  I usually set my purse on the bench and there is still plenty of room to sit and put on shoes.

Speaking of shoes, Little Bit takes hers off as soon as she walks in the door.  They are also the last thing she puts on before we head out the door.  So it makes sense for us to keep her shoes by the door.  They previously were all over the floor and would get lost under the bench.  I recently put them in this basket and so far so good!

We also have a basket for library books.  We keep both public and school library books in the basket.  This way we always know where they are when it's time to return them. 

So when Little Bit gets home from school, she can kick off her shoes, unload her backpack and then go grab a snack.  Having everything right by the door makes our school days run so much more smoothly. 

Do you have any tricks to stay organized during the school year?

{WASH}i letters

I spend more time in the laundry room than I like to...who doesn't, really?!  So I wanted it to be cute and fun to be in!  

My main decor focus was on the large wall above my counter.  We painted the walls a nice yellow which I new would go with some of the decor I had made for our previous laundry room.  I started off with the fabric banner and hung it up.  Then set the wash, dry, fold, repeat art on the counter. 

I knew I wanted a word on the wall.  Once I decided on the word WASH I picked up some paper mache letters at Joann fabrics and covered them with washi tape!  I used the same technique I did on my M in my craft room.

I really love how they turned out and the pop of color it adds to the space!

I also found this cute bible verse printable and hung it on a small wall above my iron! 

Have you {washied} anything lately?  ;)

sickness, soccer & seating...

Here's a random Thursday post for your reading pleasure ;)...

I didn't get around to making a menu plan this week because I have been feeling under the weather.  So we have just been winging it.  We may have had frozen pizza two nights this week....but you'll never know for sure cause I didn't post a menu on Monday!  ;) 

Sinus pressure + sore throat + cough + headache = blah!  Today was the first day this week I didn't feel like I needed to collapse on the couch when I got home from school though....so things might be on the upswing. 


Two positive things did happen this week though.  Little Bit's soccer season started on Tuesday night!  She had a blast and is looking forward to the next game tonight.  There are only 2 girls on the team and they have the same name!  Also, 4 of the 6 boys have the same name too!  How crazy is that?!

Here are a few shots of Little Bit at her first game...

 Doing some warm up drills during practice. 

 Patiently waiting her turn! 

She played goalie for 1 of the quarters.  Here she is getting ready to throw the ball back in after she stopped it!

The other fun thing from this week was getting some seating for our back patio area!  We have been looking for a while and just not knowing what to get.  Well since spring has sprung...or kind of at least...we decided it was time to get serious about our search.  We want to enjoy eating and just hanging out on our new patio while the weather is pleasant. 

Here is the glider we picked out for our covered deck. 

And here is our table...which I love!!!  The chairs we picked out for around the table match the glider. We found all these pieces at Menards.  

Now we just need the rain to blow over and the sun to come out so we can enjoy some meals outside! 

wet basement...

Well I have been absent from blogland for a little while cause we had a mess to clean up....ugh!  Our pump quit working and we got water backed up in our basement.  Luckily it was only about an inch and we didn't lose anything major...but we did have to get the carpets dried out, replace our padding and baseboards.  And do you recall that we have lived in this house for less than a year!  Go figure. 

Here is the unfinished part where most of the water was.  

 

Then in the finished parts it was mostly wet around the perimeter of the rooms.  This is the bedroom after the carpets were ripped up, pad removed and furniture up on foam blocks.  

One big bummer was the baseboards were ruined.  They just soaked up the water and had to be replaced.

We had the last of the workers in today to finish up down there.  Hopefully we are back to normal now.  I have lots of posts to catch up on....so look out!