Did you know...

...that you can regrow your green onions. Of I course saw this on Pinterest and I tried it and it worked. When you are cutting your green onions just cut about an inch of the end where the white part and roots are off. Sit them in a little bit of water and watch them grow! It has only taken about a week and a half for mine! Awesome! It has been fun for Amber too watching them get taller and taller each day.

After two days of growing. 

After a little more than a week of growing!

Organizing

I have really gotten into organizing and trying to keep the house "clean" or at least straight.

Awhile back we replaced our horrible sliding closet doors in our bedroom with nice folding ones. It made such a difference. For once I could see all of my clothes at once instead of sliding doors back and forth trying to get my clothes. Well it inspired me to get my closet organized after that. I have never really thought about using boxes to store things but I didn't really see the purpose but I decided to try them out and I'm hooked. I bought some to keep our sheets and pillow cases in. We have always stored our bed linens in our closets instead of a linen closet in the hall. Makes more sense to have your sheets right where your bed is. Anyway, I bought those and it makes it look so much cleaner and its just not a pile of sheets anymore. I also bought a shoe holder that just lays on my closet floor. Its clear and holds about 20 pairs of shoes. This way the pairs are kept together and not just thrown in a pile like they were.


Here is a picture of my closet before:

And now after: 

I have started working in my laundry room now. I have bought a big plastic tub and put all of our towels that we use for cleaning and our beach towels in. I bought another container and put some cleaning supplies that I might use once or twice a year all in there. It just looks neater instead of having bottles everywhere. I'm also adding a little decor and a shelf as well. Hopefully I will have a before and after picture to show of that as well. 

Some tips to keeping your house "straight" that I use on a daily basis:

Never leave the room empty handed. Something is always not in the right room or spot. 

When I leave the room I see if anything needs to go somewhere else and I take it with me. I didn't start doing this until we moved into the house we are now and boy does it really make a difference and my house is normally always ready for a visitor to pop in. If you know my floor plan there are two sides to my house and when I"m in the kitchen area of my house stuff that doesn't belong over there gets put on my kitchen counter closest to the exit to the other side of the house. Whenever I leave that side I gather all the stuff and take it with me. And same thing when I'm on the other side of the house. But in any way your house is set up just try to always leave with something in your hand that needs to go elsewhere. 

Clean everyday.

I know that sounds crazy. But I do some sort of cleaning everyday. I don't have a chart that I go by like Mondays clean bathroom etc. But I do something everyday. It helps out in that you don't have to do tons of cleaning on just one day. Just keeping it up everyday helps. So one day I might do the floors, like vacuum and mop. The next day I clean bathrooms. The next I dust. I just like doing that because I used to just let everything pile up and I would take a Sat. and would be cleaning for hours and I would hate it!! This way I feel more free to get out and do things and not be cleaning for hours. 

Write on the calendar your meals.

I am not talking planning your meals for the week. I'm talking after you eat your meal for that night write it on the calendar. I just recently started doing it this way because I don't like planning for a weeks worth of meals in one day. I'm just not that organized to sit down and figure it out and what I need to get at the grocery. It works better for me if I just plan on that day what we are having but then by writing it on the calendar allows me to see when I served it and to not repeat it again for a couple of weeks. It also helps me with leftovers. "Oh, we had that last Monday and it's Sunday we need to throw that out."

That's all I can think of for now!!

2 is fun!

2 is such a fun age! Well to be exact 2 and half :) Amber is understanding so much these days. I can't really get away with anything anymore! We are enjoying going to the children's museum, the pink palace, and the zoo! And then every week we go to something at Church called Grace Playce. Its just one hour and the first thirty min. we sing songs, learn bible verses and hear a bible story. Then the last half hour is play time and there are slides, balls, hula hoops, mini basket ball goals and other tumbling things. Its so fun to bring her to different events and outings now since she can enjoy it more. Enjoy the pictures!

Here we are at Reel Foot Lake at their tiny free museum they had. That day they let one of their owl out to pet. He is blind so it was weird to have him looking at you but you knew he couldn't see you.

This is at the Children's Museum. They have a mock of the Mississippi River and you can "fish" in it. 

At the zoo on a pretty day in Jan. 

Meet My Christmas Gift

Every year or for every occasion Ricky is always good a getting the best gifts for me! They are normally all surprises. This year my Christmas gift came the week of Christmas because he got me a kitten!!!! Totally was not expecting it! We have been married for 7 years and Seminole will turn 7 at the end of this month. We had a deal way back in the day when we got a dog we were going to get a cat too. That never happened. All for the best really because Seminole was a handful of a puppy!!! He is soooooooooo mellow now and is wonderful with the kitten. He could care less about her basically. She also has been a great little playmate for Amber. Amber takes her everywhere and tells her to play with her toys and acts like she is a little doll. The other day she even put her in the stroller and strolled her around! The kitten loved it! The kitten's name is Cutie and Amber named her :) We are enjoying our little addition to the Gipson clan!