Want to hear a secret?!

The secret is...

I'm a genius!  Ok, not a genius, but the tip I'm about to share certainly rates a cheer, or at the very least a round of applause!

I have a microfiber couch...

I also have two amazingly, cute, amazingly messy children...

It's the combination of couch and children that creates the problem,

and the problem is that the microfiber couch is very sensitive to liquids...

 even a single drop of water leaves a mark!

It's embarrassing!

I have a system for cleaning the couch that is effective, involving a wet cloth, Resolve foaming cleaner and a ton of elbow grease, but it leaves the couch wet and unusable for hours!

I have also tried with limited success a cleaning system involving alcohol and water that I saw on Pinterest.  I went back to my resolve system.

BUT!  I have discovered an alternate solution...

Baby wipes!!!

Specifically, Huggies brand wipes, which tend to be a bit more durable!

Grab a handful, and start rubbing the spots away using a back and forth and round and round combination!

You also will want to "blend" out the wet edges so that you don't create new water marks...

It's a little disturbing, and a little exciting to witness how much dirt you scrub off the upholstery, but really, I challenge even you non-microfiber couch owners to wipe your cushions with a baby wipe and see what comes up!

I'm not going to lie, it takes a fair amount of wipes, but once the area has been scrubbed, it only takes about 15-20 minutes to dry completely!

And, while the results aren't professional grade cleaning, they are definitely impressive!

So, children, play away...spill water...drool...you don't scare me!

The Conclusion...

HE DID IT!!!

He washed the clothes...

He dried the clothes...

Sometimes, she helped...

He even folded his own clothes and put them away!

And, with a little help from a $1 donation from Auntie DyDy, Noah was ready to purchase his much anticipated Batman Tower!

Of course, the in store price may vary from online deals!!

Did you know that Target will match Amazon prices at the customer service counter?!!

Phew!

Because explaining to this face, the economics of saving $5 by ordering the product online and waiting another week to receive it was not an option!

Ugh!  Sniff, my baby is so grown up!

He said, "Hey, mom?  Aren't you glad I paid for my Batman Tower instead of you guys paying for it?!"

No tears shed over the empty wallet...

And since the box clearly doubles as a boat, everybody wins!

And, on a side note...

Turns out Walmart is selling incredibly cute little girl babies for less than it costs to buy a Batman Tower!  

Strange Plaid Short Sleeved Dress Shirt...How I Love Thee!

So, before we get into an explanation of the title, can I just say the weather lately has been ridiculous?

I mean it's absolutely not winter, it's a sort of odd brown dead spring with sunshine and warmth followed by ridiculous random cold and back to the brown spring warmth...

And did it seriously just rain last night?  

Just enough to encase my car in ice this morning, but by noon, we were able to play in the backyard with just a light jacket...

Anyway...

You're probably wondering about my strange Blog title, but here it is, the strange, short sleeved, plaid dress shirt that I found in the back of Josh's closet...

Josh kindly relinquished the shirt to me for creative transformation and now...

It is a ridiculously cute (if I do say so myself) summer romper for Gigi!

I added a slightly cinched waistline to give it a little shape...

And, because I am all about finding ways to avoid hemming, I utilized the pre-hemmed edging of the shirt for the shorts hem!

The romper is easy to put on and take off by way of the super stretchy elastic neckline...

And I must say it is a vast improvement over the "Dwight Shrewtness" of the actual shirt!

Makes me wish for summer!

Or even an especially warm Brown Dead Springish winter day!

And on a completely unrelated topic, is there anything more attractive than a grown man at a little girls tea party?!!!

Ok, maybe one thing...

Can I get an AWWWWWW?!!!

A Penny Earned...Or, what Noah decided to do with his pine cone money!

So, we counted the money in Noah's piggy bank, and he is $16 shy of the amount necessary to purchase his heart's desire...a Batman Tower play set!

(his piggy bank had somewhat of a head start on being full since Josh and I regularly stick loose change inside, but I decided not to split hairs on the issue as he did work hard to earn some of the money himself!)

Despite our efforts to show him all of the things he could potentially purchase for himself with his earnings, Noah chose to delay gratification and save for the Batman Tower! 

Funny story, after we counted his earnings it was bath time, and I forgot and left the money on his bedroom floor.  See where this is going?...

Well, after a bit Noah called from the bathtub, "What's that penny sound?"

And sure enough, Gigi was in his room, carefully putting all the organized change piles back into the piggy bank!

Anyway...

Industrious little entrepreneur that he is, Noah was quickly after more ways to earn money! 
My rule is that he cannot earn $ for his regular chores, but he can go above and beyond and get paid for his efforts.

For example, he is now my official coupon clipper, carefully cutting out all of the coupons that I mark (and a few that I don't) and he is eager to help his sister clean up her room!

In order to help him keep track of how much he earns and how much he still needs to reach his goal, we made a countdown chain.

Noah cut out 16 strips labeled with $1

Then he taped the rings together into a chain!

Now he knows exactly how many dollars he needs to reach his goal!

Oh!  And all that change has been converted into paper bills which he is thrilled to have tucked away in his wallet!

I am so impressed by his willingness to wait for what he really wants, I was never good at that myself, but it is so great to have this opportunity to help him learn about the value of a "penny earned" and the satisfaction of achieving a goal!



Penny For Your Thoughts?...No, For Your Pine Cones!

It all started many years ago when I was a little girl of about 6 or 7. 

We used to live in Oregon, and we were absolutely experts in the art of growing dandelions!

Now, I personally have always liked dandelions, at least when they are a bright sunshine yellow and make the world look happy and Springtimy...

But my mom hated them and one day offered me a penny for every dandelion I picked!

Now lets fast forward to today, and to my front yard which, while not plagued by dandelions at this time of year, has suddenly become a garden of pine cones!  They are everywhere and I hate them! 

Soooooo...

I am pleased to report that inflation has not affected the pine cone picking up industry at all, Noah was thrilled at the prospect of a penny per pine cone picked...say that 5 times fast!

And aside from the benefit of a cleaner yard, I also have the opportunity to help Noah learn about the value of money!

I was so excited that I told him once his piggy bank was full to the top, he could buy himself a present at the store!  (this will be ironically significant in a moment)...

Since I don't have a million pennies handy I must resort to paying him in larger coins...

First lesson, more coins does not necessarily mean more money!!!

Noah thinks that's pretty funny and opts for the pile of 20 nickels over the 10 dimes or the measly 4 quarters!

I tried several creative ways of showing him that the different coins have different values and so on and so forth until Noah finally stopped me by saying "I KNOW!  But the nickels will fill up my piggy bank the fastest and then I can go to the store and by myself a present!"

Sheesh!

Well, lets not lose sight of the fact that I have my very own personal pine cone picker-upper!

An Organized Soul...or Car at Least!

 Over the summer I got a little frustrated with the state of our car, and after failing to find a satisfactory solution in the stores, I finally made my own!

Say hello to the car organizer for books!

When I made this, Gigi was still in her bucket car seat so I neglected to make one for her.

The other day, in one of those crazy mom moments, I buckled her into Noah's car seat by mistake and though she looked at me funny, she sat there happily enjoying access to the books in Noah's organizer!

Whoops!  guess it's time to make her one too!

I raided my scraps and came up with a fun combination of patterns and colors and got to work...

It's a simple design using one long double sided piece for the back and four smaller double sided pieces for the pockets...

I won't bore you with the details, but I put the whole thing together and finished the edges with bias tape, and...

Tada!

Inspired, I think, by the spring like weather we have been having, Joshua spent a lot of time on Sunday cleaning the car from top to bottom, so take a long look because it's likely that it won't stay this clean for long...

But I think with both book organizers in play, it will hopefully never get that messy again!

Love the concept?

Want your own?

Visit my Etsy shop where I have just listed this little beauty!