Just Wanted to Say...

Happy 27th Birthday Tito!

August 2009

SLC July 2009

July 2009

Summer 2008


For more sisterly pictures from my last years post, click HERE

Minne-SNOW-ta

Brett and I spent the evening shoveling our driveway after his car got stuck at the end of it when he came home from work today. Two neighbors came over and helped him push the car while I drove it in reverse. The neighbors probably think we're weirdos for never shoveling our driveway -because we never do. We just drive really fast in and out of the driveway each time. But today's snow storm was just too much for our little cars to handle -especially Brett's car because his tires are so bald.
It took us forever and I hope it will be sufficient for a while, although I heard that tomorrow it's supposed to snow even more. :( I ask myself everyday why I still live here and not in California??? There's a chance that when I go to California on vacation, I may not come back...

Pain in the Neck!

I have suffered from headaches pretty much all of my life. In fact, when I was really young, like 4 or 5, I remember rolling around on the ground crying from the pain. My mom took me to every doctor to figure out what was wrong with me and I'm pretty sure I got just about ever test possible done. It was a few years later, maybe when I was around 7 or 8 years old, that I went to a Chiropractor for the first time, and she (Dr. Bloom) was the only one that could make my headaches go away. I would still get headaches, but then my mom would take me to her and Dr. Bloom would do this punch/gun thing-a-ma-bob to my neck, and my headache would get better.

I remember this one time when I got one of my migraines it was a Sunday and my mom took me to Dr. Bloom's office, but since it was a Sunday, she wasn't there so a different Chiropractor adjusted me but I didn't get any better. It had to be Dr. Bloom.

Lately I couldn't take the pain anymore and it's not just headaches. I have severe neck, back, and jaw pain, as well as consist headaches. The headaches are nothing like they were when I was little, but they are pretty much all the time and I have been taking Ibuprofen at least 5 days a week.

My friend, Megan, works at Health Source and she called my insurance to see what they would cover. I am blessed with really good insurance and I don't even have a limit on Chiropractic appts. We've had this insurance for 2 years, so I'm a little upset with myself that it's taken me this long!

(This is not me)

Megan (she is such a sweetheart) even asked the Doctors if they would be willing to lower my copay's, which they cut in half! How sweet is that!

My neck and lower back are pretty messed up. My neck has no curve to it at all and the Chiropractor said it will be 3-6 months of coming in 3 times a week, before I even start to feel better. It's a little bit of a pain to try to find time to go 3 times a week, but I'm hoping it will be worth it. And it's fun to see Megan more! :)

Ella Dee Boutique

Here is the Ella Dee Boutique temporary blog (until the website is done):

I'm really excited that I'll be getting a lot of new jewelry next month in L.A.! I can't wait!

http://elladeeboutique.blogspot.com/

Here is a picture of one of my business cards. I love them!

Girls Night at the O.G.

Last Thursday night a few of the girls from Church got together at Olive Garden for a Girls Night! It was so much fun! Thanks Brittney for planning it!

Brittney, Rebekah, Ruby
Jamie, Me, Brittany (with baby Juliette), and Brooke

Guess What?!?!?!?

For those of you that read my last post in my Blog Journal, I got a phone call today....



....From the Ellen Degeneres Show!



Our tickets are for March 2nd!!!! I'm so excited! I was freaking out at work when I listened to my message! I love Ellen and I have been wanting to go to California forever, and now I have another excuse (besides for my jewelry business) to go!!!

I have to say, I've had a really difficult past few weeks/months and I think the Lord knew I was about to have a melt down so he sent me something to look forward to. I can't wait!!!! I only have about 5 weeks to figure out what to wear! ;)

Better Late Then Never...

Before we took down the Christmas tree, I told Brett we had to at least get a picture by the tree. Brett didn't want to at that time because the photographer in him said the back-lighting wouldn't look good. I said that was fine, we can leave the tree up and take a picture next Sunday when we're dressed up again. He then didn't care about the back-lighting... I had already started taking ornaments off the tree, so it looks a little bare in parts. I also wish you could tell the tree was lit up. Oh-well. Maybe next year we'll get around to taking a picture by the Christmas tree before Christmas and at the right time of day for the lighting to be right. :)

And one try with Riley

Christmas in Knoxville

We had a wonderful Christmas with the Livingston's in Tennessee! I've finally got around to posting a few of our pictures from our great trip!

The Livingston's

(back) Jen, Brandon, Andrea, Brett, Kyle, Anne, and Leah
(front) Danny, Mason, LaNeal, Gordon and Ethan

How cute are these boys!!!

The beautiful Christmas Tree!
Look at all those gifts!!!

We went to the Knoxville Zoo on Christmas Eve

The Bears!

These were my favorite Zoo Animals!
They were pretty wild!

Kyle throwing Ethan in the air

Playing the game (Twilight DVD Scene it!) I got for Christmas from Kyle & Anne.
How did they know I would LOVE that???

At "The Polar Express"

Go Ethan and Leah!

Getting a workout!


The Discovery Center:
Ethan showing his strength!

Mason talking to Danny on the other side of the room.

We had such a great time! Thank you Gordon and LaNeal for everything!!!

The Connoisseur

Lately I have been on a serach for a high-end hot chocolate to make at home. I have tested 8 or 9 high-end brands, and have not fallen in love with any. A friend of mine at work told me she heard that Lindt's hot cocoa tested #1 on a blind taste-test. I rushed out to the Mall of America and bought 15 packets at a dollar each. I did not like it at all. But I also do not like dark chocolate, which I believe it was even though it didn't say whether it was dark or milk chocolate. So for those of you that do like dark chocolate, you may like the Lindt's brand. This is in order from my favorite to least favorite, (left to right). Godvia is my favorite and it cost $11 and makes 11 or 12 cups. At Godiva, you can choose milk or dark chocolate, and of course I chose milk chocolate. I do really like it, but like I said, I haven't fallen in love with any and don't think I will without a professional hot chocolate maker.

I have been searching for a professional hot chocolate maker for years but have not found a home brewer that makes hot chocolate. (I had only found commercial ones that costs thousands). I finally found a home brewer about a month ago that makes everything including hot chocolate!!! I was hoping to get it for Christmas but we had already spent our limit on gifts for each other.

This one is from Amazon.

I'm considering returning my Coach purse to get this instead, but I can't decide because, first of all, we don't really have a lot of counter space, and also, I'm not even sure if it will meet my expectations. It does have pretty good reviews, but it doesn't have the "Andrea Review" yet. I'm sure I'll let you all know if I get it!

Did You Know...

Let it Snow!

We just got back from a wonderful trip to Brett's parents' in Tennessee! We had a lovely green Christmas! (I will post pictures when I have more time).

But this is what we came home to today...
We couldn't quite make it into the drive way.

O Christmas Tree

The day after Christmas last year, I went out and bought a brand new tree and all new ornaments! I went with silver and blues and I love it! I wanted the tree full of ornaments (before we probably only had like 10 ornaments on the tree). I bought so many ornaments that I ended up putting some in vases around the house. Gotta love 50% off! (Even if you buy twice as much as you need)! :)

Our New Christmas Card

I'm not very good with Photoshop, this was the best I could do. But I think we'll go with this version. ;)

Christmas Card

Brett's being a total bum and doesn't want to do a Christmas card this year. He wouldn't take a Christmas picture with me for a Christmas card, so I looked through pictures of us over the past year and showed him a few we could use since he didn't want to take any pictures. He didn't like any of our options. I said fine, I guess our Christmas card this year will be just a picture of Riley, even though that will be really lame. But then I had a better idea...

Skinny Jeans

Ok, first of all, let me point out that this picture is NOT of me. I just copied it off the hello! skinny jeans website.I never have been one to spend a lot of money on jeans (until now)! Back in October I saw an episode of the show "The Doctors" and they had this clip. I went online and did more research about these jeans and I was sold! When Brett and I went to Jen and Landon's down in Rochester, I tried these jeans on and I was even more SOLD! (There's not very many stores that sell them and one of the stores in MN was in Rochester). I was hoping for more of a miracle in the thighs, but it was still worth the price tag for what it did for the saddlebags. At least it's cheaper than liposuction. :)

I had to order mine online to get the length I needed and I just got them in the mail! I got the Day wash and I think I'll get the Night wash eventually. I wish they had more than just the two looks. And maybe some pairs with some cute designs on the butt pockets...

Winter is here...

... and I'm not happy about it. I ask myself every year, why do I still live here and not in sunny California? We were spoiled with a beautiful November. I heard on the news that it was the second warmest November in Minnesota's history. But now winter is here and it was a not-so-beautiful -9 degrees today. :(

Riley made it out about a foot from the door onto the deck before he was stuck in the snow. I decided I better shovel a little path for him.


That's as big of a "potty spot" I could make before my hands almost froze off. Hopefully Riley's dad will make it a little bigger so we don't have a nice dead spot next spring. :)

Brett's Riley Video

Brett says to watch it in full screen and in HD.

http://vimeo.com/8023959

Our Thanksgiving(s)

We had wonderful Thanksgivings! Thanksgiving is always a two-day celebration in my family, one day on Thursday with all the relatives on one of my parents side of the family, and then again on Friday with the other side! :) This year we went to Joyce's (my dad's sister) for Thanksgiving with the Larson side. We had a very yummy meal and then we never saw Brett again for the afternoon because he went downstairs and slept on their couch until we left.

I forgot the camera card to camera, so I could only take a couple pictures on the camera's internal memory.

Grandma Luella

(She'll be 97 in February)!

Cousin Nancy and I with cousin Julie's daughters Brynn and Jenna

On Friday, I woke up at 7:00 to get a gift for someone from Target. Of course, I was too late (since they opened at 5) and they would sold out of what I went there for. I don't know what I was thinking getting there late! So I had to pay full price for a different one. Oh-well...

Then Brett and I stopped at the Albertville Outlet Malls on the way to Buffalo. Brett only allowed me to go into one store (Coach), which was a good thing because the line just to check out took me 40 minutes!!! It was a madhouse in there! Brett had to leave the store, while I picked out and bought my Christmas present from him, because he can't stand crowds. I was starting to feel a little claustrophobic myself! But it was worth it, I got my first Coach purse with an additional 20% off the outlet price! :)

Then we spent the afternoon with the Hogan's (my mom's side) at their pole barn! We had so much fun and another great dinner! Of course, I missed out and didn't take pictures of us all sitting down at dinner. :( But I did remember the camera card this time a took a few pics of us playing.

Brian and Natalie rolling Brett

Brett & Brian

Andrea and Melissa
(and Marin sitting in the chair)

Thanks Larson's and Hogan's for the great food and great time!


P.S. The Hansen's and Justin didn't join us for Thanksgiving this year because Tiffany decided to change things and is saying it's the Larson/Hanson/Livingston year for Christmas and not Thanksgiving. Tiffany and Aaron offered to fly us out to Idaho for Christmas because they said it's cheaper to fly us out to Idaho then to fly the four of them to Minnesota, but luckily she hadn't bought our tickets yet before I told her Brett's parents already got our tickets to Tennessee. The rest of my family is going out to Idaho this year, and next year when Brett and I go out to Idaho, we'll be celebrating with Aaron's family. So I'm not happy about her changing things...

The Flu Shot

Brett's really sick, the poor guy. I got the flu shot this year and Brett didn't, so it will be interesting to see if I don't get sick, because I seem to get everything. If I don't get sick, I'll definetly become a believer in the flu shot because I was never so sure about it before. However, neither of us have gotten the H1N1 shot...

My B-Day

I had a really great birthday! Our Relief Society meetings are Monday mornings, and this week we met at the Church. They were sort of rushing through the meeting and kept saying "We'll cover that next time." Which is never the case; we usually stay at our meeting until everything on the agenda has been covered. But then after our meeting only being an hour and a half, Lorrie said, "Let's go get some of our chairs back from the Young Women's room." So we walk to the YW's room and they had a table set up with a home-made cheesecake for me! How sweet are they!?
Then after all that cheesecake, I spent the afternoon at the gym! :) After getting ready for the day (at about 5 pm), Brett came home from work and we went to White Bear Lake to a store to look for a specific type of jeans I'm wanting to buy. (I'll blog about those jeans later). The store didn't have my size, but then we went to the Maplewood mall so I could get a New Moon T-Shirt. I went to Target, Walmart and Kohls looking for a New Moon shirt before the movie came out and had no luck. Hot Topic seemed to be the place to get one, but I didn't like their choices (I don't want a cheesy one with Edward & Bella's face on it), so I'm going to have to order one online. I've narrowed it down to these three: option one , option two or option three? (I think #2 is funny, it says "Edwards Bites." :) I like #3 the most but Brett thinks no one would know that that symbol was). What do you think?

Then afterwards, we were driving around looking for a place to eat dinner. I was kind of bummed because I wanted to go somewhere fancy but it was already late and I didn't want to drive all the way to Minneapolis (and Maplewood is not the city for fancy). But we ate at this place called Jake's in Maplewood and it was surprisingly really good. I had a yummy steak! During dinner I got a text from my friend Megan asking if her and Tyler could take us out to ice cream for my birthday! Brett and I had already ate ourselves sick, so I asked if we could rain-check to tomorrow (Tuesday).
Brett got me my favorite, a fruit tart! I was so excited except we were both so full, it was put in the fridge till tomorrow. By the way, we just got that painting a couple of months ago, thanks to our friends Wyatt and Brittney for letting us use their car because it wouldn't fit in mine. :) I was so excited to finally be getting stuff up on our walls!

Look at all the cards I got! I feel so loved! I should have taken this picture sooner after I got those beautiful flowers from Brett.

I had a great birthday! It felt like I've had a birthday week since my b-day celebration at work last Wednesday and having a fun time with my cousin, Jen and Landon, down in Rochester! I don't want to fun to stop!

And tonight the fun continued thanks to Megs and Tyler treated us to Cold Stone! Yummy! Thanks guys! That was so thoughtful (and delicious)!
P.S. Brett likes to get dressed up when we go out for ice cream. ;) Just kidding, he had an interview tonight at H&R Block.

Team Jacob

A friend of mine read my journal blog and sent this to me to take my mind off of getting older. Yep, it sure does help! Not even thinking about my birthday at all... This is one of my favorite parts of the movie! I think it should rain on Jacob the entire movie! :)

Dinner with the Fam

Yesterday was my mom's birthday and since tomorrow is mine, my family had Brett and I over for dinner to celebrate our birthdays. Thanks for the yummy dinner!

I recently got a Bumble watch, which I LOVE! I got the one that is called "New Moon." And no, I didn't get it just because of the name, although I also want the one called "Twilight," but that's just a coincidence. :) There is also a pink one that I really want called "Pretty in Pink," but they are not super cheap so I was happy to even get one watch band (even though if you buy four, you get the fifth one for free). ;) I was telling my sister about the ones I liked and she made me a pink one for my birthday! It's so cute! And she also made a black and silver one for my mom's birthday. Thanks Tiff!

Rochester

We had a great time at Jen & Landon's in Rochester! I had to take a picture of how cute Jen set up the bed. She even looked up an old blog post of mine to see what was my favorite kind of chocolates! How cute is she!

Hotel Trost

We picked kind of a bad weekend to go because Landon had a big annual medical test Saturday morning at Mayo. The three of us went Friday night to see New Moon while Landon stayed home to study.

New Moon -Friday night

On Saturday Jen showed us around Rochester and a little bit of the Mayo Clinic. And then later, Jen and I went to see New Moon again! It's even better the second time, and I'm thinking I'll like it even more after the third time! I can't get enough of Jacob taking his shirt off. ;)

New Moon 2nd Time!

219 days till Eclipse! Thanks Jen and Landon! We had a great time!

Birthday at Work

Today I walked into work and this is what I saw:

They had up a Happy Birthday sign and got me flowers and a balloon! My birthday is not till Monday but I asked for this Friday off (we're going to Rochester!) and I also have Monday off, so they did this for me today! Have I mentioned how much I love where I work?! They are so sweet!

Then a few hours into the day, the mail comes and someone sent me flowers! It was pretty funny because Katie's husband, Aaron, is really romantic and is always sending her beautiful flowers, so when the flowers came, I said, "Katie, you got flowers!" The girls told me, "No they are for you." And I said, "What? Aaron sent me flowers?" :)

I was so excited to find out they were from Brett, I was almost in tears. I've never got flowers delivered to me before so it was such a nice surprise!

Oh and they somehow knew I didn't like cake! Katie said she just guessed that I didn't like cake because I watch what I eat. I have no idea where she got that idea because I am NOT a healthy eater at all, but she was right about me not liking cake! She ordered a Fruit Tart and she had no idea that is literally my favorite thing in the world!!!!

Dr. Powell takes everyone out to lunch when it's someones birthday to the birthday person's favorite place, so we went to Panera! :) They all made fun of me because they usually go to nicer places for birthday lunches but we had just gone to Olive Garden last week, so Panera is my next favorite. Lol.

p.s. The pictures are poor quality because they were taken with my camera phone.

Hansen's Halloween

Tiff just posted these pictures on facebook and I just had to put them on my blog. Her blog is private now (not that she ever updates it anyway) but I thought some of you would like to see these. How cute are they?

Hate Goodbye's....

Jen, me, Marla, Melissa

Today my mom called me while I was walking into Golds Gym about to work out. She said she was going to Maple Grove to have lunch with the Hogan's before Marla leaves for Vermont. Of course I wanted to see her, too, so I ran home to change my clothes headed for Maple Grove. Marla came to MN this weekend to pack up her stuff. I hate saying goodbye. :( I'll miss you Marla!

Riley's Best Friend

Riley has a new best buddy. It's a little Horse stuffed animal.

Poor guy, I wish we had another dog so Riley had another {dog} friend to play with...

Deck Stairs

I forgot to post a picture of Brett's stairs. He did a great job! I think the deck project will be put on hold till the spring. We just have the benches and side railings to go!

I think this is definitely an improvement from the previous steps:

Now our winter project will be finishing that bathroom we tore apart oh so long ago!

Air Conditioner

The original Air Conditioner: The New Air Conditioner:

Would anyone be interested in the 1984 air conditioner??? We're selling it for only $200! I'm just kidding, it's free. :)

Happy Belated Halloween!

Brett wasn't interested in carving the pumpkin with me, so late last night, while he was playing xbox, I carved the pumpkin. I just chose an easy pattern because I lost some of my enthusiasm. (Please excuse the moldy inside. Hopefully next year we'll get around to carving a pumpkin before Halloween).

I was planning on doing one of these pumpkins and blowing everyone away! Now mine looks really lame compared to these. I guess I'll have to wait till next year...

Where Does the Time Go?

We have been so busy that Halloween came and gone and we haven't even celebrated it yet! The guy we found on Craigslist to install our furnace wanted to do it Halloween weekend and so Brett spent Friday and Saturday helping him and I was working and doing my usual Saturday routine (workout and errands all day). I got home late on Saturday and just wanted to sit down. We haven't even gotten around to carving our pumpkin! In fact, we just barely bought a pumpkin a couple days before Halloween. I am super bummed because I really wanted to go to a Pumpkin patch or hunted house for a date night and now Halloween's over and I'll have to wait till next year! (Our Friday night date nights lasted two weeks. Why am I not surprised? lol). Brett was going to throw the pumpkin away but I told him that even though Halloween is over, it's tradition and we will still carve it! So hopefully soon, before it get's too rotten, we'll get around to it.Here's Brett working on the furnace. The guy, Kevin, who is helping us install it on the side (to save us money) thinks he can get the furnace and AC done this next weekend. I hope so because we're paying him by the hour and it's taking longer then we had hoped.

In other exciting news, on Sunday we were driving home from Stake Conference and all of a sudden there was a "pop" sound on the passenger door and my seat belt got all loose! Something must have snapped and there is no tension what so ever to the seat belt. Now if we ride together in my car, one of us has to sit in the back. I'm not too happy about this. I wonder if it's even worth fixing (if it is even fixable) because my car probably doesn't have more then a year left on it's life. Any one ever have this happen to them? Maybe this just happens when your car is 15 years old...

Stacy's Baby Shower

Today was Stacy's baby shower (my cousin Scott's wife)! They are having a girl and I'm so excited for them! I've seen diaper cakes before and thought they were so cute! So I spent any spare time I had the past week rolling diapers! I think it turned out really good!
The top layer with the flower is one of my baby headbands I sell. My website is finished (I just have to get professional pictures taken (taken by Brett of course) of all the products and have our web designer put the pictures on the website. (So a post about Ella Dee Boutiques will be coming soon!)

I used almost 100 diapers!

Congratulations Scott & Stacy!

Salon 500

In high school I worked at Salon 500 in Burnsville and started getting my hair done by Katie. Katie is the best (and her prices reflect that). Like I always say, you get what you pay for! I've always been a big hair person so I'm willing to pay for the best when it comes to hair. I continued going to her even after I stopped working at the salon. She always does an amazing job and we also became good friends. She came to the hospital to visited me when I had my heart surgery and she also came to our wedding reception in Minnesota. Anyway, after marring Brett, I knew getting my hair done by Katie would not get to continue.

Well a couple months ago I got a letter in the mail from Katie with a $50 gift certificate. The letter said she misses me and wants to see me. I called the salon to see her prices (knowing full well that they've probably gone up in the past 5 years), and they had. I told the receptionist I would have to call back knowing that even with $50 off, it would still be twice as much as I have been paying the past two years (only because I was going to this lady from church who did it out of her home for super cheap). The receptionist must have told Katie I had called asking about her prices because about 20 minutes later the receptionist called me back and said Katie would give me a discounted rate because I used to work there. So sweet Katie gave me a great discount on top of the gift card! It was so fun to see her again and she did an amazing job! I think I'll have to continue to go to her now because the lady I was going to from church moved to Utah, so I would have to start paying full rates at a salon again anyway. :)

My Day with Megs!

My friend Megan is a busy girl! Her and Tyler are originally from Iowa and they have been going down there almost every weekend for friend's weddings and to plan their wedding. I had to schedule a date with her and Tyler over a month ago! And Megan and I made a whole day of it on Saturday!

We met at Gold's Gym in the morning for Body Pump but the class was canceled so we just worked out on our own.

Then we went to Let's Dish! It was so much fun! We each made four meals and we're going to start making it a monthly date! It was my first time doing something like this and it was TOTALLY worth it! I learned how to make four new meals (and my first time ever making a home-made-lasagna)! I like to cook but this took out the two parts of cooking I hate (the grocery shopping and the clean up)!

Here we are while making our Chicken Cordon Bleu. Yummy!
(We went straight from working out, so I look a little sweaty).

Then I went to her townhouse and she showed me pictures of her GORGEOUS wedding dress! Can't wait till next September! I wish I could post a picture of it, but we can't let Tyler see... :)

After stuffing our faces with pasta that night, we went back to Tyler and Megan's townhouse to watch a movie. Thanks guys for the fun night!

Chiquita Banana

I saw this Banana costume the other day at Target and I thought it was too cute! I still think Riley's best costume has to be the Hot Dog.

The Fall Decor

300 Post & Dinner with Ms. Erin

This is my 300th post! Holy cow!

Erin text me the other day to tell me she's pregnant!!! We had to go out to celebrate! So after work today I met Erin and Kimberly at Panera Bread! I used to worked with them at KinderCare. I miss those girls (they are about all I miss from there though)! :) They filled me in on all the kids who are out with H1N1 right now. Yep, sure don't miss that place.

Below are some pictures of Erin's baby room she painted a several months ago. She is such a good artist! She's been advertising on Craigslist to paint baby rooms, but now that she's prego, she's not going to paint for a while. I told her I'm totally going to hire her someday to do a playroom for me!

Mall of America

On Thursday, my cousin Jen and her cute son came up from Rochester to meet me at Mall of America! It was so fun to hang out with them! (And to go to the mall, I hardly EVER shop).

An old friend of Justin's (Amanda H.), came up to me in the mall to say hi and I asked her to take a picture of us. I kinda thought she was getting Brit in the picture, but obviously not. Sorry Brit.


And look who we saw at the mall! It's Dave Ryan from KDWB! I had to get a picture with him so I could show Brett because I thought it was just too funny (because of my earlier post below)! Dave knows my cousin Julie because they live in the same neighborhood, so I told him she was my cousin and he thought that was cool.


Thanks Jen! I'll meet you again anytime! :)

Happy Birthday Dads!

Happy Birthday to both our dad's! My dad's birthday was yesterday and today is Gordon's birthday! Hope it's a great one!

Another October in Minnesota

Holy cow, I'm on a role! It's October 11th and I've already have 7 posts this month and 3 (4 tomorrow) posts in my journal!It's October so the cold is only to be expected. Our furnace still has not arrive, nor has it even been shipped yet. We'll have to make it a few more weeks with it being 55 degrees inside. Hopefully it won't get any colder because this is hard enough to bare. Riley always wears his jacket and tries to sit where there's sunlight (if any) to stay a little warmer. Today was probably our last time this year giving Riley a walk around Colby Lake. It snowed the other day, but I heard tonight it's supposed to snow, and this time, the snow will be here to stay. I'm not ready for this!

Bins!

I love organizing and I especially LOVE bins! We have so much random stuff and the other day I decided I just had to organize it because it was driving me crazy! I think I was mostly motivated after I was babysitting for Carmen, my Visiting Teaching companion. She is the most organized person in the world! She has everything so neatly organized in clear bins with labels. So I headed off to WalMart and Target!

You may remember this post from last year. But it now looks like this:

Brett cut the top shelf off so we could fit them in this little alcove spot in our garage. But since we lost the top two shelves, I had to buy another shelving unit for all the bins. I also had to add another Christmas bin from all the day-after-Christmas shopping that I did last year. This was actually done a long time ago but I still wanted to include it in this post. The total cost for this was quite a bit because I got 3 metal shelving units, but it was worth every penny! I actually regret that I didn't' get nicer bins that have tops that latch instead of these cheapo ones. (P.S. You may be wondering about the little chicken wire fence thing in front of it. That's Riley's path from the entry garage door to the doggie door on the other side of the garage. That's so there won't be an accidents driving in or out of the garage, but we hardly even use his doggie door anyway).


My recent bin extravaganza:

Our house has been a complete disaster while I've been working on this because I've pulled everything out of the closets to start fresh. I still have to put more stuff back into the closets, so the top shelves won't be empty and clean like they are now. Guess that means I'll have to get more bins for the top shelves! :)

2nd Bedroom Closet
Total cost: $10.50

Entry Way Closet
Total cost $20

Master Closet
Total cost: $24 or $28?
These are the types of bins I would definitely recommend. They are much nicer and definitely worth paying more for.

Computer Desk
Total Cost: $13 for 5 bins

This is my favorite because it used to be such a disaster! Now it's neatly organized into 5 stackable bins.

I would love to start a closet organizing business if it paid enough! It was a lot of work, but totally worth it! I know these pictures may not look very exciting to you, but if I would have taken before pictures, you would have been amazed at the difference!