My bathroom closet desperately needed attention and Katie likes organizing so I had her help me. I got rid of a bunch and reorganized and now my closet is functional again.
Katie helped me organize this hot mess!
Category Archives: Helping
Office Revamp Day 2
Katie wanted to help paint so we let her!
Valentine’s Day 2023
Katie helped me finish my Blessing Bags so I could deliver them today!
Pysanky Step 1 — making the dyes!
I bought just the right number of dyes when we were at Pysanky On The River! Or maybe I bought just the right number of jars!
Earning her keep.
Katie helped me take apart some beauty advent calendars to save some space. She owed me some work after she took some of my makeup (from my office) without asking.
Olive was being a pain in the butt so Katie put her in one of the boxes we just emptied. Olive didn’t seem to mind too much.
Making calendar angels. Or trying to.
Olive wanted attention.
And I’m a sucker.
The video edit:
SeneVersary 5 gift prep!
The office is a nightmare and I’ve lost track of gift/prize organization so decided today was time. And I convinced Katie to help me.
Packing the Blessing Bags
Katie helped me get the Blessing Bags started! Now I’m just waiting for a last shipment to arrive so we can finish the last 15 bags!
Edited to add: I just realized I never posted about this. I’ve been wanting to do an event like this for years but I just never could get it going. So this year I just decided to do it! And it was a great success!
Gramma’s potato peelers!
Work and fun in the kitchen.
From Grannie: Work and fun in the kitchen. Katie made Papa a pretty plate of raspberries and blueberries. Owen cut the whole watermelon. Then they both cut slices. With lots of laughs and silliness in between.They were safe with knives. I try to be a good Grannie!
Can I just say that if I had asked them to cut a watermelon, I would have gotten eye rolls and attitude all around. Grandparent Camp must be magic.
Katie loving on Pepper
In a surprise turn of events, Aiden was taken to the hospital yesterday with what turned out to be apendicitis—so we took Evan for the first night and then tonight Tom and Katie needed to go over to let the dogs out. Katie always loves on Pepper and tonight was no different.
Mother’s helper practice
Kim and I took Katie on our walk today and gave her some practice being a mother’s helper.
The first batch of Papa’s cookies!
This is how we get some decorations down!
Don’t worry! These were just wrapped empty boxes! Katie was a little worried about standing on the ledge but she did okay!
I have a helper tonight for my live prize wheel giveaway!
She always wants to help me and it’s often not workable but tonight it is! So she gets to spin the prize wheel for everyone who earned it during my huge sale earlier this month!
Just a little home project.
Tom said he wanted to cut some branches or trees down so imagine my surprise when I look out and see the entire back yard covered!
Needless to say we have firewood again! (Both of these bins were empty.)
Burning some of it, even though it wasn’t warm enough to sit out and enjoy it.
Katie’s keeping my makeup safe!
During one of our endless trips to empty all the small leftover bits out of the rental, I handed Katie part of my makeup organizers to put in the car. This is what she did with it.
Work doesn’t stop on a birthday!
Daddy and Owen were painting the garage while Katie was having her waterslide party. Yes, it’s purple. We only use Home Depot or Menards “oops” paint colors ($30 vs $120 for five gallons) for garages so it was bright peach or this. We figured the purple was meant to be.
Also, Tom’s sprayer died about 3/4 of the way through…so we ended up buying a new one. We hated to spend the money but he will definitely use it for future projects.
Once we showed up to check on them, of course Katie wanted to paint, too…so we let Katie do her name.
Yes he’s mowing the lawn.
He loves mowing the lawn because he gets to wear headphones and listen to music but holy moly does it take him forever.
If you look closely you can see the neighbor kid mowing their lawn, too!
Tom came up with dinner tonight
Introducing naan pizzas with leftovers! We each got to build our own with bunches of whatever was left in the fridge!
- Tom: pulled pork, fried onions, fried jalapeño, bbq sauce, mozzarella
- Owen: pizza sauce, spaghetti and meatballs, pulled pork, bratwurst, cheddar cheese
- Jen: mozzarella cheese, fried onions, fried jalapeño, bbq sauce, cheddar cheese
- Katie: bratwurst, pulled pork, cheddar cheese
They were delicious. But more importantly, Katie willingly ate meat! She finished the whole thing!
Our chef this evening!
Instant Pot spaghetti and meatballs! Delish!
This is about the third time he’s done it and we’re hoping the next one he’ll be able to do ALL on his own.
Two Golden Girls
Look what we decided to do this morning? Gold mask for the face and Lip Smooth for the lips! No, Katie (age 7), doesn’t need the mask but what little girl doesn’t want to put gold on her face?! (Also, you see it’s not her whole face. I’m not wasting it on her youth!)
A product only photo.
AND THEN…DAMN TECHNOLOGY. Katie and I tried to go live on Facebook to peel our faces off and it said it was live but then said our internet connection was low (which is very weird because we just got a new system and it works SOOOO much better than our old one). And then it looked like it was connected and then when I was done and went to hit publish, it said a live needed to be more than four seconds to post. WHAT?! Gaaaaaah. DAMMIT. I have no idea what happened or what’s wrong with our new system.
Owen learned how to vacuum.
The kids had the day off school so they were cleaning the basement and I was supervising and organizing my own stuff but I had to have him do it since my back really hurt (for no good reason). I swear he’s done it before but he said he hadn’t. He had so much fun—and was gobsmacked when I pulled the extender handle out (and then he instantly turned it into a gun).
Okay, I’ll miss this when she goes back to school.
My little helper.
Goodie bag helper!
I volunteered to bring the goodie bags for Katie’s holiday party. I figured I hate all the cheap crap that comes home that just ends up as clutter so I’d make fun bags. It was harder then I thought, because (long story) we couldn’t do food and it’s expensive to fill 19 bags. I think the class has money for these things but I don’t mind spending some money. So I ended up doing a pencil, a tube of glitter glue, an emoji tattoo, a crazy straw, a color-changing straw, and a glow stick bracelet. Katie helped me pack the bags!
Free wood cost us damn $75!
Someone on NextDoor was giving away free wood—plus they actually delivered it—so we were excited because we can always use firewood. However, the pieces were soooo big that there was no way Tom could chop them with his axe (he tried, and after 30 minutes he just had a few shards off one piece). So we had to rent a log splitter. Four hours and $75 later we have a huge pile of wood! 🙂
Owen helped but he wasn’t thrilled about it.
Helping daddy plant veggies. In hot pants. Because of course.
It’s what’s for pre- and post-dinner.
We sent Katie to the basement pantry to find some Alfredo sauce, saying it was white sauce in a spaghetti sauce jar. She brought up Bloody Mary mix…so we considered it a sign.
She’s well-trained!
She saw my glass was empty and did this all on her own. 🙂
Mama can I help you?
I had a whole bag of limes to juice so I let her at it. I did have to help a bit (making sure she got the juice in the cup) but she did really well!
