Toddler & Choices

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Hey everyone! So the MERGE of the NATURAL-NESTERS is official, and we are off to a great start! This is actually my first post on the new blog, and I'm loving the new look! We have some great things to share with yall in our near future, but for today I wanted to share with all of our new and old subscribers some fun organizational stuff I have done at my home recently! 

Enjoy! 

& we can't wait to share more with you all soon! 

Do you give your toddler choices? What they want to play, eat, do? I have been reading one of the best blogs ever for the past few months, Play At Home Mom, and they have some fantastic ideas! 

One of the blogs that really caught my eye was setting up an area where your child can choose their snacks. So, I have taken the time to set it up. It has been working very well in my home. My son goes to the door and wants me to help him open it, and he chooses what he wants. 

The first things that he does when he wakes up is get a snack, usually a baggie of cereal, and then watch one episode of cartoons as we wait for our daycare friends to arrive. 

This is his shelf in the pantry.

Applesauce and Crackers

Cereal and Crackers

Fruit bowls, dried fruit, raisins

Squeezy fruit, fruit bowls

It has been working so well. I know he is going to be so excited when he wakes up tomorrow to a new stock of snacks for him to choose from. I love watching his little eyes go from one to another to make his choice. It is so nice to have him pick what he wants.... less work for me! :)

He already had his own drawers with his cups, plates, bowls. But tonight I spent some time to organize them. I will be checking them and making sure they stay organized. I know he will appreciate the organization more as well. 

When he helps me unload the dishwasher, he is really good at putting his things in his drawer, hence the reason it looks like the one below. 

Organized...

My pantry... It needs some work. THAT, is my next project. I have some ideas on how I want to organized it.. I will share when it is completed. 

Way too excited about finding the bulk section in a local grocery store. All of that pasta cost me LESS than $5.00. Amazing. 

This is my sons area in the fridge. He has gogurts, cheesesticks, blackberries, and strawberries. 

He is going to LOOOOVE it! I hope this helps someone. Remember to check out that website! 

Natural-Nesters

-C

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Small Organization Tip

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If you don't know, I work at a University as the Student Activities Coordinator.  It is a wonderful job! Basically, what I do is get to plan all of the fun events that happen around campus! So throughout the year I throw parties, contests, dances, etc. for our students to enjoy! 

Well I came back to work last Wednesday, but students do not return to campus until next Tuesday.  So although my job is for students, I am here about a week and a half before them...which means I have little to do.  

So, getting inspired by all of the organization going on in blogland, I decided to start taking some steps to make my oh so fun Activities Closet look more organized.  Although everything is pretty much in it's place, in a plastic bin, and even most of them have labels, it still tends to look pretty messy.  So after reading a Tatertots & Jello  post the other day and seeing what she did to her cleaning closet I got a wonderful idea.  I wanted to add some nice, fun labels! And she gave out the perfect free printable for that!

 I have attached those great labels at the bottom of this post, so that you can enjoy and use them for your own organization projects too! They are so fun, basically what I did was put them in Microsoft Word as a photo and print as many on a page as possible.  Then if you want to put words on each label you can do that on word and print them out.  Another clever idea I came up with though was to print the labels blank, laminate them in my handy-dandy lamination machine, and then tape them nicely to the plastic containers.  Then I used an expo marker, not an ordinary dry-erase marker because those words come off easily, but an expo marker that you need spray to erase them.  Then, since things in the closet are constantly changing, my labels will be easy to change and are always up-to-date! 

Plus....one small tip: putting nice labels on things makes a world of a difference! Check out the difference in the before and after pics of my Activities Closet! 

Here is this great printable label for you.  Just right click and save it to your computer as a picture then do what you want with it! Be sure to stop by TT&J to share your thanks to her for sharing this with us! 

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