New House Ikea Wishlist

Our new house is ahhh-mazing. I'm embracing our new "southern" life and decorating the new house Farmhouse Style. We have big plans to paint all the things, but in the mean time, I give you, my Spring 2017 Ikea Farmhouse Wishlist.

I ordered a copy of the catalog and it conveniently arrived on moving day. You can order a catalog (for free!) here.


KNAGGLIG boxes: These creates of untreated solid pine come in two sizes. Sweet!



EGTORP Sofa and Ottoman with Storage: This sofa comes in a ton of colors. Instead of a sectional for our big family, we decide to go the two sofas route instead. We'll get two for the main living room. And a storage ottoman. Because kids and stuffs.



FILSAT ERRYTHANG: The Filsat kid line has so many fun things for the basement/playroom. I want these book displays and toy storage with caster boxes!



ANGLAND Table Lamp: I think these would just look darling in the girls' room.


SILVERAN Storage Bench: They have this as a bathroom storage item, but hello... Toys, Blankets, All the things! It comes in white and a natural pine.


SATSUMAS Plant Stand: Because plants, yo. I don't know if this would work as a blanket ladder too (I'm unsure of the size - I need to hit up a store ASAP), but you can bet me I'm going to scope it out.


GRASLOK Plant Pots: Galvanized steel is everything.


NORRAKER Sideboard: Can you say Coffee Bar? Yes, please!


GARNERA Serving Stand and SOCKERART Vase: To add to that coffee bar. Because, cute!


STORNAS Extendable Table: Ahhhh! This table can seat 4 or up to 10 people! And we have a lot of peoples! When I saw it, I loved it. Cor said he didn't want to spend money on a new table though... But when I just looked it up, it pops up as $50 off! I think that's a sign. ;)


SKUBBARE Basket: Because I've been watching a lot of YouTubers organize stuff and I think that I might get my life together (but who am I kidding) and I think these baskets may help (but probably not... but they are still adorbs!)


LIATORP Desk: It also comes in gray. Which is making my life difficult because they are both beautiful. How is a girl supposed to decide?


HEMNES Sofa Table: I like things in sets of 4. The plan is to do some sort of backpack/shoe station bench thingie for the little people.


BRUSALI TV Unit: Because I'm not letting Cory mount the TV on the wall and he'll hate me forever, but he's going to deal with it.



So there you have it, my dream Ikea list. Now I'm off to play the lottery so I can afford to go and make my house pretty. Huzzah!

;)

New House Tour!

We got the keys to our new house yesterday and had a fun time touring it (finally) empty!

We have a nice, large living room with a dining room and kitchen on the top level. Down the hall are the three bedrooms and the main and master bath.

Downstairs (is super dated but) we have a large family room (with a bar!) and another bedroom/craft room/office space. There's also a third bathroom and our laundry room and garage.

Want to watch a video tour?
See it here. And stick around. We have BIG plans for this place!

Dollar Tree Easter Basket Haul

We are on the road this Easter and the Easter bunny was one smart cookie. He visited our hotel and packed baskets full of activities we could all play with when we were stuck inside (while Cor had some work to do.)

Dollar Tree "Dough" comes in packs of 8. That's EIGHT colors for $1. So each kid got 2 tossed in their basket. And if you're like us, play doh is a disposable toy. We attempt to save it for a second play, but usually it gets smushed all together anyway. So I'd rather have a few small colors anyway. Usually I keep a pack of 8 colors hidden somewhere and pull out one for a restless kid.

Princess books came in a pack of TWO so each girl got one tossed in her basket.

There's something about ring pops that make my kids go Cray. And they came in a 4 pack. And I (obviously) like things that come in 4s.

Each Big Kid got a Easter paint set. Each came with 2 pictures to paint. And we also will use the paint for the next fun thing...

Build your own race car. For ONE DOLLAR! The boys could not WAIT to rip into these things and they were so so simple. Each pack came with all the wooden pieces pre cut and a small tube of wood glue. My almost 4 year old and 5 year old were obsessed! The Easter Bunny should have bought a few more (they come in different sets too!)

Ay got a pack of shape Flash cards to help her with Speech Therapy. Because words are hard, yo.

Socks!!! If your house is like mine, your mini van eats socks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I don't know what it is, but there's something my kids love about throwing socks around the van like confetti. And each pack came with three pairs of socks. Good thinking, Bunny!

Number/Letter DRY ERASE practice books! Say whaaaat?? Cam needs to practice writing his name and when I... I mean... The Easter Bunny... saw these books, she hopped on it (see what I did there?). The boys can practice writing their letters and numbers and wipe them clean and start again. I also grabbed a pack of 4 dry erase pens at the Dollar Tree too.

Each kid also got some Jelly Bean candy (but they were well and gone by the time I got to take pictures of their stuff). And Bunny ears... That were on their heads all day long. And Ay got a little purse. What I'm really saying here is that I failed at getting a fantastic photo of all the sweet things they got. My bad.

There was a few more items not from the Dollar Tree that rounded out their baskets. Each kid got a new outfit. The Big Kids got a Skylander (thanks 5 Below for an awesome 3 pack for $5!). Baby Air even had the Trolls movie tucked in her basket! Lucky Lady!

Over all, we had a fantastic Easter, despite traveling for 13 hours, and now we have some fun things to do in our hotel. Win Win.

Biggie Bead Easter Egg Craft

We were getting close to Easter and really hadn't done much. (Oops!) To be fair, we are closing on the new house and getting ready for Cor to travel and for us all to take a pretty extensive road trip (stay tuned for that), so Easter was on the back burner.

Car brought home this craft from preschool and I thought it might be a fun idea to replicate with melted beads. We used BIGGIE BEAD PERLER BEADS (affiliate link) and placed parchment paper on top of our template and put the whole thing on a Baking sheet.

After we had them all placed relatively close together, I carefully slid the bottom paper away.

I then put the whole thing in the oven at 300*F for 1 hour. Ours needed about 10 more mins, and then it was all perfectly melted together. I used a spoon to squish one stray bead down while it was all still hot and it did the trick.

Here's the template Car came home with from school. But you could also Google image "preschool Easter egg color page" for more ideas. 

Vegan Tofu Stuffed Shells

Tofu Stuffed Shells - For the win

I'm not gonna lie - with 4 kids we eat pasta often. At least once a week. It's an easy meal to throw together on days when... well, days when we don't have anything together. A friend brought over tofu stuffed shells after we had Baby Ay two years ago, and ever since then, it's been a repeat contender on our meal plans.

Here's our favorite recipe.

Totally Vegan Tofu Stuffed Shells
What you need:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1.5 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon oregano
16oz extra firm tofu
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast (for reals, we put this stuff on everything).
10oz frozen spinach, defrosted
1 box jumbo shells
1 jar of marinara sauce.

What you do:

1. Drain the tofu and pat it dry. Crumble it into a bowl. Add olive oil, salt, oregano, garlic, and nutritional yeast and mash that good stuff all together with your hands.
Note: You can also use a food processor and blend it on high if you want to do extra dishes tonight... (Uh... No Thanks)

2. Add the defrosted spinach into the mixture.

3. Cook the shells in boiling water until al dente (or soft... because you forgot to pull them off early. It doesn't really matter.)

4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Pour 1/2 a cup of pasta sauce into the bottom the a 9x13 inch pan. Stuff each shell with 2T of filling (or more. or less. Who measures this stuff??). Place the shells in the pan, seam side down. Find out you have a few extra unstuffed shells. Throw them in the pan anyway. Some kid is going to not want the "white stuffs" anyway. Winning.

5. Pour the rest of the sauce over the shells, cover with foil, bake for 30 minutes.

6. Eat. Get seconds. Be sad there's no leftovers.
(makes 6-8 servings)