Toys.

"Pick up your toys." That is the first sentence that starts a battle.  There is lots of whining and then yelling and I end up picking up most of the toys.  After reading the wonderful book Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne I decided to slowly make changes to the play room.    

Basket of toys.

Simplicity Parenting suggests that a toy rotation, leaving some toys to play and the rest up out of sight, will help with the overwhelming feeling of cleaning up ALL the toys.  Then you rotate the two sets of toys every month or so.  I have loved this plan of action. This creates a small amount of toys that is manageable at clean up time. And the every other month the girls get to play with "new" toys.

Also an important part of play is pretend.  So in our play room I have set up a kitchen set.  

A dollhouse.

A few dollhouse toys.

And finally the art in the mundane life of picking up, sorting and shuffling toys...A hamster texting his friends.

I found this on the kitchen table and was told not to disturb he is texting his friends...Oh brother!

  

Making a little magic...

My little girls love the idea of fairies.  Little creatures that help change the seasons all while living in our backyard.  So I thought, "Time to make a little magic in our very own backyard."  

After a trip to the store I had all the items needed for putting together a fairy door for one of our trees.  Making it look like a fairy was living in our backyard.

So here is the process...

Wooden dowel for the window and super glue to put it all together. 

Here is the mapped out version of what I planned to accomplish.

Fabric for the window.  Even fairies like curtains.

Getting ready to super glue on the curtains.

Buttons for the doorknob.

So this is when Daddy decided that he could add more to make it better.  He cut out the window  and wanted to add an actual window pane.  So we found plastic for the window and he melted a gray crayon to add some realistic features to the window.

We attached it to the base of the tree with a small nail that became the doorknob after a button was attached.  We used moss and little glass beads for the path.

The girls loved the fairy door.  Of course first thing try to open the door and find the fairy.  They were not fooled but they enjoy sitting out under the tree and playing with the door as a backdrop.

I am a stay at home mother of two little girls and some days can be mundane.  

So Personal Challenge...
Find the Beauty in the Mundane.  

And here is what I have found... 

I am not a fan of summer, too hot and humid here in the south.  So when the days are hot and never ending I make homemade lemonade...a cool pitcher of lemonade is a beautiful and yummy thing.

I like to use a mason jar to mix all the ingredients.

I LOVE lemons.

No seeds in this lemonade.

Beautiful.

Sugar to make it sweet but not too sweet.

Shaken not stirred. 

Here is the recipe I use for lemonade.
Homemade Lemonade

2 cups water
4 tablespoons lemon juice
4 tablespoons sugar

Mix together until sugar dissolves   I like to put all the ingredients in a mason jar with ice and shake until combined.