Spice cupboard

Over the Christmas break I finally decided that I needed to do some major organizing in my spice cupboard. It was at the point where I usually had to take the spice bottles to find the one or two I needed for my recipe.

Here is before:

A friend had blogged about her amazing organizing of her spices here, so I decided to do something similar.

Here are all my tins washed and drying:


Here is one completed set:


Here are my 3 sets (with a little room to grow):


And my after picture of my cupboard:


It is so much more manageable now and nice to look at. I'm so glad that I did this project. But now I have 8 empty tins remaining.

My question for you is what spices can't you live without?

What spices should I get?

Painting

I want to make the kid's room a little more girl friendly, since everything is sky blue (walls, ceiling, trim). There is a half wall that has striped wallpaper that is pink and blue (next to Meghan's crib). I want to paint the ceiling trim a different color, but I'm not sure what to paint it, the standard white? yellow? green? Any ideas?

Also, my kitchen is blue and currently has dark stained cabinets. I think I want to paint them white to help make the kitchen look larger and brighten up the whole area. Any thoughts for those of you that have seen my kitchen (or haven't)? Has anyone painted cabinets white? Any tips?

Changes are a good thing

I hope...

We've been rearranging rooms, since we have yet to find the ideal positions for furniture, etc. That is up until now.

Last weekend we talked about moving around our bedroom. We didn't start it until Monday night, so it is still being worked on (no pictures until it is complete).

We've also talked about moving Meghan into Jase's room and turning Meghan's "room" into a toy room. So this morning I woke up and decided to do it (after asking Jase Thursday night if he wanted Meghan to sleep in his room - and he excitedly said yes). It took most of the day (with many breaks to nurse Meghan, cook food, clean dishes, grocery shop, etc), but we love it! Meghan took her naps in there and is doing well. Jase doesn't take many naps anymore, so having Meghan in an actual room will be better for noise control during her naps.

And here is the toy room:


A funny story: when the kids were put to bed tonight, Meghan of course started to cry. We tucked Jase in with his 2 blankets (and long sleeved pj's and pants) and left them to work our going to sleep. They were both tired and after about 5 minutes I heard Jase start crying too. I went in and he asked me to make Meghan stop crying. It was cute and then he covered his ears when she started again...

This was after about 10 minutes:



And of course since it is Independence day, we grilled hot dogs, brats, and bacon cheeseburgers, had watermelon, and some lovely trifles in the good ole red, white, and blue. Hope you had a great 4th!