What's behind door number one?

I have had a lot of people ask me how I manage to fit 6 humans into such a small home. I though I would give you all a private view of just how it is done around here! Aren't you lucky??

We are going to start with the "linen" closet. Notice how it also houses some kitchen items.

Next we have this bad boy. This is a storage ottoman in the living room that hides the blankets, baby toys and who knows what else. I found a sippy in there the other day. It was an old one... with milk...yummy... See how much I can hide??

This is my indoor storage room. We have 3 industrial shelving units holding all the food storage.

Here is another view. This room is 11 feet long and 3 feet wide an it is FULL!

I bought this cube storage shelf at Target when we lived in our apartment downtown (now that was a small space...) I actually used the black cube drawers as storage for all of our socks (and no one ever knew that) and kept it in the living room there. Now it is in our bedroom and it hides other random crap.

See? Table cloths and place mats.

Remotes and our old cordless phone.

And baby items. Totally random but I know every little thing that is in the drawers!

This is Alyssa and Abbey's closet. One thing about my house is that there are NO dressers! We found these wire basket drawers at Ikea for $15 a set. They are perfect for what I need them for. All of my scrapbooks are also in this closet. And, yes, they have way too many clothes!

Here is a look at Avery and Anastyn's closet. Here we find all of our board games, most of my craft supplies and unfinished projects, baby blankets, and all of their clothes and dresses.

And now I will let you take a peek at my closet. Please don't judge me...

This is all of the shoes and the girls' dresses that don't fit in their closets. I have two of almost all of them.

Just over a year ago David and his dad installed my amazing closet for me! I measured the entire thing and drew up the plan of how I wanted it to look. We spent about a couple of hours on the closet aisle at Lowe's and purchased everything we would need. It took them an entire Saturday to complete, but it is beautiful and I will miss it when we move!

As you can see we used this space top to bottom!

Not pictured are all of the under-the-bed storage bins and our bookcases and I also want to mention that I have a bunch of other things that are stored in the basement of my parent's house. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) We also have another storage room off of the patio that is totally full of other things like the Christmas decorations, camping supplies, paint, and anything else I can stuff in there to forget about.

Now, aren't you so happy I let you in on my secret??

Avery's Birthday

Bill's sugar coma! So cute!!

Avery turned 2 this year! (Two months ago.) We were at Grandma Jeri's house for family night and made some cupcakes so Avery (and Abbey) could blow out some candles.

While we were opening presents at home, each time Avery ripped off a piece of wrapping paper she would take it directly to the garbage. It took her forever to open them up, but it was a very clean process!

Abbey's Birthday Party

This year for Abbey's birthday (two months ago) she wanted to have a friend party. I haven't let me kids have a friend party yet (mean, I know) because they are a lot of work! Another reason, is that we don't live near their school and I don't want to put anyone out by having to drive 15 minutes to get to our house, blah, blah, blah. Abbey decided she wanted to go ice skating with her friends. I figured that would be a good idea because the rink is close to the school so it wouldn't be too bad. She invited all her friends and was so excited to have a party. I think the thing she was most excited for the presents she would get. She wanted to have cupcakes for the party so I ordered gourmet cupcakes from So Cupcake on Highland Dr. They cost me about $30 for the dozen. I will not do gourmet cupcakes next time we do a birthday party, however, because Abbey's friends didn't eat them! They licked off the frosting and threw the rest away! They said they didn't really like them and one of her friends asked where the rings were. (The cupcakes that you get from the Walmart bakery come with plastic rings on the tops.) Next time that is what I will do! We had a great time and Abbey said that it was the best birthday party ever! (She doesn't really have anything to compare it to.)

Nap Time and Moving On

After we returned from our trip to Indiana we decided it was time for Avery to be in a big girl bed. Mostly because Anastyn was too big for the bassinet and needed to be moved to the crib. It has been a huge struggle with Avery to stay in her bed. We finally had to move everything out that she could make a mess of. We took out all the toys, changing table, and moved the crib in front of the closet so she couldn't get into that either. We also put a doorknob cover on the inside of the door so she can't get out. Her closet contains all of my craft and scrapbooking supplies so she can do major damage if she gets into that stuff (which she has, hence the crib in front of the closet). She has gotten better, but she still falls asleep in random places around the room. She moves her pillow onto the floor at nap time and falls asleep in different spots all the time. These are just a few of the spots I have found her.

We have also decided (after long, long discussion) that we need to put our condo up for sale. We have put it off far too long. We have totally outgrown our place here. I have been really creative with our space, but there is only so much I can do! We need more bedrooms and a yard would be fantastic! Unfortunately we have to go the short sale route because the market has tanked since we moved in and we are unable to get what we owe out of it. That is one of the reasons we put it off so long, we figured the market would slow down and we would be able to maybe break even, but we see that it won't happen anytime soon. We have amazing neighbors and we are going to miss living here. It is just time to move on, we knew this would be a temporary place.

So if either of my two readers know of someone looking for a great place we would love to have you contact us!

Indianapolis for New Year's 2011

This year for New Year's we took a trip to Indianapolis to spend the holiday with our good friends Chad and Anya Turner. We have been celebrating with them for the past 5 years so we needed to keep the tradition alive. Dr Chad is doing his residency at Indiana University for Orthopaedic surgery and they will be there for another 3 years. Chad and Anya were amazing hosts and really showed us a good time. They took us to the Indiana Motor Speedway Museum, the Indianapolis Children's Museum (which is the biggest one in the world), the Indianapolis Zoo, the Indianapolis Museum of Art and a couple local restaurants. I tried Indian food for the first time. I didn't really like it, but I was a good sport about it.

We only had Anastyn with us which was so strange. We have never left the girls for that long and I was worried that the baby sitters wouldn't survive (especially my SIL Ashley because she had Avery ALL WEEK), but they all did great! We missed our girls like crazy, but it was nice to give all our attention to the baby since she doesn't get much at home.

New Year's 2011

New Year's kiss

No, they are not drunk. They act like this completely sober! That is a bottle of sparkling cider that Chad is holding and yes, those are swedish fish in Dave's nose. Lovely, I know.

David's little brother had some wristbands made that say "I party with Eggers". We thought it was fitting to give some to the Turner's since we have partied on many occasions.

Me and sweet Anya. This is a terrible picture, it was almost midnight and we were SO tired!

In front of the art museum.

One of the art displays. This is right inside the front doors and it is made of small ropes.

My hunky hubby.

We had an amazing trip and wish we could go back!!

Christmas Day

Alyssa and her scooter
Abbey and her scooter

New Barbie car

New Tag books

Avery and her new "shaloller" (stroller)

Avery got suckers in her stocking- her favorite

New clothes

New clothes

Anastyn's new stacking toy and clothes

We had a great Christmas this year. We loved spending time with all of our families. We were so blessed this year. We love all of our sweet girls and are so lucky to have everyone happy and healthy!!