My name is Retta, and I am a closet slob. It is embarrassing, but true. If you walked in my house, you may think "This is pretty good." A few toys here and there, some crumbs, some stains on the carpet, some misplaced stuff around, but in general not bad. But then you may go to open my closet and find....it won't close without a foot shoving everything back in and hurrying to slam the door. And if you dared set foot in my basement or attic, you may never come back out again. It's terrible, but it's true. And I don't know how to fix it. I have dreams of having a completely organized and lovely house where even the junk drawer has everything in its place, but it just doesn't seem to be in my make-up. No matter how hard I try, it still ends up looking like this:
This is the desk area in our pantry/utility room. It's right off the kitchen, and so it doesn't technically qualify as a closet. However, it's tucked away enough that my closet tendencies were spilling over into it. But I had had enough, and I knew it was time to organize when I had to write the class parent of Jack's class in a panic because I couldn't remember what day the end of the year picnic was. And why couldn't I remember? Because I didn't write it down because I couldn't find my calendar on THIS desk. Intervention ensued.
I decided to take the doors off of the upper cabinet to create a more open shelving look, and also to keep me from just shoving everything in there and slamming the door until it stayed closed. So off the doors came to reveal the lovely mustard yellow underneath.
I had some left over paint from Maddie Rae's room (Benjamin Moore, Irish Mint), so I painted the inside of the cabinet with it to brighten it up.
The desk top is a horribly ugly laminate countertop circa 1970ish. So I bought 3 packs of my trusty cork tiles from Target and painted them with the same paint. Jonah helped with this part and thought it was the coolest thing ever. And he did a pretty good job!
I glued the cork tiles to the desktop, and I covered the rest with fabric to create little bulletin boards here and there. Cause you know I love me some fabric covered cork tiles. I created a desk skirt with an old curtain to hide the ugly recycle bin underneath.
And VIOLA! The finished desk. I still need to paint the outer cabinet white over the hinge marks and put a plate on the light switch, but it's a big improvement. Now if I can keep it this organized, it will be miraculous. 
Her absolute favorite thing to do at the playground is swing. Every day after school when we pick up the boys, if it's nice we stay and play at the playground. I spend the entire time pushing her "high!" Her physical strength and ability continue to astound me. She will be swinging really high and while swinging will pull herself up to standing and then stick her leg out in front of her swinging one legged. Today I caught her holding her body off the swing with one arm while spinning around. She can hang from the monkey bars, spin around on this whirly thing, and do just about everything she sees the big kids do. I need to get the girl in gymnastics!
Cupcake time!
Here she is helping make her cake. We always make cookie cakes for family birthday parties because Jack doesn't like real cake. Jonah and Maddie Rae love to cook, and they are always in the kitchen "helping" me. Maddie Rae especially loves to stir.
That evening we had a family birthday party and cook out with Mike, Raegi, Mallaney, and Max. She got to open her presents, eat her cake, and hang with the fam. I find it hard to believe that my "baby" is 3 already. 
