Tackle it Tuesday 8: Lil man's study area

This week I tackled lil man's study area. Yes, his desk is pretty clear, but that's because he does his homework there. But the ottoman is a different story. Every time lil man leaves something on top of this desk, I move it to the ottoman to make room for him to work, and guess what? It piles up pretty quickly!

[caption id="attachment_909" align="aligncenter" width="518" caption="Ottoman before"][/caption]

Yesterday, lil man was having his speech therapy here, so I decided to clean up. I might be messy, but I'm not letting other people see it, no way!

[caption id="attachment_908" align="aligncenter" width="518" caption="Ottoman after"][/caption]

Amazingly enough, it wasn't that hard to put everything in its place. If only I did it every time, and not wait until everything is piled up. But then I wouldn't have anything to post here, wouldn't I? :)

Happy tackling!

Thanks to the ladies at 5 Minutes for Mom for creating Tackle it Tuesday!

Tackle it Tuesday 7: Gettin' busy at the bakery

I wasn't going to post any Tackle it Tuesdays this week because I thought "well, I really haven't tackled anything worth posting. *sadface*

But then I realized, heck, I've been PLENTY busy at the bakery! THAT's why I haven't been able to do stuff around the house. So I might as well post what the EFF I've been doing all week!

So here goes. The week started with a cake for a friend's birthday. She wanted black with fuschia dots. The drinks were my idea, because, obviously. What do you think? Nice, huh?

I also received a call from an old classmate from high school. She writes for a local parenting magazine - which is pretty awesome, actually - and told me they were planning a birthday edition to celebrate their own first birthday. They were doing a "faux-bithday" bash at a local playground and needed cupcakes. The theme was jungle animals, which gave me room to work with plenty of colors. Here are the cupcake toppers I made for them:

And here are all the cupcakes on display at the table:

Oh, and she also mentioned they needed kids, so she asked if Lil man was available to participate. Umm... OF COURSE!! He had a blast. Here is him playing soccer with a balloon:

And here is him having fun before the cake pictures:

OK, so my house is a mess, but I still kept plenty busy! Happy tackling!

Thanks to the ladies at 5 Minutes for Mom for creating Tackle it Tuesday!

Tackle it Tuesday 6: Zelma's Bakery Photos

For those of you who don't know, I have a home-based bakery business. I work full time in Corporate America and have a 4-year-old son, so I only do this on my spare time, which is not much, but it does keep me happy. I have a Facebook page, but I wanted to start my own blog (in Spanish), so that my local clients can get to know me and my products better.

I like to take photos of everything I make, and have TONS of photos! The only problem is, they were all scattered everywhere. Not all of the photos were uploaded into my Facebook page, and since my laptop crashed about 2 months ago, I had photos in my old hard disk, as well as my new one.

Well, I decided to upload everything into my new Flickr account. I categorized everything, and made sure everything had its watermark (for copyright purposes). It took me a LONG time, but I'm happy to have everything organized and in one place. Take a look!

www.flickr.com Go to zelmarl's photostream

If you have a Tackle it Tuesday post, link it here for others to see!
Thanks to the ladies at 5 Minutes for Mom for creating Tackle it Tuesday!

Tackle it Tuesday 5: The Laundry Surprise

Last night I decided to do lil man's laundry, because it had been a couple of weeks since I had done it. Yes, you can judge all you want, but lil man has tons of clothes, so I can afford to do his laundry every couple of weeks.

Anyway, as I was emptying out his hamper in the washer, the last of the clothes dropped unexpectedly with a loud "thump". I thought, clothes don't make a loud sound, do they? So I decided to investigate, and dug into the washer to see what had dropped in there.

"Hubs?"

"Yeah?"

"You remember lil man's pair of blue sneakers that we can't find anywhere?"

"Yeah?"

"Guess what I just found in the bottom of the laundry basket?"

"What?!?"

"Yep."

"No way!"

"Well, I guess we solved THAT mystery!"

There's never a dull moment when you're a parent.

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Thanks to the ladies at 5 Minutes for Mom for creating Tackle it Tuesday!

Tackle it Tuesday 4: Mega Birthday Weekend!

Last week was lil man's 4th birthday, and we had not one but TWO parties for him. First one was last Thursday at school, where we sang Happy Birthday with his classmates, and the second one was on Sunday at home with the entire family.

I had several tackles related to this mega birthday weekend:

1. Create TWO birthday cakes (or in this case, cupcake displays) using lil man's selected theme: Hot Wheels.


2. Assemble the goodie bags for his 23 classmates and 8 cousins.


3. Make some of the appetizers. Thankfully, my Mom helped by also making some.


4. Get the house ready for the birthday. This included getting all the crap out of the way, and putting up all the decorations. Thankfully, hubs helped me with this.

It was all worth it, though. Lil man had a great time, and that's all that matters.

[caption id="attachment_484" align="aligncenter" width="576" caption="Cupcake display for lil man's classroom"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_483" align="aligncenter" width="576" caption="Singing Happy Bday with his classmates"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_486" align="aligncenter" width="576" caption="Cupcake display for the family party"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_485" align="aligncenter" width="576" caption="Singing Happy Bday with his cousins"][/caption]

Now I'm going to have to tackle the toy situation in the living room/play area!

[caption id="attachment_487" align="aligncenter" width="576" caption="Living room / play area disaster!"][/caption]

If you have a Tackle it Tuesday post, link it here for others to see!



Thanks to the ladies at 5 Minutes for Mom for creating Tackle it Tuesday!

Tackle it Tuesday 3: Homework

Lil man is in Pre-K and already gets daily homework assignments. Most of them are simple enough, color this, trace that, but sometimes he gets more "advanced" tasks, like the one he had last week.

He was supposed to look up in newspapers or magazines the letters that make up his name, then cut them and paste them into the homework sheet.

When doing homework, I always try to help him as little as possible, only sitting beside him to give him instructions and make sure he's grabbing the crayons or scissors correctly. In this case, I decided to have a little fun and dropped several newspapers on the floor for him to dig through. At first, he was a bit hesitant to touch "daddy's paper", but I assured him that daddy had said it was OK - actually he had no idea, but I tried to salvage as much of the current day's paper as possible! :)

We had so much fun going through pages and pages of newspaper, noticing all the pictures, letters, and colors, and he selected the letters he liked the most. He cut them all up himself and used the glue stick to paste them to the sheet. Take a look at the madness fun time, and the final product. Pretty good, huh? Well, I'm biased. :)

[caption id="attachment_456" align="aligncenter" width="314" caption="He even brought 2 of his stuffed animals to help!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_457" align="aligncenter" width="419" caption="He was having so much fun!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_455" align="aligncenter" width="314" caption="It's the little things that we celebrate the most"][/caption]

If you have a Tackle it Tuesday post, link it here for others to see!



Thanks to the ladies at 5 Minutes for Mom for creating Tackle it Tuesday!

Tackle it Tuesday 2: Laundry Overload - RECYCLED

OK, so the title of this post is a bit misleading. I didn't actually recycle my laundry, I recycled my post! You see, several weeks back, my blog went all kinds of crazy and decided to delete some of my posts. I'm still trying to figure out what happened, but in the meantime I didn't want to miss the chance to share these pics with you.

Fine, so it's laundry. No big deal, right? I'll tell you what makes this laundry different. These pics were taken mid-August, and I found lil man's school uniform there! Yes, turns out I had been taking clothes from the basket instead of the drawers for three months. So I decided it was time to address the situation, fold those clothes, empty those baskets, fill up some drawers, and maybe, just maybe, I could get my chair back.

Check out the "before" pics:

Now check out the "after" pics:

Something is clearly wrong with lil man's clothes hamper... it refuses to stay empty!

Hey, take a look at that, I STILL didn't get my chair back! :)

If you have a Tackle it Tuesday post, link it here for others to see!



Thanks to the ladies at 5 Minutes for Mom for creating Tackle it Tuesday!

Tackle it Tuesday 1: Back to School

I have enjoyed and admired the "Tackle it Tuesday" series by 5 Minutes for Mom for some time now - I mean, who would be bold enough to dare show everyone their messy lives and their piles of clutter? But when I read the story behind it (you can read about it here), I jumped on board immediately!

Only a handful of unfortunate people really know how incredibly messy I am, but if it will help me get my life - and my house - in order, then bring it! I think it's safe to assume the hubby will be very happy about this.

This week I will start with an easy one: Back to School. Lil man started Pre-K this week and for the first time he had a big-boy bag and lunchbox, and tons of books and notebooks. Since last year all his gear and materials had his name scribbled on a Sharpie - very sloppy - I decided to plan ahead this year, and purchased a combo pack from Mabel's Labels. Can you say adorable?

OK, full disclosure time: this is NOT a sponsored product review. Mabel's Labels did not ask me to write this post, nor did they give me the labels. I paid for them myself, and liked them so much I decided to share it with you. I do participate in their affiliate program, which I joined after trying out the labels. That is all.

Now that we've taken care of that, I can go back to gushing about the awesomeness of these labels. I mean, sticky labels that are microwave AND dishwasher safe? Clothes labels that are machine-washable? Nah, they must be joking!

Well, take a look at these pics and tell me they don't look gorgeous! It definitely made preparing for back to school enjoyable instead of dreadful. Thanks ladies!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="There are several sheets per type of label. Plus 2 bag tags, fab!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Shoe labels: these are my fave - genius!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Tag Mates for clothes: yet another genius idea!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Sticky labels and bag tags, so friggin cute!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="240" caption="And now lil man is ready for school, and very excited!"][/caption]

If you have a Tackle it Tuesday post, link it here for others to see!

Here's the fun thumbnail linky:
Here's the text linky:

Thanks to the ladies at Mabel's Labels for creating such great products!

Thanks to the ladies at 5 Minutes for Mom for creating Tackle it Tuesday!