Local Love and a Toy Round-up

Happy Wednesday, my peeps. I'm happy to have made some recent bloggy friends lately and I'm excited about getting to meet some of them in person soon. Among them is Supernovamommy, whose site I wrote an article for about a month ago and Laura at BeltwayBargains. Another helpful site I've been in contact with is KidFriendlyDC. I'm also getting some dude mom love from this amazing woman at Parenting by Dummies and her other sites. It's so cool to see my network around the DC metro area grow and grow! All these awesome people and sites, and many of them close to me. It's great to share stories and advice and events.

Another bloggalicious mommy I met a long time ago and finally met in the honest-to-goodness flesh and bones is Nikki (and her adorable Molly). I wrote a guest post for her awhile ago, and she's sharing one for Whispers & Shouts today. She and I have a couple things in common, among them is the small spaces we call our homes. Read on...

Hi there! I'm Nikki from SuperNoVa Mom! I also freelance over at Pure Matters. First of all, I want to thank Dawn for having me. We met through blogging, but soon realized that we were neighbors! Our kiddos like to get together and play which is also fun for me because Dawn makes me laugh. Who doesn't like laughing?


Dawn also knows what it's like to live in small quarters. I, too, live in a two bedroom, two bathroom condo. I struggle with living in a small place with little storage. It's a challenge to find a place to put all your food (no pantry) and linens (no linen closet) and golf clubs (no garage) and maternity clothes (can barely fit my non-maternity clothes!). Who am I kidding? My maternity clothes are in my mom's garage. Yes, I have to keep things at my mom's and I'm almost 30! Now, I know what you're thinking... why do you need so much stuff? I don't need a lot of stuff, I just really have no storage. You can only imagine how claustrophobic our place became once we had a baby. Babies = lots of stuff. Then the baby got bigger and her toys got bigger and started taking over the entire condo. Things got so bad that I felt as though I was living in the Fisher Price section of Toys R Us. I began feeling very overwhelmed. Time for Project Molly's Room.

Now that Molly is 15 months old, my husband and I felt like we could turn her room from a nursery into a big girl room. We moved all her toys into her room and rearranged some furniture. I also took some time to reorganize her closets... mostly filled with baby stuff she no longer uses. I had no idea how much happier it would make me! I can literally sit at my desk and look to my right to see her playing in her little play area. My living room is finally toy free! I think I can put up with living in a small condo for a little bit longer. Emphasis on little. :)


I hope y'all will visit me over at SuperNoVa Mom sometime soon.