The Shoe Basket & NO more TV

When we moved into this house (almost a year and a half ago….wow), I decided that I needed some place to put our shoes instead of them lying all over the kitchen floor. I had an old basket that wasn’t being used and thought it might work to store our shoes. Honestly, it has been great. It is not all that eye appealing but sometimes practicality wins out over the way something looks. Then there is the issue of too many shoes being put in the basket and it over flowing. But that is easily solved by quickly going through the shoes and returning some of them to our closets. Actually getting the kids to put their shoes in the basket is sometimes a problem but with most things they just need a reminder every now and then. The BIG problem is this little guy!!

At first we fought him dumping the basket over to play with the shoes. While this is pretty cute to see him in the middle of a big pile of shoes it is more annoying to have to pick them up multiple times a day! We did finally get past this and “trained” him not to dump the shoes out. But we have a new problem now. Alex is really into wearing shoes (and hats) right now and he puts them on himself. The thing is, that he usually only puts the left shoe on because he tends to forget about his right side. So, our new problem consists of one shoe from many pairs being spread through the house as he wears them for awhile and then dumps them where ever he happens to be at the time. We are constantly looking for mates for our shoes (mainly the kids).

I have not figured out a solution to this problem yet. I still like the idea of the shoe basket. I know that it is just going to take consistency to get him “trained” not the steal our shoes (like it did with getting him to stop dumping the basket). But he is pretty cute walking around with one shoe and a hat……..

Here the little culprit is wearing Hayden's hat and Hayley's shoe!!

On to the NO more TV thing! We have had Dish Network for some time now. Not too long ago we added the DVR. So we have the capability to record shows, pause live TV and rewind the show we are watching. Being able to rewind is very nice when you have noisy kids and missed something. Or you can pause the show to get the kids attention, etc. And I like to record a few shows and watch them when it is convenient for me (but I will say that I don’t watch as much TV as I used to!!). But all of this nice technology has created little TV monsters in our house (and maybe the occasional big TV monster also). We have become very dependent on this technology which seems to have promoted even more hours in front of the TV. The kids already watched more than they should. So, Cory and I have been discussing putting our Dish Network on hold for six months (did you know that you could do that?) to see how it works out. With it being on hold, this means you don’t have TV…..not channels….nothing (although you would still have access all the shows you have saved to the DVR). Well……this morning we called and had it put on hold (and just for the record, it is off almost instantly)! The kids seemed to handle the news pretty good but I am not sure if they understood all that is involved (like when we wake up in the morning and they ask to watch their favorite show…). I am excited to see what we can fill our time with other than the TV. I will have to keep you posted on how it goes for us!!

*Upon further inspection, we have figured out that we do have a few channels. Most of which consist of some sort of home shopping……oh joy!