Cereal Station and Fruit Art

One of the things on my “Daddy Do” list for my parents’ recent visit, was to finally get these cute fruit signs hung. They were the best thing to come out of the neighborhood garage sale I held a few months back. After he completed that task, I took advantage of the opportunity to banish the clutter from the counter so I could show you my cute cereal station, as it was meant to be!

I am not the first in blogland to think of this idea. In fact, when I first saw Sarah’s post on her cereal jars, I wasn’t convinced they were necessary (cute but maybe not practical). But day after day, my kids would haul giant boxes of cereal (Costco, anyone?) from the pantry and bring them to the breakfast table–never to return them to their rightful spot in the pantry. (And while I wish I could tell you that I prepare a hot and nutritious breakfast for my family each and every morning, my nose might grow a bit if I did). It hit me that Sarah (Thrifty Decor Chick) was on to something. I got these “cookie jars” at Walmart for around $5/each. They are not entirely airtight, which concerned me at first, but with the rate at which we eat cereal, this has never been a problem for us. I was going to make some great labels for them, but we don’t always have the same cereal (depending on what is on sale), so I’m leaving them as is, for now.

I cant tell you what an improvement this is over the norm (no before picture, but it is at least as bad as you are imagining). Those sunflowers were around for my daughter’s science fair project. I took this picture and lamented to my mother that I didn’t have any fresh cinnamon rolls for the cake stand. And…

Voila! I love how things magically happen when my mom is in town. Cinnamon rolls. A consistently clean kitchen. Fresh bread. Too bad the magic leaves when she goes.

(And they tasted even better than they look–not to make you jealous or anything).

I really wish I had enough money to hire my parents as my blog assistants. Especially since my dad’s post on the toy kitchen he built is my most popular by a mile, right now! And projects get done ever-so-much more quickly when they are around.