Making more room

Last week was just so busy for us.
I almost feel like we could use another vacation!
Have you ever felt like that?
After getting everyone settled back in from our anniversary trip last weekend, we jumped right into the week with a pretty big project.
When you have 6 children living in a 1400 square foot house with 3 bedrooms, you have to be creative and think outside the box in relation to the sleeping arrangements and finding room for everyone.
The easiest solution is to just start stackin' 'em up!!
Our boys share a bunkbed in their room, and the girls were sharing one set of bunkbeds in their room.
Well, we were having some issues with everyone wanting to play musical beds every night and confusing the issue of who was going to sleep where.
So we decided that it was time to set up another set of bunkbeds in the girls room.

Daddy's "helpers"

Here's another reason why this project ALL afternoon....the crowding factor.

Then, of course, we had some of this going on too.

The finished project!!

Tight quarters, but we're getting used to the "dorm" feel we have going on in there!!

Back-to-school: 5 days of crock-pot lunches

In addition to having an artillery of breakfast ideas, it's almost more important to have your lunch all ready to go at the time appointed when you are homeschooling.  I've found it's so hard for me to get my head out of the clouds of the Civil War or whatever it is we've been studying, to preparing 8 meals in a kitchen already a little disheveled by the morning's activities.

I was inspired by this idea over here, so please know that the crock-pot lunch thing is not original with me.
But I have found that using a crock-pot is a BRILLIANT way to have hot, healthy meals ready to go with little preparation!!  These are our favorites!!

Monday:  Spaghetti

Great with salad or green beans
I've been using gluten-free pasta and it's really delicious!!

Tuesday:  Taco Soup

Serve with shredded cheese, frito corn chips, sour cream

Wednesday:  Macaroni and Cheese

I've tried two different crock-pot recipes for this so far, with one more to go.
Here is our favorite so far.

Thursday:  Chicken and Rice Soup

I haven't actually tried THIS recipe yet, but this will be the next one I do try.
I have another recipe that actually calls for canned veggies and it's a taste sensation!!

Friday:  Sloppy Joes
Serve with baked beans or your favorite chips along with some fruit.
Although my children are not sloppy joe fans, I really like them.
I have a recipe for the crock-pot that we haven't fallen in love with, so the above recipe is next for us to try.  




If you LOVE your crock-pot, then you've just GOT to check out this website!!!
A different recipe for every day of the year and mostly
gluten-free too!!!

Back to school: 5 days of quick, healthy breakfasts

One thing that has taken me several years to figure out is that when homeschooling,

you absolutely cannot wait until the moment a meal needs to be prepared to figure out what you're preparing.

I have learned that making a meal schedule (a minimum of a week's worth of meals, preferably a month's)

is an invaluable tool to keeping things less stressed and chaotic.

Nothing is worse than having 5 or more children whining they're hungry,

scavenging through the refrigerator,

a husband about to walk through the door after a long day's work,

and you're out of certain ingredients and having nothing quick in the freezer to grab and heat up.

So I have figured out what my children will actually put in their mouths that is good for them,

and come up with 7 breakfasts that we rotate through the week.

Some days we have a repeat of something earlier in the week.

Usually on Saturday morning, I'm frying up my pancakes for that day and putting a couple dozen more in the freezer for later in the week.

The same with muffins for Sunday morning.

Making extras of something and stashing it in the freezer for later has become one of my secret weapons

(although I know TONS of Mom's who already do this.....so it's technically NOT a secret)!!

If you click on the particular breakfast item that is underlined, it will take you to the recipe that I use.

I've mentioned before how I've spent a lot of time overhauling the foods we eat,

so I'm trying to find more ways to add more protein at every breakfast,

less sugar (especially high fructose corn syrup), 

and eventually even less gluten (more on that later!!).

Here's what I've come up with that works nicely for our family:

Monday:  Scrambled Eggs with Toast.

                Sunshine Smoothie

(skim milk, frozen strawberries and/or banana, ground flax, honey all processed in the blender)

Tuesday: Whole Wheat Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins, Milk

Wednesday:  Whole Wheat Pancakes with Turkey Sausage

Thursday:  Cereal and Milk (Honey-Nut Cheerios at our house)

                  Fruit

Friday:  Oatmeal

Back-to-school: Our schedule this year

When I was in college and pursuing a degree in Home Economics (which I'm pretty sure is obsolete anymore), one of the courses I took was entitled "Personal and Home Management."  Loved the course, but the detailed homework was a bit mind-numbing.  In an effort to get a picture of how much time we waste every day, we were required to chart minute-by-minute what we did through-out our day.

 I learned several things from this:
 1.  I have WAAAAAY more time on my hands than I think I do, 

2.  I could fill in some of that wasted time with something profitable, and 

3.  It helped me pinpoint where in my day I had extra time that I didn't think I had.

I started out homeschooling this way.  I made a schedule (albeit NOT minute-by-minute), and did pretty good to stick by it.  But over time, it got too complicated, and I started feeling almost compelled to stay within the confines of this schedule lest I stray due to something unforeseen (usually by the toddler) and I was running the rest of the day to keep up.  I highly recommend coming up with something on paper that you can post in your home somewhere to help keep on track and to help you figure out where you can fit in the mirade of things you need to do everyday.

But over time, my daily schedule has evolved somewhat.  Now, instead of putting everything down on paper at a specific time, I split up my day into 3 parts:

Morning activity  8:00 am - 12:30 pm

Afternoon activity 1:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Evening activity 6:00 pm - 10:00 pm

I then make a list of all the school subjects we have to cover for the day, meal times, clean up times, and household responsibilities that need to be completed each day.
Then, I can decided in what part of the day each thing will fit, without having to have it done right at
a specific moment.  I have tried that many times, but after getting thrown off by the unexpected EVERY day,
I got tired of either getting frustrated and angry or thrown off the track completely without hope of ever recovering.
It's much more realistic and relaxing to know when something will get done, even if it's later than I would really like, and not having the pressure that the schedule is so tight we'll never fit in something we missed.

Here is what our daily schedule looks like most days:

I have this strategically posted in the kitchen area, so everyone is not surprised at what is happening next.

After we have family dinner, each of the children take care of their "cleaning chore."
I like to refer to it as an "opportunity for helping with a servant's heart."
Super easy.
Each child is responsible for a room (or couple of rooms) in the house each night.
I wrote their names on a piece of sticky note paper, and each Sunday I will
rotate who does what so they all learn how to properly clean each area of the house.
We even get the toddlers involved too.
They especially are excited to be helpers too!!
The rotation schedule is great for the older ones too because if they complain about a
certain area being too "hard" or time-consuming, they know it will only last until Sunday.

This also is strategically posted in the kitchen area right next to our "daily schedule."

We are entering our 3rd week of following this routine, and it has taken every bit of the last two weeks
to get everybody used to this.  We've been patiently walking the family through the daily schedule and teaching the younger ones how to do each of the household responsibilities, and we're slowly seeing some good results.
The hardest part of setting up any routine though is CONSISTENCY.
It takes discipline and perseverance on my part as the mom not to slack off and skip something.
If I do, it's like we take 3 steps backwards!!
But slow and steady wins the race!!
This race called life.
Life in my shoes.

Packing for summer camp 101

This year was a little different getting everyone ready for summer camp.

My son was finally old enough to go, so I had 4 people to get ready.

Here are a couple tips that I have found invaluable in packing for summer camp:

Have you seen these bags?

I have only been able to find them at hardware stores such as Home Depot, but they are PERFECT

for sleeping bags, pillows, towels and other linens.

They are really sturdy and thick, but it doesn't make any difference if they don't come home.

This is the second or third year that I've packed my children's bedding and linens in them, and this is the third year that every bag came home full of the same bedding and wet towels, and the bags did not tear or have holes in them.

I HIGHLY recommend them.

I know this next tip is probably my OCD coming out, but bear with me......it really helps my children.

I go through my children's clothes and we pick out 5 outfits for the week (you might need more if your children are at camp longer than mine were.)

Hint:  They shouldn't be brand new, designer label clothes.

NOBODY cares.

They WILL get filthy.

They MAY get lost.

It doesn't matter if your child is the cutest one at camp or not.

That's not the point.

But I do care that my children don't wear the same outfit everyday for 5 days in a row.

I was a camp counselor for 2 summers.

I remember how the children smelled who did that.

I don't want to do that to my children's counselor, especially since it's not necessary.

Anyway, after we've picked out the outfits, I grab a bag from the box above and stuff an outfit into the bag.

Then I label it Monday.

Then we stuff the next bag with the next day's outfit and put Tuesday on it,

and on we go until we've bagged up the entire weeks worth of clothes.

I only put a pair of pants, a shirt, and clean socks into these bags.

The underwear go into a separate bag with the jammies since they usually shower up at night.

(yes, I put all 3 or 4 pairs of jammies into a separate bag with 5 changes of underwear)

I pack a trash bag into the suitcase and instruct my children that as they take off their filthy clothes for the day,

they need to stuff them into the trash bag.

Each child gets one suitcase/duffel bag and their giant bag of bedding.

I label every sock and toothbrush and underwear and shirt and shoe with their name.

They take one pair of tennis shoes, one pair of sandals or flip flops for chapel, and one pair of flip flops for the pool.

One bath towel, and one beach towel for the pool.

One play outfit for every day, and one dressier outfit for chapel every night.

I instruct them to hang them up after every time they use them so the towel will be dry when they need it next.

I do all this in hopes of training my children how to stay organized in a group setting.

I remember seeing children (as a camp counselor) with their suitcases open and all their nicely folded clothes in a big heap.

Stuff gets lost or mixed up or wet.

Lexi is nearly 13 now, and she didn't need as much of this this year.

She can keep track of stuff better now, and knows how to match an outfit or problem solve if a shirt falls on the floor and gets muddy.

It's a nearly flawless system and my girls have come home with every article of everything they've taken.

Now, my son on the other hand.

We weren't as fortunate.

When he mentioned that he forgot his $2 flip-flops, I was okay with that.

When he said that his Bible was under his bed at camp, I was fine.

But after I had washed and hung up every stitch of clothing that went to camp, I realized I was missing

a collared shirt that he needed for chapel in the evenings.

Then I realized I had only hung up one pair of his jeans.

He took 3.

And the tan shorts.....that I had just bought because he had outgrown nearly all his other shorts.

And don't mind that hard-to-miss, oversized bath towel.

The beach towel for swim time made it home, but the shower towel was not so lucky.

So I learned my lesson this year.

No matter how detailed your system is, no matter how many times you go over the routine with your children,

8 year old boys (especially those with ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER) just aren't

thinking of those things when they are in a hurry and having the time of their life!!!

This is the pile of laundry we had when they all got back.

But they had a wonderful time.

All the work in getting them ready is so worth the fun and the memories and the spiritual challenges they experienced all week!!

How to fold sheets.....your homemaking tip of the week!!

I was so excited about this when I saw it I just had to share!!!

Definitely will be passing this one on to my girls!!!

Getting things in order

Sometime here I would like to share some of the goals I had in mind for myself and our family this year. I didn't do a full post about "New Year's Resolutions," but that's what I'm talking about.

I have a list of things that I'm working on, and one of those things was getting a will put in place for my husband and I. I guess that with 6 children you would think we had already done that, but we hadn't. One of the things that held us back was the cost involved. Plus, it seemed complicated and that involves more time figuring out how to navigate that road.

Last year, we hunkered down and secured a more reasonable amount of life insurance on both my husband and I. It has taken an adjustment in our budget, but we have much more peace of mind about this. As we were getting this all in place, the subject came up again about getting a will done.

Again, we hit a wall when it came to finances. I had overheard someone sometime telling another someone that they had just gotten a will done and that it had cost them $2,000. There is no way we can even come close to affording that, but we knew it was something that we HAD to figure out a way to do. Let me encourage you....if you have children.....if you have one iota of interest in what happens to your children if you were no longer around to care for them....then you have to have a will in place. If not, your children become wards of the state and there is this whole legal process to go through for a family member to get custody of them. Why not just take a few minutes now to get that information down on paper, toss it into a safe deposit box, and be done with it. Then if something tragic does happen to you, your grieving family won't have to go through all that with your sweet babies!!

ANYWAY, so this was a burden on my heart and one thing I wanted to get done THIS year!!

So I was praying about it, when I got a letter in the mail one day here this past January from this organization: Homeschool Legal Advantage

I am very familiar with them as most of the churches I have been involved with support their ministry. Plus, when I was in high school, David Gibbs Jr. was still participating in some debate competitions that my high school attended, as well as his father, David Gibbs Sr., being one of the featured speakers. They had just been at our church a few weeks earlier and I had had this conversation with the younger Gibbs. ANYWAY, so this letter says that because our church supports them, we were receiving a FREE membership to the "Homeschool Legal Advantage." It is a ministry that is comprised of Christian lawyers who will defend your right to homeschool and other things.

But here is the amazing news: one of the benefits of this membership is that they draft your "Last Will and Testament" for FREE!!!

FREE!!!

I couldn't believe it. They sent us a form to fill out for a basic will that names the caregiver for your children in the event you die before they are legal age. We sent that back, they emailed us a rough draft for corrections, they sent us a hard copy to have signed and executed. We signed it in front of a notary with two witnesses, and it was DONE!!! Easy......oh, and did I mention....FREE!!!!

If you go to their website, you can see all the benefits of the one-year membership and the cost! It's something like a "suggested donation" of $65 per year. But, my friend, that cost alone would be less than the cost of having a will drafted in another place!!! It would be so worth the one-year membership just to have your will drafted!!!! Please go check this out!! We did it and were thrilled with how available they were to answer any questions we had and the professionalism with which they treated us!!!

Go.....GO!!!

P.S. Once you get some of this stuff in order you may want to have a handy little thing like this to keep track of it all!!!

Homeschooling Modifications

Last year was such a nightmare for me in the area of homeschooling, that I was desperate NOT to repeat it. Too much emotion, too much chaos, too much going on, not enough effective teaching, not enough peacefulness. It was a year I wish had not even been a blip on my radar.

So in an effort to make things better, I've done several things to modify our learning experience.

First and foremost, I took my 12 year old daughter and 7 year old son to a Pediatric D.O. to have them tested for learning difficulties. I have already discussed our findings in my posts here and here.

With those findings, these are some of the modifications that I have made to our homeschooling efforts:

1. Ever since my 12 year old daughter (ADHD-inattentive Type) was in the 1st or 2nd grade,

I had been using the ACE (or School of Tomorrow) curriculum with all of my children.

Now, I was in a Christian school my entire school career that used ACE, so I

am completely comfortable with how that program works, and

how to use it effectively. It was GREAT for me.

With that being said,

it was a DISASTER for my ADHD children.

They just absolutely could NOT work on their own and I about went clinically

insane trying to figure out how to get them to complete ALL their work!!

We tried everything from yelling to privileges being taken away to losing recess time.

SO, after consulting with other homeschooling parents and researching some things

online, we've switched to Math-U-See for........Math.

Can I just say right now.....that it is a GOD-send!!!

My children ALL love it.

I'm using the Primer Level for my 5 and 7 yr. old.

My 9 yr. old is in the Gamma Level,

and my ADHD 12 yr. old is in the Epsilon Level.

Every lesson has a video they can watch to learn the concept, then they have worksheets

to go along with the new concept

(which are not overwhelming in length which has been a great change for us),

PLUS there are these amazing manipulatives they can keep their hands busy with!!! Check it out at www.mathusee.com.

We have also started using Shurley English for ........English.

I have a wonderful, amazing friend who recognized I needed some direction

and some help with my children,

so she graciously volunteered to tutor my ADHD-ers this past summer

because they had fallen so far behind.

She used this English curriculum with them and my daughter just FLEW

through this stuff.

So I'm using it with all my children this year.

My 5 and 7 yr. olds are using Level 1,

and I'm using Level 4 for both my 9 and 12 year old.

My 12 yr. old is pretty familiar with this Level because of the tutoring, but

she forgets things more easily, so I'm fine with the repetition for her!!

Shurley English uses a different approach to teaching English which includes

little "jingles" to teach the parts of English and sentence construction. I think it's

really concentrated so they are learning more.....faster!!

Check it out at www.Shurley.com.

I always start our school morning with "chapel time" where we go over our monthly

scripture passage we are memorizing together, do our pledges,

hear a Bible or Character story, and do some singing. This captures everyone's attention

and gathers them all together in one place. Then I can go right into lessons with my younger

ones, while my older two keep an eye on the two babies (3 and 20 months), and clean

up the breakfast dishes. Then we switch after lunch. So far, it has been working okay.

We still have some attention issues to iron out, but we're only into our 7th week of school.

Finally, once we get our new core curriculums firmly in place, I plan to add some

History, Bible, and Science lessons using a method called Lapbooking.

Have any of you ever tried this?

Some of the things I want to teach with this this year are:

Texas State History

Little House on the Prairie Series

The Chronicles of Narnia

2. Another thing that we have implemented is a "new" system of discipline. We have tried lots of positive reinforcement type chore charts, behavior charts, etc. This idea is similar to that and not created by me. It's a ticket system where the children earn rewards for good behavior

and chores completed, and loose tickets for poor behavior or chores not completed. I found this idea here and have modified it to fit our family's needs. Grant has especially responded well to it

and is like the ticket POLICE now. He's very aware of his sisters infractions and enjoys looking for ways to earn more tickets.

3. Something that I've read in my ever increasing research on ADHD is that these children NEED a routine. I still don't completely understand why because they are so distractable and can change what they are doing in the blink-of-an-eye, but nevertheless, THEY DO. There is a particular comfort in knowing what is coming next hour, when the next meal will be, when bedtime is, etc. So I have tried being much more strict about our daily schedule. I try to have all my children up, dressed, fed, some of our chores done, and at the table for chapel time by 9 am. We're not always successful, but usually pretty close. Then I immediately start working with Grant and Abby at the table for a little while, give them some time to run around outside, and then get back at the books. When I break their lessons up into smaller chunks of time and give more outside breaks, Grant does a LOT better.

This last week when I was sick and not staying on our schedule, he was awful almost everyday.

I found that I HAVE to be rigid or we all pay the price.

Reading time for these two is usually at bedtime. Grant learned to read this past summer with

his tutor, and is so much more confident with himself and actually ASKS to read at bedtime.

Lexi is reading at bedtime too. I like her to be in my bed by 9:30 pm (or earlier) so she can read for an hour. She NEVER falls asleep easily and I've even started giving her about 1mg. of melatonin before bed to help her sleep. She has now read all the Little House on the Prairie books, many of the American Girl books, the entire Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, and is now slowly making her way through The Fellowship of the Ring.

Ashlyn (who is 9) has been plodding her way through some of the Boxcar Children books.

Bedtime is a great time to get that reading in.

Another thing that I've read is that ADHD children need their SCREEN TIME LIMITED. That is so hard with a son with ADHD because they typically LOVE their computer games. Grant would sit there all day and play online monster truck games or skateboarding games, etc. So I've experimented to limiting his time on the computer to ONLY on Saturday for about an hour, and maybe some during the week if he's earned it. He also doesn't see but MAYBE a half hour of TV in the morning before lunch, and then some at night after dark. That has actually been a big help for him too!!

4. Finally, the biggest modification that I have tried this year is moving our house arrangement around. Our house is much smaller than you'd probably think it to be (1400 sq. foot), so my space is extremely limited. I needed more space for all my homeschooling materials, and just couldn't figure out how to squeeze more storage into my already crowded dining area.

So I switched my dining furniture into my living room and my living room furniture into the dining area.

We have actually adapted quite well to it, and enjoy have a cosier reading room type effect in our new "family room".

I also moved the existing bookshelves from the living room into our (my husband and my) bedroom and then purchased another set to put into the new school room on either side of my china cabinet. This gave me loads more storage space and opened up a roomier place for our table to be. We have much more space for schooling now, plus the little ones are sort of kept together better in the back of the house closer to the kitchen and outdoors too!!

This has helped relieve some of our space issues.

Not the prettiest room on the block, but much more functional for us!!!

Working at the table together.....peacefully....a rarity!!

Our flags for pledges, flanked on either side by two of our favorite past presidents!!

Organization is a HUGE issue for ADHD children and this is my attempt to teach them

how to organize their school folders.

With all this being said, I want to be sure to communicate that our struggles are not completely

eradicated!! As I mentioned before, if we get off schedule for whatever reason my son is horrid.

I can't explain the reason why, but I think it has to do with some of his anxiety issues.

I'm still looking into some dietary changes for us to see if that helps him to calm down more too.

He also is so much calmer in the house if he can spend LOTS of time outdoors. I'm considering figuring out how to get more outdoor play equipment in our backyard to lure him out there for longer periods of time. He loves being on a bike, scooter and skates too. I'm also desperate enough to see some changes in him that I'm thinking through maybe, someday, in the future, not this year, but sometime, possibly getting a small dog for him. He loves little animals.

A great resource that I also recently joined that I want you to know about is:

http://www.christianadhd.com/adhomeschool.php.

This website has an email list you must join to ask questions and find support from loads of other parents who are homeschooling or just trying to raise their children with ADHD. I have found lots of ideas, and found lots of encouragement in this online support group.

I want to encourage those of you who are homeschooling children with special learning needs or not, it's always a challenge. I have always had to be 4 steps ahead of my children and it's exhausting and overwhelming most of the time. But the tiniest of victories are so sweet, and I know that this is what the Lord has called our family to do. I know that He has a plan for my children and I can only do the best I know how to do with His leading and then get out of His way and watch Him do the miracles in their lives!!!

Super easy and elegant wedding gift

Last weekend, I had both a baby shower to attend, as well as a wedding. The wedding was of a young lady who had been a part of my husband's church youth group many years ago, and she was marrying a young man she used to bring to the Bible studies in our home when these two were like 15 or something. Now they are getting married, and I wanted to take along a gift that was a little more personal than the toaster off her gift registry from Target (not that she was registered there).

So I remembered way back when I first got married and had lots of time to craft things and had been introduced to this craft by another newly married friend. I knew right away that I wanted to revive this for our little bride. Here's what you do:

Framed Wedding Invitation

All you need is the frame you want to use (I used an 8x10" picture frame for an approximately 5x7" invitation), a self-stick mounting board for needlework (again I used the 8x10" size), enough fabric to cover the mounting board (I purchased a 1/2 yard of party taffeta and had some left over in case of a mistake), and some spray adhesive.

I cut the fabric down to size, peeled off the paper and stuck it to the mounting board.

I then turned it over and tried using hot melt glue to nicely fold over and hide the raw edges.

Then I turned it over, sprayed the back of the invitation with the spray adhesive, mounted it on the fabric covered board, and put it in the frame.

VOILA!!!

Can't be any easier than that.

I love the simplicity of this project and how creative you can get in designing something very personal and unique to each bride.

Next time I'm going to try some of the fancy scrapbooking papers with seasonal and textured themes instead of fabric. I saw some yesterday that are VELVET!!!

The costliest part of this project was the frame itself. But I found it on sale too, so the entire project cost less than $20. I bought my supplies at the JoAnn Fabric and Craft Superstore.

Happy Gifting!!!

Fun and Easy Baby Gift

I love babies!! So of course, I love baby showers. I have always kinda struggled though to find the "perfect" baby gift for that new mommy. It took me a very long time (I think I'm mentally challenged in the area of figuring out the simple things!!!) to figure out that I should just come up with a really simple idea and make a bunch of them ahead of time so I would have a gift on hand every time and not have to run out and find something special.

This idea is not created by me. I first saw this when a friend of mind asked me to help her figure out how to make these on her own from a sample she brought to my house (Thanks, Rhonda!!!). It was really easy to put together, but it was a very long time ago too. So I ran across this project again at my local JoAnn Fabrics Superstore......which have I mentioned that I wish I could just LIVE there!!

So I thought I might share with you this little idea as well as keep a record of this for myself so I don't forget how to do it later on down the line.

Easy Hooded Bath Towel

I started with just a simple bath towel and hand towel. For the first several I make, I'm buying the least expensive I can find as Wal-Mart.

Start by taking the hand towel and folding it in half and pinning along the top selvage.

Stitch along the selvage removing the pins as you go. Then turn inside out and lay the hood out as a triangle.

Pin the long side of the hood to the top selvage of the towel (laid out long ways).

Stitch along the pinning, attaching the hood to the towel.

That's all there is to it!!! Two seams!!! No finishing raw edges. Couldn't be easier.

So for the fun part!!

Our local high school has a vocational program for mentally/physically challenged teenagers

where they teach them all kinds of skills. One of the skills is how to use a fancy embroidery machine. You can take your projects in to the teachers there, go through the catalog and look at the gazillions of pictures they can program into the computer, and then they teach these teenagers how to embroider your designs on your projects for you.

The cost: CHEAP!!

For BOTH the hood and the back on this hooded towel it cost me $7.00.

I couldn't have been more pleased!!!

As you can see, this version of the hooded towel doesn't exactly fit a newborn. I'm going to be experimenting with some different folds and maybe even cutting the towels down and finishing the edges with contrasting bias tape for added color. I'll keep you posted with the new designs!!

Taming the "Laundry Monster"

This last year I have felt, that for some reason, my laundry situation has gotten out of control. We live in a small house with no true laundry "room", no basement (if you can possibly imagine living in the tornado alley of Texas!!!), and little extra space for laundry to wait to be folded. I had been folding it on my bed (and my husband's for those of you who were wondering), but since my husband is sleeping during the day and working at night it isn't an option for us anymore.

So I moved it all to the dining room table. Well, then it was taking so long for me to get to the folding and to finish all the folding, that the table was becoming unusable for mealtime and even our schooling.

So with no other options left, but laundry still piling up, I had to figure something out that would take me very little time to fold 4-5 loads of laundry at a time in just a few minutes. I had asked my mom the last time she visited us if she could help me come up with a solution, and I ended up expanding on her idea. Here's what I came up with:



First, I wash and dry everything before I even start. I end up with a mountain of laundry, but then I only have to do this once!! As I wash and dry it, I put it in laundry baskets and stuff in out of the way (usually in our bedroom) until I'm ready to sort.

This was about 5-6 loads of laundry from everyday stuff to the family reunion laundry.

Next, I purchased a different color "basket" for each of my children who can handle putting away their own laundry. So Alexis, Ashlyn, Grant, and Abby each have their own basket, while I have a basket for the two youngest because both of their clothes go in the same dresser. I also have a basket for my, and my husband's, things.

Then, I gather up all the laundry to be folded, all the baskets for each member of the family, and put it all on the table.

I simply toss the different items of clothing into each appropriate person's basket without folding them. I leave the folding and hanging up of the clothes to the children. I do end up folding the two youngest's clothes, as well as mine and my husband's, and putting all of that away. But in our family, the only things that are folded and put into dressers are underwear, socks, and jammies. We hang up everything else.

22 minutes after I started sorting, this is what is left of that monster!!!
You can see the 5 baskets of childrens clothing, along with our hang-ups over the chair.
You'll also notice a shabby 'ol cardboard box there at the end.....that's my single sock box.
That's where all the lonely socks that come out of the dryer single go until we go through it and match them back up.

I usually have one of the girls fold the loads of towels and sheets and put those away too. This new system has saved me HOURS of time, plus it teaches the children how to properly store their clothing and where things belong.

I have also found that it works much better for me to do all this sorting after all the children are in bed, so first thing in the morning, as they are doing their morning chores, they can just grab their basket and clear their clothes off. Then the basket goes into their closet to be used as a hamper until laundry day again. They just bring their basket to me full of clothes to be washed and we start over!!!

This is not a flawless system though, and on occasion I do have a child or two that takes the basket to their room and then just leaves it there full until I get after them to FINISH the job and put the clothes in the drawers!! In fact, I think there's still a basket sitting on the bed of a little girl at this moment still waiting to be emptied!!! As you can see, it doesn't eliminate the need for parental involvement completely, but it still beats having to fold for HOURS and then taking the time on top of that to hang-up everything!!

How have you learned to tame your "laundry monster?"

Snack management 101

Sometimes I think I have OCD when it comes to keeping stuff organized in my house. But let me tell you, 6 young children will literally TAKE OVER the house if I'm not about 4 steps ahead of them at all times. So when it came to snack time, I had to devise a system or these children would eat me out of house and home. I have to be honest and tell you that these little ideas are not uniquely created by me. I found my ideas from other places......so please don't get enamored with my creative prowess. I copied.

First of all, I bought this little erasable board at Wal-Mart for less than 5 bucks. I used sticky tack to stick it to a kitchen cabinet where my children could easily see it. On it, will be posted the snack for the day, the time they are allowed to have the snack and where it is located.

You see, my sons especially have developed this nasty habit of refusing breakfast, becoming starved around 10 am, then rummaging around the kitchen for whatever was quick, and grazing through the morning. By the time lunch comes around, they don't have much of an appetite, and the cycle begins again around 2 pm.
With this system in place, my goal is get these children to actually eat well at their meals!! I want them eating the healthy food I've taken the trouble to prepare for them. Snacking too much in between is sabotaging my hard work!!

So now, I buy snacks in bulk form and break them down into little sandwich bags and stuff them into their personalized "snack jar". Sometimes we do snacks that I would not store at room temperature, and it would be written on the snack board where to find that particular snack. At the appointed time, they can help themselves. I bought the plastic jars also at Wal-Mart, and painted on their names with fabric paint.

I then gathered up a hodge-podge of assorted cups in the kitchen and painted their names on, so they have their cup for the day. Gone are the expensive plastic disposable cups. I found my children would run in the house and grab a cup, get a drink, and then leave it on the counter. Do you know many cups I went through in a week? And then people are drinking out of other people's cups!!! This way, they already have their names on them. I have tried writing their names on with permanent markers, but that washed off over time and wasn't nearly as bright and cheerful. I do have to wash these by hand though, as the paint seems to come loose after a couple runs through the dishwasher.

I then proceeded to the bathroom and personalized some cups for them there too. Now we can keep our toothbrushes together with our cups, and they are used to using their own cup and toothbrush.

My thought with all this is to also cut down on the sharing of "sick germs" when we
have illness start creeping through the house again.
It's not a guarantee to prevent the spreading of sickness, but at least I'm trying!!!

Preserving memories in a snap...

One thing so important to me is being able to preserve the pictures and memories we are making while the children are growing up.

I've found it almost impossible though, to do any kind of scrapbooking

with several young children climbing on the table or touching

everything while I'm working on a project. We live in a small house and the only

place I have for creative projects is on the dining room table.

After about our 3rd or 4th baby, I found it difficult too, to find the time

and money to print out pictures and even put them together in an album, much less keep the baby books updated!!!

So, I want to share with you the MOST wonderful tool I've found to help me preserve my picture memories for FREE!!!

SMILEBOX!!!!

Have you discovered the joys of this program?? It is AWESOME!! It's so simple, takes me maybe 10 minutes to put together, and "WAAALAAA!" .....it's done. You can post it to your blog, facebook/myspace, or email it. You can make invitations, scrapbook pages, cards, recipe pages and more. Preserve your baby pictures, wedding pictures, holiday pictures, special occasion pictures, or anything and then PRINT them OUT and tuck them into an album!! It does cost a little money to print them, but in comparison to printing out pictures individually and then buying all the embelllishments for a scrapbook page, it saves you a ton of money. Plus, it saves a TON of time. All my baby books are caught up now. You can try a FREE 14-day trial and see ALL the great benefits of the one-year membership. While you're on the trial, get your baby books caught up. You can print as many as you want for FREE.

You've just got to see how easy it is, and how creative it allows you to be.

I LOVE it and won't use anything else!!! Don't invite me to those expensive scrapbooking parties....no time...no money.

www.smilebox.com

Make a Smilebox scrapbook