Here’s yet another area where I don’t usually practice what I preach but when I do, things happen. Note to self: follow my own advice and do what I’m about to tell others to try.
PROBLEM: BEDROOMS
Our kids’ rooms are usually a mess. Big mess. B.I.G. Like, can-hardly-make-a-path-to-the-bed on a bad day. Because the rooms are [...]
Filed under: methods | 27 Comments »
Did you miss the beginning? Start here:
Big family in a small house, part 1: Bedrooms
Big family in a small house, part 2: Storage
Big family in a small house, part 3: the floor plan
Although we have chosen to live in a small house for a time, we do want to be able to entertain guests [...]
Filed under: big family, methods | 13 Comments »
I’ve posted about socks before, but I feel sure that Mother Hen would really like me to do a Help For Growing Families post this week and my poor addled brain is reduced to recycling. Just act surprised and pretend you didn’t already read this last year, ok?
A friend asked me yesterday how we handle [...]
Filed under: big family, methods | 9 Comments »
Ship Full O’ Pirates is hosting the 2nd week of Help for Growing Families today, and here is my tip. This may be shocking for those of you who grew up in families with just 1 or 2 children, so sit down before you read this. Oh, you were already sitting. Good.
My tip: If it’s [...]
Filed under: big family, methods | 40 Comments »
I’m not always an organized person, but when organization works the beauty of it makes my heart sing!
Here’s my most successful kitchen tip: label your shelves. This makes life easier on several levels:
The kids know exactly where the food belongs when you tell them to get off their tails and help put away groceries. They [...]
Filed under: Huh? Category?, food, methods | 14 Comments »
OK, I should say up front that I have no idea what a bonanza actually is, so maybe this has nothing at to do with a bonanza - but it’s a fun word to say, and works well with bedroom. The alliteration pulls it all together, don’t you think?
But there is a bedroom something-or-other going [...]
Filed under: big family, methods | 18 Comments »
At the produce terminal on Friday, I got:
8 lbs. of white seedless grapes
17 lbs. of oranges
20 lbs. of tangelos
18 lbs. of bananas
30 broccoli crowns
~25 orange bell peppers
12 lbs. of plums
All for the bargain price of $36! I also spent $47 at Costco on milk, cheese, eggs and tortilla chips. This brings our total for the [...]
Filed under: food, frugal, methods | 12 Comments »
My kids occasionally get their hands on some cold hard cash and they have also been known to lose it. Being a good mom (except when I’m busy being a Bad Mom) I offer to hold it for them if it’s a significant amount, and they usually take me up on the offer. I keep [...]
Filed under: WFMW: works for me, methods | 11 Comments »
CHORESChores are still being rotated weekly. This is relatively new for us but seems to be providing a nice balance of variety and accountability.7yo Natalie has recently started Real Chores with lots of help and oversight, and 6yo Becca is practicing certain elements of larger chores rather than being in the Big Girl Rotation.
Deanna: [...]
Filed under: food, methods | 9 Comments »
I use re-use those little plastic grocery sacks a lot. I can always tell when it’s time to go shopping, because we run out of grocery sacks.We use them for wrapping dirty diapers before they go in the trash (really bad ones get double-bagged. Atomic ones get triple-bagged and buried in the backyard. [...]
Filed under: WFMW: works for me, methods | 13 Comments »
Here’s a quick little tip that my hubby came up with.When we eat out, we always snip the end of the straw for little people whose heads don’t reach far above the table. The shorter straw keeps them from tipping the cup too far as they try to wrap their lips around the top [...]
Filed under: WFMW: works for me, methods | 23 Comments »
I had to shop for shoes for the children last week without the children present. Usually I just take down their sizes and hope the new shoes fit somebody, but this time it was important for me to come home with wearable shoes for the right people.Reaching back into the dark recesses of my [...]
Filed under: WFMW: works for me, methods | 8 Comments »
I’ve noticed that my Blanket Training from long ago still gets quite a few hits from the search engines. There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about the whole idea of teaching a baby to stay put.
Although I’ve not yet taught The Boy to do this, I am tempted just so that I [...]
Filed under: The Boy, iron sharpening iron, methods, parenting | 50 Comments »
Thanks to a reminder from the Headmistress, we have reinstituted the Quiet Time tradition in our house.From 2-4PM, all activity ceases. We find places wherein we can imagine that we are alone (this takes creativity with 9 of us in an open layout with less than 1100 square feet) and we find quiet, solitary [...]
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I’ve mentioned that my memory isn’t the best…at least I think I have…haven’t I?I have learned that if something is really important, I need to either do it right now or put it on my list of Things To Do right now. I don’t trust myself to remember for more than 30 seconds because, [...]
Filed under: WFMW: works for me, methods | 6 Comments »
