ANSOLABEHERE MINI TRIP

I have been on a mission to find the perfect packing system...

AND I FOUND IT!!

 THAT is what my packing usually starts out like.  And...this was just a couple day trip!!

After reading the Duggar book, I was excited to try out their packing system...using a little twist of my own.

The Duggar system rolls a certian type of clothing for each day and puts them all into one grocery bag.  For instance:

All boys pants for Tuesday in one sack

All boys shirts in another sack and so on...

We don't have as many children, so I was able to fit all children's and my own outfit  in each bag (which meant 7 outfits in each sack)...this is what it started out like.
OUR TUESDAY OUTFITS:

 We ended up making that first pile look like the next photo...plus we had one bag with everyone's PJ's and then one more bag with everyone's Wednesday clothing.

The best part was Tuesday morning, I got out this bag and passed each member their outfit...they went to put it and brought me their dirty clothes which went into this now empty bag!  I felt super organized!!

 This is what what we took along on our 2 day trip...all clothing including socks and undies fit into one bag and our toiletries fit into the other little bag.

When we got home...all our dirties were packed neatly into 3 grocery bags just waiting to be put into laundry!!



What was our trip for?? 

The little girls had oral surgery and that is a WHOLE 'nother story!!  ;)

Oh it's ON!!

So, I have yelled, kicked and pitched a fit  gently asked my children to PULEEEEEEZE pick up after themselves for 12 years now to no avail.

Now....it's on!!  While preparing to go to the fair tomorrow (a surprise...I am attempting Jim Bob Duggar's efforts to be unpredictable in order to always keep the kids on their toes and continually wondering, what will mom and dad do next!) anyway, while preparing to go, a thought occurred to me!!  I just went through the house, once again picking up favorite ball caps, purses, toys etc...and I decided I was going to do my very own "lost and found" box!!

The plan:

1.  Collect over time all items I find lying around the house and place them in my lost and found.

2.  Give the children their little allowance gift.

We do not pay for chores, but every now and then we will give a few dollars when we go out to do something fun...LIKE THE FAIR TOMORROW!!

(We also pay for jobs we would have to hire out...our children are not slaves, but they will know how to run a house (their house), expecting nothing, when they are ready to fly the coop!)

3.  Bring out my lost and found!!  I will show mercy by doing this all before we go to the fair so that they are able to bring their prized posessions...aren't I a nice mom?!?!

4.  It will cost 'em baby!!  $.25 per item to retrieve it from my special box.

5.  Lesson learned...probably not...YET!!  It may take a few rounds to get the hint, but I try to see things "Big Picture"!

The Pantry System

So, I finally feel like I am getting a hold of all the monsters in my home!

Laundry Monster

Grocery Monster

Cleaning Monster

Closet Monster

I still have a few monsters to battle...for instance the Toy Monster and the Yard Monster, but today...I focused on the Pantry Monster!!

Gabrielle is my "Food Lady".  She loves food, not really the eating part. Although, she does enjoy that...it is more the cooking and shopping she loves!

This made it so easy to choose her to be the "Pantry Police" and she gladly accepted the task!  Thank God!!

Anyway, we have the shopping part mastered and for those of you whom would like to know what we budget, I will tell you.  I will also say that this year we had no garden...hopefully next year we will and also, we plan to purchase a whole beef to be butchered for our family which will lower our yearly cost tremendously!  Not to mention, we will have 3 hunters in the family this year, which means we will have lots of yummy venison as well!!

For now, we have our grocery budget logged in at about $600 a month.  About $500 is spent at the beginning of each month on our "Big Shopping" day and then the remaining is spent each week on milk, fruit and other perishables.

 Here is a glimpse of about half of our pantry.  The other is in the kitchen...we have a lazy suzan for breakfast, a lazy suzan for snacks, a shelf for our breads and a shelf for our chips and misc. items.

We also have two refrigerators.  One in our kitchen that holds all our "normal" cold foods.  And the other that holds all our drinks, eggs and leftovers.  All shelves in those fridges are labeled of course.  ;)

 This is how I decided to go for inventory.  It is just a spreadsheet with all our dry good items.  There is a mark for each item that we have...for instance, if we have 8 tomato sauces, 8 of the boxes have a mark.  Gabrielle and I are the only ones allowed in the forbidden pantry room and so when we need an item, it is highlighted or checked off.  Next to each item is a number of how many we like to have on hand after shopping day.  Also, Gabrielle is working on prices for each item...that way we will know almost exactly how much our grocery bill will be.

I just attached the highlighter using a Velcro dot...we all know how quickly things like that disappear if left to the hands of the little ones!!  ;)

A not-so-fancy FANCY hairbow holder!!

 If you are addicted to hairbows like I am then you will LOVE my tip of the week!!

The pictures say it all!!

Any frame will do...just staple strips of ribbon to match your room and you have a piece of artwork!!

Who would be the nutcase taking pictures of their fridge?

Ummm...that would be me.

But in my defense, it is Wednesday.

Works for me Wednesday.

The day we share a tip with the world, or in my case, my 3 readers.

My tip for the day is a labeled fridge!I bought a label maker quite some time ago, and I label EVERYTHING!!
This helps in the fridge for several reasons.

#1. I only find sticky jelly on the second shelf of the door. Unless...some crazy person decides not to read the obvious label and puts it on the top shelf where the sour cream is supposed to go and I have to get a step stool on cleaning day to try to scrub it out!! And do you know how hard it is to get jelly to come off...especially the kind that has bits of strawberries with seeds!!

Sorry, got a little carried away.

#2. On cleaning day, I don't find leftovers from 1825 tucked away in the far corners of the universe I call my fridge.

#3. It is easy to find things. When Phil wants his salami and cheese, he knows exactly where to find it. And...he knows exactly where to put it back...if by chance he chooses to put it away. :)

If you are weird like me, and would like to see how someone else does their grocery shopping, you can click:

HERE

to read and see how our shopping day goes on a cold Winter day here in Montana.
If you have a post of how you do your shopping...Puuuuleeze, leave me a comment so that I can visit your blog. I love to see how others do it and I am always trying to master mine!!

This is a little picture of PART of the end result of a once a month shopping day.

Phil's idea of a diaper bag...

...is this:Of course I bought a nice big diaper bag and the zipper had to break in the first week! So one day while shopping at a sporting goods store called Big R here, he says, "This here is whatcha need!"

Yup...I went for it, so now fully embracing our Montana life, I have a bird hunting bag as a diaper bag.

But...I cannot just make a post about our cool diaper bag, I have to include a little tip that we have used and I have probably mentioned before on how I keep my diaper bag stocked...

You might have guessed it if you know me very well!

A LIST!

I keep it in a pocket of the diaper bag and then I have delegated to Gabrielle the job of keeping it well stocked! This way I always have everything I need, because Lord knows, after these 6 kids, my mind is shot!

Trip back to the NICU

Before I write about my trip back to the NICU, I wanted to do a

Works For Me Wednesday tip. I was reminded of this little trick I used to do when all my children were small. We called it the "Chicken Coop" but I have also heard it called the "Holding Pen".

You know how it is when you are trying to get out the door with little ones...they are either under foot while you are trying to get all your belongings together, or when you are finally ready to load everyone up, you find that your 2 yr. old has completely undressed herself!!

Well...

I used to put the playpen by the front door and as I got each child dressed and ready, I would put my little chickens in the "chicken coop" until I was ready to load them into the car. This allowed me to go through the house collecting everything I needed and to load each child individually without coming back in the house for the next child only to find they have decided now is the perfect time to play hide and seek or that my one year old happily chased the bird across the street!

It worked FABULOUSLY!!

Now, for my NICU trip. When I got home from the hospital with Canaan last month, I recieved a package in the mail. I could not have guessed whom it was!!



It was from one of Canaan's nurses!



Gabrielle had donated about 35 hats to the NICU while we were there and I had asked this nurse if they would use receiving blankets. She told me absolutely and so I told her as soon as life settled down a bit, I would get to making some.



Well, she was so sweet and purchased about 20 yards of flannel and sent it to me so that I could make the blankets!! I did not know she planned to do this. She also sent a beautiful baby book that she made for Canaan!! I am telling you...God could not have blessed us more with these wonderful individuals we met in the NICU!!

Anyway, I also made an 11x16 enlargement of the picture I have at the top of my blog...Canaan's feet with Phil and my wedding rings hung on his toes, and framed it for them to hang in the NICU. We also donated all of Canaan's preemie (which he finally outgrew!) clothes to them.



It was so special to be able to drop off a care package to this amazing group of men and women and for all those precious babies. This staff does so much more than just provide medical care to these babies...they become family to them.

Works for me Wednesday

I really have to plan now for groceries since we are 44 miles from the nearest larger city. We do have a small store here, but the prices just don't cut it when you are cooking for a large group. There are 7 in our family so far, but we also have my brother and sister living here as well.

Anyway, each day we have 2 snack times...one at around 10am to give a break from school and then at 3pm after everyone is up from nap and quiet time. One snack is fruit or veggies, and the other is an easy one for me. Being crackers, animal cookies, fruit snack or something along those lines.
Now back to my shopping...I menu planned for about a month, and shopped for a month, therefore came home with an astronomical amount of food and snacks. When I got home, I had each of the kids with a 1 cup measuring cup and they measured out raisins, cookies, crackers etc. into sandwich bags and then I put them all in a tub labeled "Snack". This has made it soooo much easier than to have to listen to all the bickering of what we were going to have and then the mess of cleaning up all the boxes and napkins we put all the snacks on. I also do this with my cereal. We measure it into ziplock bags after on grocery day and then they just pick out the kind they want from a tub in the morning, and we have no boxes and lots less mess afterward.
Just thought I'd share!

The A B C's

I am now teaching my 3rd child to read...there is no greater feeling of accomplishment as a homeschooling mom (in my opinion). It goes along with that saying, "If you give a man a fish he will eat for a day, but teach him to fish, he will eat for a lifetime." Right? This is the cornerstone of their learning and I have the privilege of giving that to them...Lord willing of course. I have had my setbacks to say the least. Anyway, the point of this is that we have found some great things to do so the kids can have fun when learning their letters.

1. Take your Letter flash cards and cover them with saran wrap. Then have your child form the letters using playdoh or clay. We use clay b/c it never dries out.

2. Have your child make their letters using glue on construction paper and then sprinkle them with glitter. They can also use this afterward to trace the textured letter with their finger while saying it.

3. Finger food...you can use pudding or shaving cream out side or on your table to smear all around. Then they can write their letters in it.

Anyway, these are a few of the fun ways we learn our letters in our home!

I have always been one to believe that baths were overrated. I am here to say...I was wrong! A few nights ago, after "One of THOSE days", when my DH came home, I decided to take a bubble bath. For all modesty purposes, I am going to say I was wearing my bathing suit. I made sure to put an extra amount of bubbles, and I lit a candle and placed it right next to my feet. I read a chapter from my book, "How to make children mind without losing yours" by Norm Wright. I prayed (Hopefully God doesn't mind bathtub prayers!) And I fell asleep!!

When I pulled that plug, being sucked down the drain was not only the dirty water from poop, spit up, maple syrup, snotty buggars and mushed bananas...it was the knots in my shoulders from carrrying the kiddos, the worry of, "are my kids gonna remember all the not so great mothering moments?", the stress of juggling all the household tasks, the inadequacy I feel as a wife, and all the burdens I laid down at the foot of the cross. I had been baptized in the tub!!!!

God bless whomever invented the bubble bath...It saved my life!

Works for me Wednesday

My works for me Wednesday tip is to have cleaning caddies. I separated my cleaning products into sections of my home.

1. I have a bathroom caddy with tub and toilet cleaner, Windex, bleach, rubber gloves, toilet brush refills, paper towels etc.
2. I have a main house caddy with dusting spray, dusting cloth, Windex, air freshener refills, chlorox wipes for doors and knobs etc.
3. I have a kitchen caddy with antibacterial spray, mop spray refill, and pads, dust pan, sponges etc.

This makes cleaning so much easier, but also if one of my children is in charge of that particular area, they do not have to keep coming asking what cleaning item to use and where it is located.

For more great tips, visit Shannon at Rocks in my Dryer.