I can not be the only one.
The only person who planning on entertaining over the holiday season. And now that it is November I can’t delay any longer, I need to start preparing the house!
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Scout Clearance
July 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Ok, I have said before how much I was in love with my large Scout bag, right? I love the polywoven fabric that is water resistant. I love the fact that I can fit everyone’s towels, sunscreen, bottles of water and toys in it.
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10 Tips for Kids & Stress Free Road Trips
July 16, 2012 By 1 Comment
This is how I pack a kids’ bin
Last week I gave you all a list of 10 tips for stress free road trips. And this week I give you a few tips of traveling with kids! A little extra planning for our little people means we actually can have a good vacation too!!!
1) When you walk out the door every kid is carrying their special sleeping buddy/blanket/necessity!!! #1 Rule!!!
2) Cups with lids and no-mess snack bags for the car ride.
3) Keep a list of all the kids’ stuff you take! Yes, it goes with the pack list.
4) Use a small bin to hold all the kids’ stuff. Keeps it together in the car and easily transports into the hotel.
5) Audio books from the library and free audio books online for the car ride.
6) Take minimal toys/books/activities for the kids. There will be so many things going on during your trip. You won’t need as much to keep them busy.
7) Take a toy/activity for the kids that is new to them!
8) When you arrive at your destination take the kids on a tour of the space they will be using. Point out what they can and can’t do/touch!
9) Take a laptop with a couple of movies along with a cord for the tv. Hotel tv is notoriously bad for kids.
10) Take a step stool and pump soap (we like foamy soap) for the kids!
10 Tips for Stress Free Road Trips
July 9, 2012 By 8 Comments
Who can afford to take 6 people on plane for a vacation regularly? I can’t! If we flew anywhere, that be the vacation (plus some;). But one of the benefits of living in Fresno is that I am within driving distance of so many awesome things!
I know that the idea of taking your kids on a road trip can be daunting but with a little planning and smart strategies it can be fun and affordable for all!
1. When you book use loyalty programs and go through shopping portals! I saved $13 booking my Marriott room that way!
2. Make and use a packing list. Make sure to include cords and prescription meds!
3. Make an itinerary. Are you eating out every meal or taking some with you? Do the attractions you are going to allow you to take in lunch? Lay out the rough schedule and add the food list to your packing list;).
4. Pack snacks for the car and the hotel. Make sure you include napkins, utensils, the like.
5. Take a file folder with you that contains reservation confirmations, maps with directions, attraction addresses and phone numbers.
6. Let your bank or major credit card company know you are travelling. They may place a freeze on your card if they don’t know for sure that it is you. When NerdDad and I had only been married a couple of years we went to San Jose for the Embedded Systems Conference and it was our first trip. After 4 days American Express put a hold on any new charges. It was not good to say the least!
7. Do a little gas planning. Vacation spots tend to have high gas prices so if you could hit the last Costco or bargain gas on your way it could save you big! We have found the Costco in Carlsbad that we hit on our LegoLand trips every year! Saved a goodly amount of money over a gas station right off the freeway.
8. Make sure electronics are charged for the car and then have a spot in your luggage where all the cords go!!
9. Put together a little first aid kit. Bandaids, aloe, wipes to clean cuts, etc. You will find on the road but it is annoying and expensive to get back to your hotel and realize that you need to go find a place to buy expensive bandaids;). On our first year going to LegoLand NerdBug fell and needed a bandaid. Then NerdDad got a sunburn on his neck. The hotel did have Aloe gel but it was like $10 for a small bottle that didn’t have all that much aloe in it! Now we always pack the first aid kit;).
10. When you are ready to pack up and go home, use your pack list!!! I think it is pretty self explanatory;). I also recommend that after all the kids and luggage leave the room, 1 adult checks under beds, in drawers and in closets! Peace of mind goes a long way on that drive home!!
Garden Planted!!!
May 16, 2011 By 8 Comments
I haven’t had a real garden since I was a kid but I always loved it! Yes, crazy allergic me loved real gardening. Not weeding but growing vegetables. My great granddad use to farm. It was 1 of the things my stepdad and I used to do right after he and my mom got married. So gardening holds a special spot in my heart. But I haven’t done more than a few pots in a long time!
I have horrible soil (who am I kidding, you can’t call it soil). I realized just how bad when I attempted to dig into it last year and I failed to plant anything;). So after my horrible failure last year I picked up Square Foot Gardening
NerdDad built a 4×4 boc for me. Then NerdPie and I went to OSH and got vermiculite, peat moss and blended compost to fill the box. Then I got corn, tomatoes, green beans, squash, peppers, basil and a few flowers to fill it up. It may not seem like a big accomplishment to all of you but… For this fat girl who never has a block of time, this is a huge accomplishment.
Hopefully I don’t kill everything and we actually get food from it;).
I Have Slayed the Linen Closet!!
March 7, 2011 By 4 Comments
I know that doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment does it? But look at how horribly messy it is!! It was in just a fright that it took me hours spread over a few weeks. Hey, with 4 kids when do I have a few hours to dedicate to clean out 1 closet;)?
I had to sort through all the back stock of bath and beauty products. A lot hit the garbage. You know girls, the lipstick you wore twice decided you didn’t like it but thought you might like it some day? And what stayed just got organized! 1 bin for hair products, 1 bath product, so on and so forth.
Then I went through all the linen! Having had 4 babies, currently have 3 twin beds, a spare queen aero mattress and a king bed well that makes for a lot of linen. Since we are done with babies I got rid of all the baby blankets that are too small for the toddler bed, some of the many crib sheets (had something like 10) and a similar number of crib mattress pads.
I brought in some big plastic bing. One is for twin sheet sets, one is for extra twin mattress pads and blankets. Then I brought in a very big one that is in the very top of the closet. In that I put the extra king size mattress pad (that thing is huge!), blanket and flannel sheets.
Not only am I now much more organized, I can actually see what we do and don’t need! I found we need more blankets and more hand towels but we definitely don’t need more twin sheets!
Ahh, now my head is a bit clearer. So have you gotten any projects done this week?
Medicine Cabinet Tackle
January 10, 2011 By 4 Comments
So I of my resolutions, both personal and bloggy, was to participate in at least half of the Tackle it Tuesdays. My house needs it desperately, but don’t judge me to harshly;). I am making myself vulnerable so don’t attack!
So I am starting with the after picture;). My Tackle this week is my medicine cabinet. I haven’t done it in quite a while. As was evidenced by the amount of stuff that was shoved in there that I am throwing away! There isn’t a before picture. That is because my husband is a saint! I had it on my todo list and so he started it without me. So instead of a before picture here is my garbage back.
That is the bag of garbage that was just sitting in the cabinet. Not only was there expired medicine but other odds and ends too! Including the pacifiers that used to be my 7 year old daughter’s. Yes, they were tucked all the way in the back of the top self. We hid them when she gave them up because we were afraid we might need them but at the same time didn’t want her to accidentally see them;).
And the bin next to the bag are things that didn’t belong in the cabinet to begin with.
So that is this week’s Tackle!
A Day in the Life
August 23, 2010 By 4 Comments
This week is the last week in Heart of the Matter’s Not Back to School Blog Hop. The subject is A Day in the Life. I fully take advantage of the flexibility of homeschooling so no 2 days really look a like;). But my week’s do have some familiarity. The only things we do for school every day is a math exercise and a 5 problem grammar exercise, but that is only for the 4th grader and the 2nd grader. So here are the basics!
Monday and Wednesday are big school days. I try not to have any errands those days. We do breakfast and then after clean up we jump right in. I try to get a little of my work done when they are doing their independent work;). Then we do a little group work, like reading our history. Then on Mondays we head off to dance! Then we have afternoon reading time. After that you just do stuff you haven’t gotten too!
Tuesday and Thursday are crazy days. We have choir and science on Tuesdays and I have Bible Study on Thursdays. In the off times from their activities they are in the homeschool room doing independent homework.
Friday is a day I try to keep light. Every few weeks we have a play date and we finish up any left over work.
Saturday is activity day! This is the day we do art project or experiments, so on and so forth! Then NerdDad is home to help with the chaos and have some fun!
Sunday does have a little homework. The older 2 have to read the section in the Bible that Christian Studies will focus on!
So that is our life, what does yours look like?
Lightening Our Chaos
August 16, 2010 By 1 Comment
So my Tackle this week will probably not seem note worthy at all to anyone but me but…
We have 4 kids and we all know how quickly they out grow their clothes. But since we have 2 boys and 2 girls, with the youngest being a girl, that means careful sorting to get rid of clothes. Could boy #2′s shorts be worn by girl #2? Then there is the processing. Can boy #1′s clothes go straight to boy #2 or should the pants stop by girl #1 first or go into holding for boy #2? And so on!
So as you can imagine, we have piles of clothes that stack up at the change of seasons. So this weekend I finished going through those piles! I moved things around and then had 2 boxes to move completely out of the house! They have been moved onto our church exchange program!
I think it is a small move to lighten out chaos! Now I have the rest of the house to clear out;). But it goes back to how you eat an elephant, one bite at a time!
Ovens, Ugh!
August 2, 2010 By 3 Comments
One of the few things I really disliked about this house was the fact that the oven was a manual clean. We could have upgraded but it wasn’t worth mortgaging it. But I have dreaded cleaning it. Dreaded it to the point I have waited 3 1/2 years! But I figured when you smell something burning on the bottom of your stove, the time for procrastination is over.
It was sad. That oven was so dirty that I went through the process twice. You know, warm up the oven and spray it down. Then let is sit a bit and wipe it down. Even after I went through the process twice it was still dirty.
But it was better than what it was. What a sad tackle it was, but at least it is better;).
