Posted in Homemaking
We ordered this when it went on clearance at Disneyshopping.com. I love it! We are dressing him for each holiday/season.....
Posted in Homemaking
I have been a bad blogger! But I am hoping to change that. I am setting aside blogging and posting time on my new schedule very day or at the very least every other day. I hope it works! :)
God Bless,
Michele
Posted in Homemaking
Still trying to find my way in this new super sized life of mine. I guess now is the time you HAVE to be organized or nothing gets done. Im getting there but still really tired from staying up late. As I am posting this after 1 am.
I need to break down larger chores for different days, like the bathrooms, dusting and so on. Once I know there is a day for those things I can maybe be more relaxed about the daily stuff. The floors being the hardest. Like I said, I am getting there. Patience is not one of my strong points!
On a better note I did drop off 2 garbage size bags of things to the childrne's consignment store. I also took in a few things to my favorite resell place, Once Upon a Child. I got a $30 store credit, and ended up getting a Baby Einstein play mat for Joisah, 2 books for the girls and 6 pair of cloth training panties for Danielle. Once my credit was used I owed $.74! DH was impressed! :)
I have alot of things to ship and also to clean and post on Craigs list. Mostly toys the girls are parting with. Whatever I don't list I will take to the children's consignment store. :)
I also have a pretty decent donation pile going on too. I will try to drop that off too.
Slowly but surely I am decluttering our house even more than previously. Less things, less things to clean!
God Bless,
Michele
Posted in Homemaking
This is our laundry for the day..........about 1/3 of it. This is the daily amount (x 3) that we wash, line dry, fold and put away. I have to wash aleast 2 loads a day not to get behind. I do 3 loads most days. And I do laundry everyday of the week. I do about 14 - 20 loads a week. That is for 7 people. I also cloth diaper when I am home (not when Im out just yet!). Cloth wipes for me. And lots of uniforms for DH, small loads of Josiah's laundry. So it adds up!
I am getting it under control though by taking the clothes from the girls room and me pulling outfits for them myself. That has helped this week alot! They would wear a new nightgown each night. I make them wear the same one (as long as it is clean) for the whole week. I cleaned out their closet and gave them some hanging organizers. I wrote the days of the week on each slot and that contains all their clothes for that day. There is their nightgown, which I put in there after the wake up in the morning, then there is a set of play clothes and a nice going out outfit. I start Monday with that the nice outfit only. If it gets used then I put one in Tuesdays. Otherwise if we go no where I just take MOndays outfit and "recycle" it down to the next day until it is used. There is also clean pair of socks and undies. The socks get done just like the nice outfits. Since my girls rarely wear shoes! LOL Here is a quick glimpse of their closet. I was in the middle of filling up the clothes for the week. Each girl has their own hanging organizer.:)
So far it is working really well! :)
I moved their clothes into my large closet. They have one side and I have the other. I am in charge of putting away all the clothes in that closet. I do that so I can assure everything goes in the correct place and it keeps looking nice. See?
It is no easy task line drying laundry for 7 people each day. But we do live in Florida, we just have to stay one step ahead of the rain in the summertime. I also hang laundry in the garage/playroom when it rains. I also have 2 drying racks and always looking for more at thrift stores and yard sales. :)
Madison my 9 year old, has the job of hanging out and gathering the laundry. After struggling with a heavy basket of wet clothes or multiple baskets of dry clothes she came up with a great solution!
That is our dolly cart we use when we move heavy things around, like our freezer and what not. She is making GREAT use of it! Otherwise it is used daily to push around a little sister in the yard. :)
Though the laundry can be overwhelming. I have found this part of my Large Family Journey to be the easiest to control. Dishes..........eh well that is another day! ;)
God Bless,
Michele
Posted in Homemaking
Title sounds strange but don't jump ship yet! Let me explain!
I have a baby tub that I need to find a place to store. I was storing it under the crib as it fit and that is where I had extra space. Now that the baby is here, it is just not a good place. I give the baby his baths in the kitchen sink since I can not really lean over the tub just yet. So the bedroom is on one side of the house and the kitchen on the other. So Im in search of a new place to store the tub. Any suggestions?
Just to give a bit of history, my kitchen is very very small and there is literally no room in there for it. Here is a pic....
There is a laundry room beyond the room there, but it too is pretty much cramped and filled. I was thinking though.....Would it look odd to hang it on a hook in the laundry room?
Thoughts or suggestions welcomed!
Posted in Homemaking
My laundry room has been a sore point for me for some time. Now with me line drying all of our laundry it was way over due for some organization. If Ihad been smart I would have taken some before pictures. But you know, that requires some fore thought. LOL
Let me show you what works for me......
This is the view from the kitchen. The paint has never been finished because I forgot the name of the color we used!!! LOL Ack! This is my sorting table. I mainly use it to hold baskets. It will hold 2 baskets for us. The underneath is where I sort our dirty laundry. Whites/Darks. Dh's uniforms are kept in his truck until he is ready for me to wash then we put them right into the washer. Otherwise he would lose track of them! The door leads out to the side yard where the trash and recycling are kept. The drying rack holds small laundry and it can be easily moved or folded up when not in use. But its ALWAYS in use!
This what you see as you walk through the kitchen door to the right. There was a door here but I had DH take it off. It would cover up half of the washer when it was open. And since we use the garage for other things, it was open all year around. I put a baby gate in front of it to keep our doggie Max from wandering behind it and the washer/dryer. He is a small guy and likes to get into tight spaces and do Lord knows what! LOL It also keeps my vac, ironing board and such from falling forward and down when little hands do not put them away properly. ~smile~ The washer is closest to the hot water heater. The dryer is to the left. It does not work but serves a purpose anyways. You can see on the shelf above them I have my supplies and some labeled bins. The box to the right is full with household misc. stuff for repairs and what not. We are going to install another shelf above this one that is much higher but it would hold those items more efficently and out of the way of the kids. First I *REALLY* want it painted, LOL As soon as I figure out the color!
Here is a wider shot of the washer and broken dryer. I use the dryer as a place to dry my washed out ziplock bags. And believe it or not, there is ALOT of them. That nifty wooden dowel thingie was from a puppet show I had bought Faithy for Christmas from the children's consignment store. After Christmas she was having a hard time putting the puppets back on there and ask if she could put them in a basket instead. I gave her a basket and gladly took it! I placed a thick bath mat under it and now that is where all my baggies dry. I put them over the dowels to allow the insides to dry. Works SO well! The wooden hangers are mine. I buy them at Dollar Tree a few fora dollar. It's the cheapest I have found them. I prefer them for clothes, but so far I am the only one who prefers them in the house! LOL The 2 white bins which you can almost see are for "Dish cloths" which we use to wash dishes and clean the house. And the one with holes says, "Paper Products" which is where we keep paper plates, disposable cups, and so on. Recently with my pregnancy getting to be hard we have begun to use foam plates to lighten my load. Plus we use the others for when we have alot of company over. Remember, I am the dishwasher! LOL But we keep them up higher so the kids don't waste them but they are all contained in one space so that those who set the table (me, dh and ds) know where to find them. ~smile~
This is what the room looks like from the playroom. The door to the kitchen is to the right past the microwave. We keep the large microwave out here cause it would just take almost all of our counter space. It is meant to be installed over a stove but we have a 70's kitchen and it doesn't fit. We got it brand new in the box from a garage sale for $50 about 2 years ago. It's stainless steel with tons of features. So we don't want to part with it for a smaller one. We are just holding out for a house that fits our microwave, LOL The cabinet it sits on was a clearanced item from Target. I think it cost me less than $75. In the drawer we keep all of our trash bags and ziplock bags. In the compartment with the doors we keep dog food and all of our foils, plastic wraps and such. We need a huge palce for that as we purchase them in the commerical size from Sam's. We have been on one roll of plastic wrap now for 2 years and the same with the foil. I think we paid $30 for the 2 of them 2 years ago, so to me its a very good deal! You will notice our trash can is really an outside can. But as our family grows we realized it was not good to be taking out the trash TWICE a day. Lots of bags equals lots of money. We also found the larger bags are cheaper than regular size bags. So we bought the can for $5 at Wal Mart, and now take the trash out every day or day and half. Works much better for us! On top of the microwave is our small recycling bin. That usually needs emptied once a day. Which is fine cause we have 2 HUGE recycling cans provided by the city. So we just empty them outside the side door.
Now, these are the things that work for us. We have 3 of our kids, 1 "borrowed" kid as I like to say LOL and one on the way. We entertain family alot. Friends occasionally. There is more friends than family, LOL
I have had requests to show some ways I organize our smallish house for our "large" family. I will do that in the weeks to come. As there are some areas that need to be tweaked that we are working on. ~smile~ For instance we are working on a few cabinets in the kitchen today. But as those areas are finished I will show you what works for us!
