Organization Ideas to implement TODAY!

Thursday usually feels like a recovery day for me as Wednesdays are even more busy than our normal chaotic hectic life. My Wednesdays often start at 4:30 or 5:00 am (earlier if I am feeling whiney) and often end around midnight. It is one of those days with lots of obligations, school for the kids and a class in the evening for the husband, along with catechism for the oldest, and running obligations (admittedly I just changed that from Wednesday to Thursdays). That doesn't even count any cooking, cleaning or errands that get done as they come up.

So naturally yesterday I didn't do any cleaning, and today my house looks like a tornado tore through it. It makes me pretty unhappy that my children make such a big mess in such a short time. The house was tolerably clean on Tuesday.  This morning I loaded the dishwasher and switched the laundry. I also put away the peanut butter, cooking spray, bread, etc that got left on the counter Wednesday. This made the kitchen livable. Although I still need to do the floors. I HATE SWEEPING, MOPPING, and VACUUMING! I try to give these jobs to my husband or kids as often as possible. But they really make a huge difference in how clean the house feels so if anyone has tips to make these chores less of a chore I would LOVE them.

I still need to pick up about a million things in the living room, scrub the dining table, vacuum, fold and put away clothes and pick up about 50 pieces of masking tape that my one year old tore off of my front door.  This doesn't include the disasters in their bedrooms.

I want to have the kids clean as much as possible so I have been searching pinterest for ways to help them clean up and ideas they can do to help keep the house cleaner everyday.

Here are some ideas I found:

Painted Toy Bags

I have a bunch of soft Toy Boxes for the kids, today we will use this inspiration to paint each one with pictures of the toys that belong inside, I can see one with a car, one with balls, one with a doll, one with animals. I hope this helps the boys actually put things away, but if not at least it will be really cute.














Cardboard drawer Organizer

We all have one of those crazy messy junk drawers that we dump everything that doesn't have a place into. At our house we call it "dad's tool drawer" and it is primarily everyday tools that aren't kept in the shed, like the hammer, screwdrivers, duct tape. Lately it has been spilling into the drawer next to it, that is not cool. I have tons of cardboard in my recycling, I think i can find some pieces to fit the junk in the drawer and make it stay in one drawer that closes without any trouble.









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I know what you're thinking only two new ideas. But I still have to do laundry and vacuum, and I feel that goals should be realistic.

Last minute kids gifts ahead of time

 You can find You know how on the night before the last day of school before winter vacation your daughter comes and tells you she has 15 best friends who she just has to give holiday presents too?

This year why not get the jump on her, when you still have time set aside an afternoon to make a bunch of easy and inexpensive but thoughtful gifts. Friendship Bracelets are great. You remember that box of colorful string and instructions she got for her birthday two years ago from your friend who doesn't have kids? You know the one she subsequently tied up her little brothers with and you had to cut the mass of tangled embroidery floss from him, while they were all screaming and crying; then you threw out every string you could find and cursed your well meaning friend? That's the stuff, but some more string, but maybe only three or four colors. After all besties all need matching bracelets anyway.

The only two problems with this are: she wants to make them all for herself and she wants to give them out immediately.

So after indulging, I mean practicing, on the first ten for her; and figuring our where to put them away where you will find them and the kids won't; it's time to get down to business. After extensive research on Pinterest I found
a ton of cute modern touches to your basic knotted up string. 

And the winners are: Lego center detail 

 You can find my pinspiration here http://www.thecentsiblelife.com/2013/02/lego-friendship-bracelets/

Bangle friendship bracelets You can find my pinspiration here :http://www.diy-craft.com/2013/07/how-to-make-summer-bracelet.html obviously my version is much simpler.

And of course just a classic friendship bracelet 

 These could be personalized by adding a charm with the initial of their first name or an animal or something unusual from around the house like small buttons or sequins tied into them.

My tips: it doesn't matter what kind of knot you use as long as you tie it in the same direction every time.  Pin the end of your work to the back of a chair or something to make it faster. If you don't want to make your own keep an eye on my etsy site for a bunch of choices soon!

" I found it on Pinterest"

So every morning I get up before the crack of dawn (around 5am) with my husband so we can have coffee before he leaves for work at 5:30. This is often the best part of my day, I am not a morning person, I hate getting out of bed, but its quiet and he makes me coffee and we get a few minutes alone together.

So the coffee thing has definitely become a ritual, he puts the Moka Pot on the stove and when its ready adds about an ounce of chocolate syrup and then fills my cup with milk and brings it to me.  This is essentially a homemade Mocha Latte. If you don't have a Moka Pot and love espresso I strongly suggest you get one, it is the easiest, cheapest way to make espresso at home.  We then watch the news and talk about the upcoming day or week for a few minutes. I have noticed that on the days I am too tired to get up (like when I was up all night with the baby) I am significantly grumpier.

Anyway today we ran out of chocolate syrup! He made coffee with sugar in it, and it was fine but all day I was wishing I had the chocolate. We are right in the middle of paydays and I could just run to Costco for a new jar of chocolate but this would inevitably wreak havoc on my budget. And I am trying so hard to stick to a budget.

So I decided to try out one of the bazillion recipes for chocolate syrup that I found on pinterest.
This is the recipe I picked Decadent Chocolate Syrup and I totally picked it because she called it decadent. I think all the recipes are pretty much the same; it's simple syrup with a boatload of cocoa powder in it. I added a good teaspoon of instant coffee just for good measure and threw the pot on the stove.

Doesn't that look delicious? I thought so too, and when i licked the spoon (and burned my tongue) it was totally worth it.  This recipe was totally easy, but I would recommend making it during nap time because when I stepped away for two minutes to change a diaper it totally boiled over. It didn't burn though and it wiped off the stove pretty easily so no harm done. 

I am so looking forward to having my normal coffee tomorrow morning, and I am sure it will be totally delicious. 

Mummy Door

My husband is pretty sure I have lost my mind with this one. I bought two rolls of masking tape at the dollar store and made my front door into a mummy.

I really like the way the tape is kind of loose like real bandaging would be, but i hope it lasts till halloween.

Haunting my Kitchen

Lately there have been the cutest paper skulls eating my fruit, stealing the butter, and drinking my coffee. Continuing with my neon theme this year I loaded my printer with neon green before printing...and I think they came out amazing. I love to continue the Halloween decor inside the house, even if it is only in small details.

This adorable paper skull is number 72 from skulladay.com . He took me about twenty minutes to cut out and assemble. I love the moving jaw, I love that the whole thing is made from one sheet of paper. I just happened to have some neon green paper on hand. These could also be painted and would probably last a lot longer if made with card stock but I didn't have any on hand.  This skull was a little too difficult for my six year old to create by herself, she was able to make it with a little help. It was way too hard for my younger boys.

These beautiful sugar skulls came from Lorna Love they are super easy to make, it took me about ten minutes, my daughter was able to cut, fold, and glue these with no assistance, and the younger boys each made one with a little help. They are super fun super cute and i bet they would be amazing filled with little candy as a special halloween gift for family or maybe the kids teachers. I especially loved the glittered version from her website, I may need to cover one of mine in glitter.