mommy's (and daddy's) nightcap

this summer i have started having trouble sleeping through the night. this has been primarily due to nightmares and an unjustified fear of someone entering our house (we have an alarm system that i obsessively check).

i have been drinking "sleepytime" tea off and on for years - mainly for warmth at night - but then i took a chance on this "nighty night" tea because it was on sale. worth every penny of full price. i have never relaxed and fallen asleep so quickly in my entire life, i sleep through the night and wake rested. matt has even started drinking it too.

and here i am sharing. sleep well! love.

tuesday tip - getting rid of "that smell"

so i have been meaning to post this one for a while. it is so simple. do you have clothes (usually from the gym) or towels (usually from being towels) that have "that smell"? the one that is somewhere between corn chips and mildew? then you have to at least try this before you toss them.

add one cup of white vinegar to your wash instead of detergent and run at your hottest water temperature. my washer has a "sanitary" cycle that i use for this but i have also had success in a regular cycle and "hot" water setting. and that is it. dry them and let your nose be amazed. here are the complete instructions, if you think this sounds too easy. love.

tuesday tip - disney magic timer app

we have been loving the disney magic timer app and i thought it was worth sharing. the kids beg to brush their teeth twice a day (the app limits brushing more than that) and it times them for 2 minutes each time while uncovering a quarter of the image every 15 seconds. while it uses crest and oral-b brand toothpaste/brushes, we have been able to use the images from a brochure picked up at the dentist's office and just keep the empty toothpaste tubes to use the image with whatever toothpaste brand i happen to buy next. there is also an option to use a mickey mouse image which requires to crest or oral-b products. if tooth brushing is sometimes (or every time) a battle at your house, give this free app a try. love.

tuesday tip - lose the top sheet

maybe our kids toss around more than most, but we discovered early on that a top sheet was more trouble than it was worth. they were always getting tangled in it or getting up to ask to have it straightened back out so we just took it off their beds. they have a fitted sheet and a blanket (or 10). it also makes it much, much easier for them to make their beds up in the morning.

how do you make bed making easier for your little ones?

love.

tuesday tip: shower cleaning

clean the shower last.

i hate cleaning the shower. i usually save it to be my last cleaning job of the day and scrub it down before taking a shower myself. recently, i saw that i missed a spot as i was getting out of the shower and since the scrub brush was still there, i gave it a little scrub. it came off with almost no effort! ah-ha. i had a thought. what if the steam from the shower made it easier to clean off the residue? so i tested my theory the next week and scrubbed the shower, without cleaners, the next week at the end of my shower. yep. super easy cleaning and no chemical fumes! this might not be for everyone (or maybe it is what you already do), but i was excited enough to share.

what is your shower cleaning tip?

love.

tuesday tip: grump-a-lumps

when the kids get grumpy, they are asked to go to their room until they are done with the grumps. but there are times when they just can't work out of their own 'funk'. so we go "grump-a-lump" hunting! grump-a-lumps love to hide in armpits, between toes, in hair and under chins and they have to be removed with some good tickling. i even let the kids help me find where the grump-a-lumps are hiding on them. it turns into laughing and every time it breaks the 'funk'.

what is your go-to mood changer?

love.

tuesday tip - replacing batteries

keep a small screwdriver with your batteries. sounds simple (and maybe you already do this) but it took me a while to figure out and it makes replacing all of those batteries so much less time consuming!

so i haven't been keeping up with weekly "tuesday tips".  i don't know that i know enough or am clever enough to have one every week.  sorry.  so i will post when i realize something might be worth sharing but it most likely won't be weekly.  love.

tuesday tip - self-checkout

we love self-checkout.  it is fantastic because there is rarely a wait, i don't have to switch manning to a different cart and i don't have to worry about what the kids are doing - they scan groceries and load the cart.  sure it might take a little longer, but the kids love it!  and it is, usually, less stressful than waiting while a cashier scans and bags items while the kids, boarded of waiting in line, start wandering and getting into things.  we do this all of the time at bjs wholesale.  the kids usually split up - one scans, one escorts items down the rollers/belt to the bagging area, one organizes the groceries by size and weight and then they work as a team to load the cart back up to go outside.  it has just been amazing to see how they work as a team and how they can reason what might squish something else.  now it isn't always easy - sometimes the bread gets squashed and i have to stay on high alert that everything gets scanned and paid for but having the kids involved makes a huge difference!

do you let the kids help you shop?

love.

tuesday tip - take videos

today's tip came from our first pediatrician (who we only left because we moved) - take videos.  she told us when madelyn was first born to take videos of the everyday sounds because we would never remember them.  i have done my best to take that advice and have varied success.  every now and then i just take some videos of us goofing around after dinner.  they aren't anything 'special' enough to share here but these videos are some of my very favorites.

what do you do to 'capture' the everyday memories?

love.

tuesday tip - plastic knives

so i really, really need to cut back on the time i think about food!  or the kids just need to start eating less...

it was during a rough week where the dishes weren't getting done like that should have been and we ran out of butter knives. instead i used a plastic kid knife for pb&js out of desperation to get the kids fed so that the yelling would pause while their mouths were full.  wouldn't you know it, it was much easier to spread the peanut butter and jelly!  so much so that i use a plastic knife until i can't reach the bottom of the jar without getting peanut butter on my hand (we buy in bulk around here).  i have also found that they are a preferred utensil for cutting pancakes and bananas too and matt uses them as coffee stirrers.

what do you use kid utensils for around your house?

tuesday tip - the power of a glue stick

i was chatting with a new neighbor last week about thanksgiving.  she was worried about how to entertain her granddaughter because she didn't have any toys.  so i suggested a glue stick.  this is one of my least expensive 'crafts'.

some paper (even newspaper or other scraps) and a glue stick is almost always a long period of self-guided activity.  when they are able to handle it, i also let them have safety scissors.  there is just something about gluing paper to itself and other pieces that is captivating.

added bonus, the clean-up is super easy! (see tuesday tip - baby wipes clean everything.)

if you could only have one craft supply, what would it be and why? (i am always looking for new ideas!)

love.

tuesday tip - parenting advice

so i have been struggling with a "tip" for this week because i don't want to be an "advice" person.  i hate advice people.  unsolicited advice is usually meant as "help" but when it isn't wanted it can actually be insulting.  please know that my "tips" are just meant to share what has worked for us, but i (strongly) believe that every family and every child is different.  i have found that nothing about parenting is "one size fits all" and that getting your child to the age of 5 does not make you an expert.

anyway.  back to my no-judgement-at-all tips next week!

love.

tuesday tip - by mobility

i am a strategy/plan kind of person (if you haven't figured that out by now), so i way over think things. but i find that that thinking makes my life easier - most of the time.  whenever i have to pick an order for getting the kids - out of the car, from sunday school, etc. - i always go in order of greatest mobility to least.  and this doesn't always mean by age either.

i start with the least whiney, best walker and then work down to the one who has to be carried, walks the slowest or whines the most.  like i said, this isn't always age order and changes day to day.

how do you decide who goes "first"?

love.

tuesday tip - ebates

i love ebates.com and thought that it would make a good 'tip' as we are starting to head into shopping season.  you just go to ebates.com, create an account and search for your favorite retail website (or just the type of product you want to buy) and ebates.com gives you all of the codes and offers running on the site in addition to some percentage back off of what you spend.  the percentage back changes all of the time and it costs you nothing to participate.  we don't shop a ton but over the past year we have gotten around $85 back from ebates this year!  we used it a lot for our christmas shopping last year and will use it again this year.  i just ordered halloween costumes and will get 10% back through ebates.  every little bit helps, right?

do you have a favorite shopping site that helps your dollars go farther?

love.

tuesday tip - cookie cutters

a few years ago i used a bed, bath and beyond 20% off coupon to buy an assorted container of metal cookie cutters.  the idea was to use it for sugar cookies around christmas time (i was too practical to buy the christmas themed assortment because it limited the usefulness).  surprisingly, we use them way more for jazzing up our pb&js.  (can you tell that i spend a lot of time making pb&js around here? two weeks in a row the 'tip' is pb&j related.)  on occasion we use them as stencils for an arts and crafts project or something i am sewing since they are metal and easily cleaned without staining or residue left over.

at the time, i thought it was a fairly impractical, splurge kind of purchase for fun but we use them almost every week.  who knew?

do you have something you thought was a whimsy item that turned out to be almost essential?

love.

tuesday tip - think beyond pizza

the pizza wheel has become one of my multipurpose kitchen items.  i use it for cutting pizza (of course) but we use it for cutting dough for bread and pretzels, dicing some fruits and veggies and my favorite use - cutting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at lunch time!

when i am making four to six pb&js at the same time, the cutting can be the most annoying part.  enter the pizza wheel.  zip, zip, zip, zip and four sandwiches are cut in half.  i find it particularly helpful for manning's sandwich because i often cut it into one inch squares for easier eating.  so much faster than a knife!  yes, it does make one more thing to clean up but i think it is worth it.

do you have something you use in the kitchen outside of its normal duties?

love.

tuesday tip - picture frame remix

so my new obsession is old picture frames filled with blank paper.  you can write on them with dry erase markers!  we made a weekly menu version two years ago in mops, i love it and use it every week.  and i have a ton of frames that i haven't hung because the pictures need to be updated and that would require planning and ordering prints...sigh.  someday.

so instead, i made a blank one to add to the dining room with the kids' monthly memory verses for church - the filler paper is a paint sample from when we built our house in the color of the living room.  i am not quite happy with the aesthetic of it sitting on the shelf there with the kids' portraits but we, surprisingly, don't have a lot of wall space in the kitchen/dining for hanging things - it is all cabinets and windows and i wanted it in a high traffic area.  the kids really like looking at their verses and saying them during meals and i like the visual reminder to review them without more paper stacked around.

now i am thinking about putting one in their bathrooms with a personal note or reminder for the day/week.  well, at least madelyn's bathroom.  the boys don't need anything else in there to break (they ripped the towel bar off the wall - not totally their fault and they were just trying to hang up their towels).  or i might do a larger one in their room for them to make their own notes/lists.

do you have anything laying around that you have repurposed and now want to do all over the house?  love.

tuesday tip - diaper changing

today's tip is something that i hope to not be doing much longer and i don't even want to think about how many i have already changed! i thought most of this was common knowledge/practice but over the years i have realized that it isn't so before we say 'farewell' to diapers at out house, i thought i would share what years of experience have taught us.

spider-man will be used for this demonstration because changing manning's diaper now requires a leg and both hands.

open neatly folded diaper

step 1: pull apart the 'ruffles'...

...one ruffle fully in, one ruffle fully out.

lay clean diaper under baby still wearing dirty diaper.

step 2: open dirty diaper and use front to wipe off bulk of poop (if required).

holding baby's ankles in one hand, tuck top of dirty diaper under baby slightly.  use wipes to finish wiping off baby and pile on top of dirty diaper. this keeps them from getting 'mess' on the bottoms of legs and feet that might wiggle free and still away from busy hands - most of the time.

step 3: lift clean baby bottom and roll up dirty diaper and wipes towards the back of the dirty diaper with free hand. 

slide dirty diaper roll away from baby a safe distance (i.e. out of kicking range).

step 4: release baby's legs and close clean diaper all ready in place.

step 5: (i forgot a picture but this is the most important step!) check to make sure that the inside ruffle is inside and the outside ruffle is completely outside.  9 out of 10 times we have had a blow-out it has been where an outside ruffle was caught inside.

the nice part about having the clean diaper in place before opening the dirty diaper is that if they start peeing during the change, you can quickly pull it up between their legs to absorb the stream.  yes, you occasionally 'waste' a clean diaper but i find it to be less stressful than having to clean up, yet another, pee mess.

do you have any diaper changing 'tricks' that work great at your house?

love.

tuesday tip - cleaning schedule

i am not a cleaner.  there i said it.  i do like things super neat and organized, but i don't like to do the maintenance cleaning (dusting, vacuuming, baseboards, etc.).  i am a great organizer (and have been told this by other people, it is not just my arrogance) and have come up with 101 ways to keep the house clean (none of which actually factored in kids) and tend to be impossible in practice - either in completion each day or getting through the cycle fast enough that the cleaning on day one isn't totally undone by the time i get back to it. instead i tend to be the sort who will stay up all night scrubbing every square inch of the house the night before someone arrives.  so when one of my friends, who is a crazy cleaner, said that she had found a cleaning schedule that was super simple and "doable" on pintrest, i was skeptical but a few weeks later asked her to send it my way anyhow.

well, i have been doing this routine for about a month now and it has made a HUGE difference in my stress levels and the overall cleanliness of our house. i do have to do a few more loads of laundry and dishes than this recommends, but we do have six people in the family.  and, i don't feel like i am doing anything extra than i already was doing most of the time.  it comes from diary of a moody housewife and i just had to share it.

the tip? everything in moderation.  i tend to live in the extremes and this is a wonderful middle ground.

do you follow a cleaning "schedule"or are you a clean as it needs it sort of person?

love.

tuesday tip - t.v. babysitter

there are many things i use when i desperately need time by myself - like to shower, take a meeting, fill out forms, make phone calls, just take a break from a really busy/stressful day.  my primary fall back is t.v..  now i am not a "no t.v. ever" kind of mom, but we do try to limit it as much as possible.  so anyway, to my tip...

don't assume that t.v. is easier.

even though i 'discover' this over and over, i still let t.v. viewing creep back up when we have a lot (or nothing) going on.  when the kids don't watch t.v. their behavior is better and they play independently more.  t.v. does almost 100% guarantee me some down time and i will continue to use it when i have a business meeting, but that doesn't always make it truly 'easier'.

it might just be my kids, but since i keep discovering this truth over and over and over, i thought i might share.

do you have some truth/observation about your kids that you keep learning over and over again?

love.