Works for Me Wednesday: Large-Scale Laundry

With a growing family, comes a growing mountain of laundry! One tool that helps me so much in the War of the Wash is my laundry sorter. Our old one recently bit the dust (i.e. succombed to the terror of the three year old), so I decided to see how we could get along without it for a little while. You know, in the name of saving money.

That didn't last long.

Without my trusty sorter, there were constantly piles of laundry all over the floor. I'd get one day's laundry all sorted, but maybe wouldn't get it finished that day. Then the next day, the kids would come and dump all their mixed-up dirty clothes on top of my 'piles' and......well. It drove me crazy.

My kids all have chores, and one of the kids brings down the dirty laundry from upstairs (The Kid Zone) each morning. Another kid has the chore of sorting the clothes into the 3-slot hamper. Then when I'm ready to start a load, I only need 2 minutes to turn on the washer and grab the duds from the fullest compartment.

It works for me!

For my information....

I know I haven't posted in ages. No excuse but the usual busy-ness with some writer's block thrown in. Anyway, I came across a few websites that I'm going to 'bookmark' here for my own reference, while sharing them with you. Even if you don't have a large family, I'm sure you'll find some interesting and practical information. :)

In A Shoe (I heart the name of this one!)

Larger Families

Large Family Logistics (a recently rediscovered, old favorite)

Mommy Life

Happy Reading, everyone!

Snow Day Activities

Well, have you reached the end of your patience for snow days? We've had so many of them this year! Being a homeschooler, they really *shouldn't* affect me much, but just knowing that the public schools have the day off, does something to my motivation.

And you all know that snow makes kids go crazy, right? (And if you didn't before, you do by now!)

So, here is a list I put together of some 'fun' activities that my kids don't get to every day. Maybe they're a little messy, or take a bit more of your time than you're usually willing to give up. But maybe you're in a place where you're willing to sacrifice a little to keep the kids happy and occupied. *smile*

• Puzzles
• Play-doh
• Obstacle Course (set up 'cones' to run around, chairs/benches to climb over, cushions to jump on, etc.)
• Board Games
• Card Games
• Memory (I hate picking up all those little cards afterwards, so this one doesn't come out often)
• Lacing cards/shapes for little ones
• Block Party--go on a hunt all through the house to find all those lost blocks. Then bring them all to the living room and built a giant city/fort/tower together!
• Boxes--my little kids love to play with boxes. If you have any that are big enough to sit/stand in, you've got instant cars, trains, houses, or whatever else your kids imagine.
• Tents--set up a real one, or drape blankets over chairs
• Legos
• Tea Party
• Wii Sports Tournament (maybe video games are a cop-out, but when you pit the whole family against each other in a tournament, it gets pretty interesting!)
• Cut & Paste pictures/collages
• Paint pictures
• Play/Puppet Show--some kids are born for this kind of thing :)

• Science Experiments

Or, if it's the end of the day and you just don't have the energy for any of the above, just sit on the couch and start reading aloud. I bet it won't be long before you're surrounded by quiet kids. :)

My Younger Man

The other day as I was teaching history to a few of my kids, my 3 year old climbed into my lap. In an uncharacteristic moment of affection, G. smilingly stroked my face as he said, "I just love you, Mommy. We're married!"

I apologized to my dh later, as I told him I just couldn't resist the younger man who swept me off my feet. :)

You can't beat that to brighten a mommy's day!

Media Cards (or--how to get the kids to not play video games every waking minute)

When we bought our Wii 2 years ago, we had never owned any kind of gaming system before (well, not since having kids, anyway). We quickly realized that we needed to do something to prevent our kids from having a serious gaming addiction and/or let their grades slip down the drain.

Thus, the Media Card was born.

It's basically a grade-based reward system. I've never liked the idea of paying kids money for good grades, but this was a way to make them feel rewarded while at the same time keeping them accountable for the amount of time they spend on computer/video games/tv/movies. Yep, the 'media' in Media Card applies to all electronic forms of entertainment in our home. They can read books, play board games, puzzles, cards, etc. etc. for 'free', but they have to 'pay' to play Lego Indiana Jones or visit their Webkinz online.

We set the payment levels for the grades we knew our kids were capable of. We use a software-based curriculum for a couple of the kids, which gives a quiz and/or test in every subject at least once a week. Therefore, we thought this would give the kids enough opportunities to earn media cards to keep them supplied to the tune of about 1 card per day, if they did well on those quizzes/tests.

We didn't want them to earn so many cards that they could spend every free minute on electronic time wasters, but enough to keep them motivated to put forth some effort in school. That's why we decided not to 'pay' for their daily work. You can decide what you reward them for and what they need to pay for. Just set up the rules to start with, communicating to your child(ren) that for the first month or so the system may need a bit of 'tweaking'.

We also had two 'tiers' of earning opportunity--1 card earned for an A or B on the quiz/test, 2 cards for a 100% on one. Each media card is good for 30 minutes of 'play' time, and we used a timer to keep them accountable on this. I've gotten away from that recently and have noticed the kids taking advantage and going a bit over their time limit if I'm not paying attention. Going to have to bring back the timer. :)

Oh, and I actually made up the cards on the computer, using a label template of some sort. They're just made out of cardstock, but have lasted 2 years so far with no problems.

I now have a couple of kiddos using non-software-based curriculum, so it's a little more work for me to keep up with this system for them. They don't have tests or quizzes in a couple of the subjects, so I just average their weekly grades in each subject and if it falls within the acceptable range, they get their card.

Several of my friends have commented on how much they liked our system, so just thought I'd put it out here to share.

A Long Day....but a good one.

I've received a lot of help on this road of motherhood.

My mother and in-laws both live nearby, so I've rarely had to hire a sitter over the years. I've always had someone to step up anytime I've needed it.

Now that my kids are starting to get older, and our lifestyle has changed to accommodate the larger family, I don't have to ask for help *quite* as much as I used to.

What's more, I now have a bit more mental energy to help others out when needed.

Today was one of those days. A dear cousin needed a sitter so she could see her doctor, and I was happy to help.

The day went fine--I gave my 1st grader the day off of school so that he could help entertain his nearly-4-year-old cousin. He was thrilled to 'help'--and have some extra time to play trains with his brothers, too.

Meanwhile, the rest of us hit the books as usual. Everything was going ok--just a few interruptions from the newcomer, who wasn't used to the routine around here. :)

Then Dh calls to say he won't be home for lunch.

This is where it starts getting hairy--for some reason, that little mental break in the day makes such a HUGE difference, for the children as well as for me. And when I don't get that break, my nerves get a bit more, um, *sensitive*. LOL

Later, another cousin needed his kids to come over for a bit. So we had 11 kiddos here this afternoon! I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, cooking dinner with the usual hungry-whiney-kid noises in the background when my dh arrived home. He helped me take the focus off of myself and directed my attention to something priceless.

Our girls and one of the visitors were playing dress-up. Nothing really new, this has been a favorite pastime of my girls' since they were itty bitty. But the twins are 10 now! They were in some crazy outfits pretending to be fairies. They came dancing down the stairs and filled us all in on their names and what their 'specialty' was. There was a water fairy, flower fairy, and a couple of others. So sweet!

I know these days will get fewer and farther between as time goes by, so I'm trying to enjoy them while I can. These really are sweet times.

One Year Old

My youngest is one year old today! It's so amazing how quickly that first year passes, and yet how it seems to drag on forever while you're in the midst of it.

This boy seemed to take forever to give us that first smile--he was something like 6 or 7 weeks old before we got one. But he hasn't stopped since! He loves his brothers and sisters, and is even starting to warm up to Daddy. Started sitting up at 6 months, then crawled a week or two later. Has been busy working on forming new consonant sounds since then, we're up to 'mama', 'dada', 'baba', and a couple of others that Ican't remember right now. :)

He took his first steps about two weeks ago, and is now taking two or three at a time before dropping to the floor to crawl the rest of the way to where he wants to go. His 7th tooth popped through this week (bottom far left), and he's loving his sippy cup more and more each day.

He's a snuggler and loves to hug and kiss. He'll pucker up and make a kissy sound, too, which is just adorable! He waved bye-bye to some friends last night, which we've been working on for a while, but his timing has been off--you know, he'll wait until everyone has actually left, then wave. :)

Having eight kids has been a challenge, but I've been pleasantly surprised at how everyone just fits in our family. The Lord has put personalities and temperaments together in such a way that every day has it's good moments and bad, conflicts and cooperation, but we all love each other and are happy to have such a wonderful family.

We're so thankful to have this happy little guy as a part of that. He is such a joy to all of us!

Catching Up

Did June happen? It's all such a blur...

There's so much to tell--there were many times when I thought of ideas for blog posts, took pictures, then proceeded to get distracted by the next thing and missed the chance.

I went to the Farmer's Market!



I updated my Ravelry page!

So many things on the needles right now, and all I can think about is what I want to cast on next.

Kids were crazy over the weekend. It might have had something to do with an abundance of sugary snacks and a deficiency of sleep. Also, the full moon. And fireworks. Just sayin'.


homemade patriotic parade, copyright 2009 by mycrazykids

I started using our cloth diapers again. The Happy Housewife had a post about CD'ing today, actually. A couple of weeks ago, we were running low on disposables that had been given to us, and I just decided I wasn't going to buy any more, at least for a while. I knitted up a couple of cute wool soakers and am really happy with how they're working. There's lots of info out there on the benefits of wool, so I'm not going to go into it here. I'm sure you can find some of it at Cloth Diaper Nation. I'm not a member there, but it was recommended by an acquaintance, and looks very comprehensive. So, I just use plain ol' chinese prefolds with a snappi, under the soaker or a homemade polar fleece cover I made a couple years ago. They work really well, too.

The weather cooled off this evening, bringing a shower along with it. After the very warm and humid afternoon, it was quite a relief. The short rain didn't deter my dh from taking off to go 'tubing on the lake with his buddies, though, leaving me a bit disappointed to not have a family dinner together. I cooked a ham in the crockpot on my back porch this afternoon, and whipped up some mashed potatoes and gravy, and some corn to go with it. He didn't know what he missed.

I think I'm gonna go warm up some bread and gravy right now. Sometimes, life is just better with gravy.

Another busy week....

Just when I thought things were going to normalize for a while, one of the twins burned her hand pretty badly last Saturday night. We were at a friend's house, and they had built a small fire in their firepit so the kids could roast marshmallows for s'mores after supper. You know it--kids + fire = emergency room visit. So we've been cleaning and dressing her burn twice a day, plus keeping on top of her pain with meds every 4-6 hours. She's been a trouper through it all, and is learning to do lots of things left-handed because of it (of course she'd have to injure her dominant hand).

Today was a great day, even though it was rainy off and on this morning. Dh took half the kids for a work day at church camp, so I kept the laundry going, fed the rest of the kids leftovers, and KNIT! I started up a Liesl sweater for my youngest dd. I started up a plain-jane stockinette sweater for her a while back, but quickly realized I just didn't have enough yarn for that. I thought something lacy would make the yarn go farther and I've loved this pattern for sooooo long. There were a couple of child-sized projects done on Ravelry, so I went for it. I'm knitting the smallest size on 7.0mm needles (KP options), using Knit Picks Swish Worsted in Bubblegum. It's a discontinued color, so I hope I've got enough.

I've been bitten by the startitis bug lately. I'm usually pretty monogamous--finished objects really keep me motivated. Recently, however, I've just been frustrated at how little progress I'd been making on my plain vanilla socks. There's just so much more I want to knit! Inspired by the Knitmore Girls' Jasmin (who claims to have 100+ WIPs), I decided that since knitting is my hobby and I do it for the entertainment/enjoyment, I may as well be ENJOYING my projects--whether I've got 1 or 10 or 100. So I cast on for two other pairs of socks as well as this sweater. I've also got a lace shawl on the needles, but it doesn't see much action lately due to lack of brain bandwidth.

Signing off to enjoy my kids before bedtime--they've actually been pleasant to be around this week! (it was a crazy full moon last week, let me tell ya--whew!)