Cambo

"Wait...wait," (Cam adjusting his bow) "Okay, shoot." 

Getty's Birthday Balloon Launch

(got the idea from nienie)

Vacation Evidence Recovered, Part II: Mia's Camera

Vacation Evidence Recovered! (MK's Camera)

Just look at that roller coaster!!! It's horrifying just walking 

near it.

"I woke up a changed man..."

In the middle of Cam's haircut, he started jerking unpredictably. "Cam, quit fidgeting." Another nod and a jerk. "Are you tired?" 

"No." 

His eyes are half-closed. 

"Hmmmmm...   Rob? Could you come hold his head straight, so I can finish him 

off?" 

He did, and I did. And Cam slept sitting straight up, chin resting in Daddy's palm while Rob and I sniggered (word of the day). 

The Ensemble

Getty finally decided it was time to use his clothing budget and go shopping. Walking past this grey-striped button-down shirt, he did a double-take. A must-have. Black jeans, a batman tee, and a Vans-inspired belt buckle completed the look. He knows what he's doing.  

Family Vacation DELETED

The Evans family returns from our one and only total family vacation (all six kids) and find that all photographic evidence has been erased, courtesy of Getty and his video exploits (running around Jackson's yard).

 

Years from now we'll say to each other, "Seems like we went somewhere that summer...." We'll forget that within two minutes of our arrival in St. George, my toenail got ripped off and Elle blistered the bottom of her feet on the 120-degree cement outside our friends' house. We'll forget Buffalo Bill's rollercoaster ride with the Barstow veteran-rider and the old man's suggestion that Michael Jackson should have been burned alive in the town square. We'll forget the cute little beach house we rented in Laguna with its surfboards and sailboats, teen-territory den converted garage, wicker furniture, and hibiscus-flowered bedding (comfy!). We'll forget that Knott's is better than Disneyland any day! Major thrill rides and no lines (I thought I had an iron stomach until I rode 4 of those rides within the first half-hour....) Cy was an inch too short for the big rides, so he hung with Cam on the mini-rollercoaster. I think they rode it fourteen times in a row. And we ran into the Burke's! ("It's a small world after all....") We'll forget how Getty surfed like a pro the day he learned, and MK and Mia begged to surf again the next morning. We'll forget sushi with our surf instructors. We'll forget steak-on-the-stone and Clint's movie-scene tear-jerker monologue with the piano bar "Moon River" playing in the background—ha ha ha ha. I couldn't keep a straight face. And I tried. Hard. We'll forget my swollen lips, an apparent allergic reaction to our dinner at Chili's (was it the chips and salsa, the Mesquite chicken salad, the fajitas, the Southwestern eggroll, the french fries, or the molten chocolate cake and ice cream?... I was hungry). 

Or, maybe we won't forget. No full-color photos, but there's always black-and-white text, right? Then again, how can you be sure I didn't just make this all up?....

Do Whatever

Getty came up with a schedule for his and Connor’s Friday night sleepover. Here goes:

Sleepover

Call Connor

Go to Lake (knee-deep muddy run-off in the neighborhood)

Go to consert (no idea)

Play with Erik

Take shower (remember the muddy part?—********s on)

Play in forest with Cy and Cam

Ride Bikes to Connor’s

Whatch a movie whith food

Come home Barefoot

Play arownd

Bath with Bubbles (********s on—yep, they’re muddy again)

Stay up till 4:30 (a.m.)

  

Tomarow

Whake up

Saterday chors

Whatch TV

Eat

Call Ren maby

Go to Junkson (local convenience store)

Lolly pop

Swiming

Do what ever

Ya ya

Fabulous

Getty might need new jammies.

Maintenance: Key to Long-term Success

Maintenance is vital. Without this principle in practice, you'll be back where you started in a matter of weeks or months. All of your hard work will have gone to waste.

Tips to Maintain Organization:

SLOW the FLOW: One thing in, one thing out. If you buy a shirt, donate a shirt. Don't keep accumulating. Teach your family this principle.

Put the Roof on the Day before going to bed:

1. Straighten the house

2. Plan the next day

3. Know what you will cook for dinner tomorrow

4. Sort laundry and start one batch

That's all I've got for the series. Hope you are knee-deep in trash and donations! (It gets worse before it gets better.) MUCH better!

Stem the Tide

Simplify your life by stemming the tide of junk mail, telephone solicitation, and door-to-door sales....

Unwanted junk mail. Request your name be removed from mailing lists and don’t fill out entry forms, etc.

Unwanted phone solicitors. Request they remove you from their calling list. Better still, write to:

Telephone Preference Service

c/o Direct Marketing Association

P.O. Box 9014

Farmingdale, NY 11735-9014

Request that your name and phone numbers be removed from telephone solicitation lists.

Call 1-888-382-1222 from every phone (home, business, & cell phones) you do not want telemarketers to reach you on. 

Door-to-door Solicitors: apply 1” vinyl lettering, “No solicitors,” to entrance. Costs about a dollar. Salespeople may still knock, but this way I feel more comfortable sending them on their way. After all, they've been warned.

Soon to follow—last post in the series: How to Maintain Organization. 

Favorite Tips for Getting Organized

Get Organized

Set up a kitchen desk or other central location as an information and supply center. Include a phone, phone lists and phone books, a calendar hung prominently, a canister full of pens and pencils, scissors, pad of paper, key hanger, files, calculator, stationery, stamps, “in” and “out” file for mail. —Shari Warner

Get supplies for your home office: Stapler, tape dispenser, three-hole punch, pencil sharpener, tape measure. —Shari Warner

Dry-erase calendar. Post in a central location. This way everyone knows what the schedule is and where everyone went!

Make your own telephone list. Include neighbors, visiting teaching list, kids’ friends, family’s work, doctors, pharmacy, music lessons/sports coaches. Post it by the phone in a central area.

Post a magnetized grocery list pad with pencil on your fridge.

Meals. Double a recipe and freeze one. Cook one day a week. Make 2 recipes and double them for a total of 4 meals. Use the same type of meat for the 2 recipes to simplify the process. Monday through Thursday eat 2 of the meals you prepared that week, then take 2 pre-prepared dinners out of the freezer, and replace them with the other 2 dinners you made that week. Friday: leftovers, Saturday: date night, and Sunday: dinner with extended family or kids cook!

Make things easy to put away. No lids on laundry baskets, for example. If it’s easy to do, your family just might do it.

Keep trash cans in every room, the yard, and the garage.

Kids school work. Special papers can be photographed with the child then tossed. If papers come home with important dates and information, transfer immediately to family calendar or planner. Calendar should be kept next to phone or wherever important papers are kept. —Shari Warner

Use a large envelope for each child’s special school work/papers. Keep anything special or significant in the envelope. At the end of the school year, go through the envelope and decide what to save. Then mark the school year on the envelope and place in a box. When the child leaves home, give him the box.

“Magic Minutes.” Have a “Magic Minutes” session each afternoon before dinner. Assign everyone an area (zone) of the house and for ten minutes work fast and furiously to clean it up.

Laminate an “After-school Checklist” for each child. It might include: put backpack and coat away, do homework, do daily chore, straighten bedroom…. Kids use a dry erase marker to check off each item, so you don’t have to remind (nag) them, and you can easily see what hasn’t been done. When the checklist is done, they can play/have screen time. You can make a Saturday Chore checklist, too. Keep the lists all together by hole-punching the corner and slipping a key ring through it. Put them in a central location, like the kitchen table. 

Color-code bath towels. Each child gets his own towel color. When you’re not sharing towels, you don’t have to wash them after every use (in my book). Bonus: you can tell who left their towel on the bathroom floor. J You can color co-ordinate your towels, too. (One striped green, blue, and white towel; a green towel; a blue towel; a white towel…)

Organize toys in a way kids can understand and follow so they can clean up without supervision. Confine kids’ mess to one area. Toys generally stay in bedroom or playroom.

Toy Basket. When toys make their way into other rooms, give the kids a large “toy basket” with a handle so they can easily carry it around the house and gather their toys. Or, designate a basket that you can dump toys, socks, etc. into throughout the day and have the kids empty it before playing or mealtime.

Garage: buy buckets for sports equipment and gardening tools. Paint an outline for bike storage area. —Shari Warner

Charity Bin in Garage. Buy a large plastic garbage can and keep in your garage for charity.

Next post: Stemming the Tide! (junk mail, telephone solicitors, door-to-door sales)

De-Clutter, Part Deux

De-Cluttering Tips by Shari Warner

Kids rooms. The best rule of thumb is to do your kids’ rooms when they are gone. If they are neat, they will miss what you get rid of, but if they were neat you wouldn’t have to be de-junking their rooms. They won’t miss much if anything. With eight kids and 18 years of motherhood I have tossed very little that was noticed. If your child protests your announcement that you will be cleaning his room, give him a set amount of time to take care of his territory, say two weeks. Tell him that if he does not take care of the cleaning in that period of time, you have the right to clean it for him. I am almost certain you will get the job.

Keep bedrooms simple: just a bed and a dresser. On the bed, just a comforter and fitted sheet for easy-to-make beds.

Counter clutter. Should be non-existent. If junk mail is discarded immediately, there should be little left to clutter counter tops. Find a place for everything and put everything in its place.

Junk drawer: Most of it is junk. Toss it. For the rest, purchase a drawer organizer.

Tupperware-type containers and lids. No lids, warped or melted, get rid of them. Too many? Out they go.

Broken or missing parts to anything—it’s outta here!

Recipe books. If you have book after book that you haven’t used in the past three years, donate them. If you have books with only one recipe you use, cut that one out and add it to a book you use. Clipped out recipes you’ve never tried, out they go.

Small appliances not used in the last three years. If in working condition, donate. If broken, toss.

Fridge. Keep leftovers for two days, then toss.

Next post: Favorite Organizing Tips