Family Job Jars

A few nights ago on Facebook, I gave you guys a sneak peek of something I've been really excited about! My 4-Week Cleaning Schedule is getting a lot of hits lately, leading me to believe I'm not the only one making New Years' Resolutions about having a cleaner house!

This year I decided I really needed to get my kids more involved with cleaning the house. When I think of having my kids help with chores, I think of torture. Seriously. Buuuuuuut.... I've been thinking ahead to when my kids are a little older, and how I imagine they would react when, after 10 years of being exempt from doing chores, they were suddenly expected to do them. I didn't anticipate that going well. So that led me to....

I decided that each Saturday, we would spend an hour on the house. My husband and I could work for a half hour, and the kids could work for 15 minutes, leaving 15 spare minutes for my 3-year-old singing on the potty, someone throwing a tantrum, me accidentally getting sidetracked by an US Weekly, etc. Hopefully that's not just my house. During that time, we would pull sticks from the jar, complete those jobs, and repeat, repeat, repeat for the allotted time frame. Once the sticks are pulled, they go back in the other direction. The next week we pull the jars out again, start with the sticks that are still not done, and go from there.

I was originally going to have us work in one room at a time, but then I remembered that my house is microscopically tiny and we'd be falling all over each other if we tried that. I decided to separate mine into Upstairs and Downstairs and rotate the buckets each week.

So I sat down and made a list of all the chores in the house that needed to be done, separating them by "kid" jobs and "adult" jobs. My kids are 3, 5, and 7, by the way, and the jobs I picked for them will originally need lots of instruction, but hopefully later will be able to be done independently. Much later, in the case of the 3-year-old.You are welcome to download and use my Family Job List as a starting point.

Then I bought some wooden craft sticks and painted them in happy, fun colors that I love.

After fiddling with my camera and mysteriously disabling its focusing ability, I wrote each job on a stick with Sharpie, making sure to keep most of my writing on one end of the stick so it wouldn't be visible when we were choosing sticks. I then filed the extra specks of paint and paper off the edges of the sticks with a nail file.

 And then I put each group into a cute pail from Target's $1 section. I put them with the job side down so that you can't see the job when you're reaching for a stick. They go back in job-side-up when the job is done (which is how you're mostly seeing them in this photo). It would be good to paint one end of the sticks a contrasting color so it's easier to tell the difference. I may do that in the future, but my episode of The Biggest Loser ended and I had nothing else to watch, so I got bored of painting.

And that's it! Today was our first day starting our Job Jars, and they were a huge hit with the kids. My kids are still little enough that it's really fun for them to help. As I was tucking my kids into bed last night, my 5-year-old told me that the job jars were his favorite time of our day, and my 7-year-old told me, "Mom, thanks for letting us pick out of the job jars today. It's your best invention EVER! Well, except for kisses." So I think it'll be a keeper for our family! And it sure was nice to come home to a clean house after our Saturday errands.

I will say, in closing, that the downside of this system is that you don't get every single chore done every week. It's just not a big deal to me, but if it's a big deal to you, you could do all the sticks each week instead of working for a given time period. Or check out my 4-Week Cleaning Schedule, Daily Cleaning Routine, or Pink's Daily Cleaning Checklist for more comprehensive daily/weekly cleaning plans.

Deal Alert!

Tonight I was at Barnes & Noble, and they had some Christmas clearance for 50% off. I got these three books (and there were tons of others) for $4 each, and there were others for $3 each. Not bad for nice hardcover books. The one on the left is like the 10 Little Ladybugs book but with gingerbread men, the one in the middle is a cute pop-up book, and the one on the right is an anthology with some Christmas classics such as A Christmas Carol, The Night Before Christmas, and The Nutcracker, with beautiful and kid-friendly illustrations.

I also got this Good Housekeeping cookie book for $4, mostly because I have fond memories of thumbing through a cookie cookbook of my mom's and drooling over all the pictures!

Our cashier said that these will eventually go down to 75% off and then $1 each, but I'm not over to Barnes & Noble that often, so I just went ahead and bought them.

If anyone does the Christmas tradition of unwrapping and/or reading a Christmas book every night, this would be a great way to add to your collection!

Though, I may be the only one with some straggler Christmas stuff still needing to be put away, making it easy to toss some books for next year into the pile....

What's for Dinner? January 2013

Here's what we've got on tap for January. We don't really use recipes, but if there's something in particular you're interested in, let me know and I'll make it a future blog post.

Monday (Kids' Choice): spaghetti, crepes, pizza, hot dogs
Tuesday (Soup): chili, jambalaya, baked potato soup, posole, chicken lentil soup
Wednesday (International): Cajun hash, curry chicken, sweet and sour chicken, gyros
Thursday (Family Favorites): BBQ pulled pork, sloppy joes, hamburgers, meatball sandwiches, tortellini
Friday (Breakfast for Dinner/Babysitting Swap): hardboiled eggs/toast/applesauce, German pancakes

 Read about how we menu plan by the month.

What's for Dinner? December

A little while ago, I posted about how we menu plan by the month. Basically we choose a "theme" for each night of the week and then fill out four of each thing. I thought I would start posting our monthly menus. Unfortunately, I don't have recipes, but if it gives you some new and different ideas, allrecipes.com is always a good place to look for recipes.

December was kind of a strange month for us, with the holidays and all, but I thought I'd post what we planned anyway, even though we only ended up with three weeks' worth.

Monday (Kids' Choice): pulled pork sandwiches, pizza rolls, pretzel dogs
Tuesday (Soup): black bean soup, pumpkin soup, tomato soup
Wednesday (International): chicken stir-fry with fried rice, chicken picatta, enchilasagna
Thursday (Family Favorites): chicken sandwiches, jambalaya, pork chops
Friday (Breakfast for Dinner/Babysitting Swap): pancakes and scrambled eggs

Recent Reads

Here's what I've been reading to start off 2013. I don't really enjoy recapping the plot of the books I read, so you'll just have to click through to Goodreads to read about the plot, and here you get to find out all my ever-so-interesting feelings about what I'm reading!

*Flowertown by S.G. Redling
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I thought this would be a typical YA dystopian book, which I enjoy if I'm in the mood for it, but it was a little on the graphic side for me with the language. I don't mind swearing in a book, but this seemed gratuitous, like she was trying really hard to establish a "bad girl" protagonist. The storyline was okay, and I wanted to finish it to find out how it ended, but I just wasn't super emotionally invested in the characters.

View all my reviews

*When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was an easy, quick Young Adult read - got through it in about two hours. I loved the characters and the plot, and never could have put it down. Enjoyed the realistic writing about middle school-aged kids, their problems and outlook on life, particularly the main character Miranda, as she tries to figure out her friends, family, and crush - while simultaneously trying to solve the mystery of some secret notes someone has been leaving for her.

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*A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I fell in love with the three female characters in this book, and their relationships with each other. I'm such a sucker for books that involve a changing point-of-view, and the relationships between mothers and daughters. I thought the youngest of the three, Mosey, was written as a very true-to-life teenager, and I loved her exchanges with her mother and her grandmother. One of the characters narrating the story has had a stroke, and I found her chapters so interesting, to see how the author had her describe events and her life, even as she's had this "brain event." I was actually enjoying the book so much I toyed with giving it 5 stars, even though I feel stupid doing that for "chick lit" books, but then some of the events at the end got a little ridiculous, in my opinion. But a solid 4-stars. Not a life-changer, but I enjoyed every minute of reading it while snuggled up on the couch.

View all my reviews
  *Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Hmmmmm.... not sure how to even rate or review this book. I didn't like the beginning, and I didn't like the end, but there must have been something to it, since I blew through all 470 pages of it in one night - holding my breath, waiting to see how it ended. The portrayal of high school life was so accurate that it almost made me dislike the book - I felt only vaguely interested, like I was hanging out in a cafeteria watching the action. The middle of the book did get more interesting, and of course I had to hang in there until the end. But even though I devoured it, I can't say that I'd recommend it to anyone. Maybe a teenager? I'm reading all these other glowing reviews and just feel like I'm missing something....

View all my reviews The Skinny Rules: The Simple, Nonnegotiable Principles for Getting to Thin by Greg Critser
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. While there's no way I'm willing to go as extreme as the rules he recommends (No potatoes - ever! No fast food - ever!), he had some great points about diet and nutrition, and cited some interesting studies. There was also a large recipe section in the back of the book, and the recipes look fairly simple, tasty, and nutritious! Will definitely be incorporating some of his rules into my diet as guidelines, but I'm just not willing to eat as "clean" as he recommends (though I don't doubt my body would be a lot more fit if I did!).

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Making the Most of Small Spaces: Kids' Rooms

Most of my organizational posts on this blog have to do with fitting into a small space, for a good reason. Though this is our fourth home in our marriage, all of them have ranged between 1100-1200 square feet. That was an excellent size for newlyweds, but fitting into a home that size with babies, toddlers, and big kids has required some creative thinking.

Since I'm a teacher, I get two weeks off around Christmas, and I love to spend at least part of that time purging and organizing. I find if I do it once around Christmas, and once at the start of summer, things stay pretty under control. So the past few days I've been working in my kids' rooms with them, getting rid of some things, organizing others, making room for new toys, etc.

Since their rooms are clean (for this short moment!), I thought I'd take some pictures of some of the ways we maximize space. For the record, I have 3 kids, ages 7, 5, and 3. The two younger ones share a room.

First, we use Command Hooks on the inside of the kids' closet doors for them to hang hats, sweatshirts, and jackets. This way they can quickly run upstairs and grab a jacket when we're heading out the door, and I don't have to come up with them to get something down - so tricky.

 Second, we use every available square inch of their closet space. On the right, in the banker's box, is my son's art bin. We need to get another one to go on top of that for my youngest, who is starting to collect the bottomless pit of precious pictures and paperwork. The kids have that space to fill with whatever they want, and when it gets full, they have to purge.

On the left, the top blue tote is for clothes that are outgrown. Keeping a tote for outgrown clothes close by makes it so that whenever I notice something isn't fitting, I can just toss it in there, without waiting to do a big clothing round-up.

On the bottom left, in the clear tote, is our book bin. Each of the kids has a small bin of books they choose from to read at night, and when they need a change, we pull out the big bin of books and they can switch some out.

 Also in my kids' closet is this bookcase, where we keep toys. The bottom bin for each kid is their books, and the top two shelves are their toy bins. Any toys above and beyond that amount are kept in storage, and we let the kids rotate them periodically.

Another thing I try to do is to maximize every bit of under-the-bed storage space. From left to right: my son's pajamas, my daughter's pajamas, Legos, Kinex, and dress-ups. I especially love the shallow storage for the Legos, because it prevents my son from needing to dump out a big toy box to find what he wants. The tote is long and shallow, which makes it easy for him to look for the pieces he needs.

I got these cute little bins at Target last night in the Dollar Spot, and I'm heading back tomorrow to get about a dozen more. They're about 8 inches square, so they hold a decent amount. I let each of the kids have one for a "junk box" for little odds & ends and special things that don't have another place. When the box gets full, we'll go through it. The kids are loving labeling everything with my new label maker I got for Christmas!

So that's what we've been doing to make some space in our tiny space!

Gretchen Rubin talks New Year's Resolutions

One of my Facebook friends posted this great article called "5 Questions to Ask Yourself About Your New Year's Resolutions," by Gretchen Rubin, the author of The Happiness Project. I feel like it's hard to do a fresh take on making great resolutions, but I love her approach.

Here's her first question:
"1. Ask: “What would make me happier?” It might mean more of something good —more fun with friends, more time for a hobby. It might be less of something bad—less yelling at your kids, less nagging of your spouse. It might be fixing something that doesn’t feel right—more time spent volunteering, a move. Or maybe you need to get an atmosphere of growth in your life by learning something new, helping someone, or fixing something that isn’t working properly." (credit: Gretchen Rubin)

The rest of her questions are great too - but click over to the article and read them in Gretchen's own words. I thought I had my New Year's Resolutions all figured out, but her questions got me thinking....