A Week's Wardrobe

Mornings can be tricky when we are trying to get ourselves out the door in a rush.  It never helps when my girls don't know what to wear or can't find what they want to wear.   They are also young enough to make choices like a skirt and short sleeve shirt for 10 degree weather.  We tried taking time each night to lay out their outfits for the next day, but we are not consistent.  Bedtime is too hectic.  Here is our solution: Days of the Week Outfit Organizer Tags.  

I stumbled on these cute tags designed by Amy Locurto over at www.livinglocurto.com.  She provides them as a free download and are available in bold or pastel colors.  (As a side note she has a lot of cute free downloads for every occasion; birthdays, baby, holidays etc.  Its worth taking a peak.)  

I printed mine on cardstock, cut them out and laminated them for greater durability.  My five year old got super excited about this new routine.  Amy said she and her son would make funny  poses as they laid the clothes out the night before.  Very cute!

Family Fun also has the same idea if you want to make your own.  This would be fun for your older child to design and create her own out of felt.  It may even give her a greater sense of ownership in the dressing process.

Donate your used toys

I don't know about you, but I've just spent the last week unpacking from holiday travels, taking down Christmas decorations and looking for the ideal place for those new toys.  This is the ideal time to hide away some of the unused toys for a rainy day and to get rid of others you are simply done with.  For the past few weeks, I've been throwing items - clothes, toys, household goods - into a box in my laundry room with the intent of dropping it off at Goodwill.  Then I got to thinking, maybe there is something more specific I can do with these good items.

With a little searching I found a list of places and organizations in my area that could really use my donations.  Here are some tips from Jennifer Swanson an organizing consultant and speaker here in MN.

For used toys, try contacting the following in your local area...

• Day care facilities, church nurseries, preschools or early childhood family education programs
  
• Children's hospitals
  
• Police, sheriff, fire and emergency medical services (EMS) departments often need stuffed animals on hand to comfort children in frightening situations. Stuffed Animals For Emergencies (SAFE) accepts stuffed animals in their work with these and other emergency organizations.
  
• Women's, children's or homeless shelters, or programs such as Project Night Night
  
• Refugee or other social service agencies
  
• Teen mom support programs
  
• Animal shelters
  
• Donation centers like Goodwill, Salvation Army, Lupus or Courage Center, VVA, etc. Some will even come to your home and pick up your items.
  

...and beyond...

• Missionaries traveling to impoverished areas
  
• Emergency (war, famine, epidemics or other disasters) relief programs
  
• Children in Iraq
  

Other options to consider:

• Sell your toys locally at a garage sale (yours or someone else's) or craigslist.org or worldwide on ebay.com. (Hint: if you choose well-made toys in the first place, you'll discover that they have good resale value). A warning about garage sales: these take a lot of time and you'll still have toys leftover.
  
• Send them to relatives' or friends' homes so children have toys available when visiting.
  
• Swap with other families.

In many cases, it's worth a try to post your toy(s) on Freecycle with an honest assessment of the condition. You're bound to find someone willing to make the repair if it means getting an otherwise great toy for free.

This seems like a good start to an organized, clutter free 2009!

PearBudget

Who hasn't been thinking about money these days? We all have, I'm sure -- its hard to get away from money talk.

I don't consider myself a financial guru, but I do believe in the simple financial values of saving, budgeting and living within my means. As the wife of a medical resident, these values have been extremely important to our livelihood. When I was first married it was easy to live simply and stay within our income, but as kids, a house, traveling, education, and rising gas prices started to enter the picture, budgeting became essential.

At first, we struggled to maintain our finances and quickly became frustrated with some well known budgeting software. They were too complex, with too many options and categories. Our efforts to stay on top of the budget were mediocre at best.

After reading an article about PearBudget in Popular Science Magazine a couple of years back, we decided to give it a try. We love it and found this to be a budgeting tool we could stick to. PearBudget is what it claims to be, "really simple budgeting." In the beginning, PearBudget was a spreadsheet you downloaded to your computer. Now PearBudget is available online for a minimal fee of $3 a month. You can still download the spreadsheet for free if you are super cheap like me.

Here are my favorite features:

1) It's very flexible.

2) I make my own categories, a lot or just a few, with the names I choose.

3) I can see how much I need to budget each month for yearly expenses like Christmas or traveling.

4)It's user friendly; hey I can use it.

So if you are looking for something to sort out your finances that is simple and virtually free, try PearBudget and put your mind at ease about your finances.

Mommy's School Supplies

   

So I'm officially old. I don't feel older on my own birthdays, rather I feel the aging every time one of my kids blows out their candles, and every time they reach a new milestone. I'm developing a new wrinkle this week in preparation for my first day of school. That is, my first child's first day.

Although the preparation for it has been fun, I think I may be the only one crying on the first day (my little one would drive herself to school if she could). Anyway, to make the blow a little easier on myself, I've found what I can only call my "Mommy School Supplies." These would be things you won't find on the list from the school, but Mom feels so good to have! Enjoy back to school--for all of us!

Citrus Picks "Mommy School Supplies"

1. Boden Clothing

2. Munchler lunch bags

3. Mabel's Labels

4. Cupcake Courier

5. "Lice Free Zone" products

6. Cheryl & Co. 3 words for you: best. cookies. ever. Why make an after-school snack yourself when these taste soo-o good?

Mabel's Labels

Over the years I have tried so many techniques to keep things labeled in our house. Permanent markers usually ended up labeling Tupperware, address labels were used to keep our family's name on books, and even masking tape and a pen have been used to label sippy cups when we have a baby sitter. Unfortunately, the permanent marker fades, the address labels get peeled off, and the masking tape is really only a temporary solution-especially with my 2 year old, who loves to peel stickers and tape off of anything.

Mabel's Labels have solved my labeling problems. Seriously. These are the most amazing little labels I have found. The Skinny-Mini and Sticky Labels can be applied to any Tupperware, sippy-cup, or other dish and they will not come off. Even in the dishwasher. Even in the microwave. Amazing. We have been washing our labeled sippy cups for the past 2 months and they show no signs of wear. You can also use the Skinny-Mini/Sticky-Labels to label non-dish items like books, school supplies, toys- pretty much any hard surface item. I love that these can be personalized- you get to choose a color, symbol, and up to 20 characters of lettering.
Shoes. Ever tried to label them? These are tough to label discreetly. In our house we have dance shoes and winter boots that especially need labeling. I have never used the shoe labels, but am about to give them a try. These labels fit right on the inside of the shoe and stay put.
I LOVE this idea. Tag-mates are a tag that you place on your clothing tag that can withstand the washer and the dryer. No iron required to make it stick. Just place it on. Love it. Perfect for clothing items you send to school with your child (like winter hats, gloves, scarves, etc). Chances are these items will have a tag that you can affix this label to.
Bag Tags. Perfect for your back-to-school child. Great for backpacks, lunch bags, even a water container if it has a canteen top to string the chain through.

Mabel's Labels also creates a myriad of other labeling products. I love their Canisters/Spice labels. If your child has allergies, you can use their Allergy Alerts to label snack containers, and sippy cups as an extra reminder to caregivers.

I am absolutely loving using these labels. If I have any complaint, it would be that they are very hard to remove. That is also what I love about them, so I guess that isn't a very good complaint. Be aware that it will be very difficult to remove these labels if you chose to sell/donate any of your labeled items later on. I have read a few reviews that have said that the shoe labels were not impossible to remove. I am thinking any of these stickers you put on a sippy cup would be, though. So, plan ahead. If you are thinking more than one child in your family might end up using that sippy cup or hat or sweater or whatever it may be, I would probably choose to put your last name on the label instead of the name of your individual child.

Currently, Mabel's Labels are only available on their official website: www.mabel.ca

Who would like to try out some Mabel's Labels??!? One lucky citrus reader will win an ultimate back-to-school combo pack. How great is that? This pack includes 40 Skinny-Minis, 50 Tag-Mates, 16 Shoe Labels, and 2 Bag Tags- a $39 value. Perfect for all the labeling you will be doing as the school year starts! Enter by leaving a comment on this post by midnight September 2nd. Winner will be announced on the morning of September 3rd. Please check back to see if you have won. Shipping to Continental US and Canada only. Good luck!