The Week of Improvements Continues...#5

So before I get to today's Sanity Saver Update I'd like to know what tender mercies have you seen in your life today?  I've been noticing the hand of the Lord a lot more since my little writing experiment the other night.  He's always been there and I've always loved seeing the little things He does for me because He loves ME but I recognize it more quickly lately.  It's wonderful.

A long time ago I blogged about how we saved time and money by buying big rolls of ground beef and cooking half as basic meat for spaghetti, strogenoff, chili etc...and the other half as taco meat.  Well that was super great until ground beef got super expensive.

Oddly enough our family has now switched over to ground turkey (from Aldi it's $1.69/pound, frozen) and most of the time we can't tell a difference.  Whenever I cook the turkey I ALWAYS add beef bullion.  I use the cubes with half the water the instructions call for.  Then I make sure and cook it until ALL the water has cooked out.   Works great in EVERYTHING you use ground beef in. :)  I no longer cook it ahead since it comes frozen but I'm ok with that.   (I do freeze bags of chopped onions and peppers to add at anytime.)

Check out my pinterest board and find some great ideas on make ahead meals and time saver cooking.  I thought I had good ideas....oh pinterest you have ruined me! ;)

Have a great day!
Keep it simple :)

The ULTIMATE Sanity Saver....peace and comfort

Nights around here are challenging to say the least.  Most of the time I do bedtime by myself and I never look forward to it.  I get so overwhelmed and tired with life by about 6:00 I can't help but count down the minutes till 7:00 when the kids can go to bed.  It used to be so easy! I would do our little routine and put them in bed and within about 15 minutes they would finally be asleep.  

Last night was not unlike most nights around here lately.  We started bed time routine at 7:00 and theoretically they should be asleep BY 8:00, right?  WRONG!  9:30 came and there were still 3 children awake!  I heard everything from, "I just need a hug" to "I need to go potty" (4 or 5 times!).   By the time they finally fell asleep I was so exhausted and drained in every kind of way.  I sat down with a spoon and some cookie dough (yes, my dear dear friend brought a sweet gift!) not even thinking about my attempt to be off sugar-sorry Crystal, and began to write in my journal.  This is not normally my solution, well the cookie dough maybe but the journal no.  

I began to make a list of all my struggles for the day.  Everything from kids being difficult, to missing my sweet hubby, to being extremely PMSed (which is probably the root of ALL of this problem!) The list was growing and I didn't like what I was focusing on but I felt like it was very important to write down my heartache.  After making this list I made another page and titled it "Accomplishments for the Day".  This was a little more challenging but I wrote things like: did dishes and cleaned the kitchen! (3x's).  Made meals for the family.  Didn't strangle my children.  The list was a decent length and it made me feel slightly better.  

The real difference came with the next page.  At the top I wrote, "Tender Mercies".  In my religion class last semester we studied the scriptures looking for tender mercies on every page.  I LOVE looking for tender mercies in my life because 1) they are such a good reminder that my Father in Heaven loves ME.  And 2) they help me look for the good.  My list began to rapidly grow.  I had forgotten how many ways I had seen the hand of the Lord during just that day.  After I finished this list I was no longer angry or exhausted, but filled with pure gratitude and a resolve to do better.  A quote from our dear prophet President Thomas S. Monson rang in my ears, (quoting  

Ralph Waldo Emerson

) "

Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow."  With the Lord's help I could have courage to try again tomorrow.

Try again I did!  I made a list of promptings from the Spirit on how I could do better. I moved the TV into a closet and replaced it with a beautiful picture of our Savior Jesus Christ.  I deleted the bookmarks on the computer where the kids find their favorite shows.  I made a plan to get up before the kids to pray and read my scriptures and put on my spiritual armor before the battle with the children began.  So far the day is good, not perfect, but I have a different attitude.  

I was glancing at pinterest this morning and I found this talk from 1997 by an Apostle in our church on motherhood.  Oh if I ever needed comfort  and advice on this topic this was the time.  This talk will be a cherished jewel in my hope chest of loving words. (and who said pinterest was a waste of time?! pshhh)   I LOVE this so much. Everyone with children should watch this, ESPECIALLY young mothers!  Enjoy! :)

"Because She is a Mother" -Click here

PS. What are some ways you have seen "tender mercies" today?  Leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you!

Improvement #4:

I agree with my little girl here, the thought of laundry makes me tired. :(  

BUT  I have improved from 3 years ago, even with adding another kid into the mix!!  Here's what works for us:

If it's not dirty don't wash it!  

I know that sounds like a "duh!" but when you have 4 kids it makes all the difference.  Unless they've been rolling in the mud MOST of the time the boys jeans can be worn a couple of times before I wash them. PJ's can be worn multiple nights in a row (unless someone pees the bed or spill oatmeal on them in the morning....)  And most of all KEEP THE KIDS OUT OF THE CLOTHES!  I can't stand it when they change clothes all day long!  They have plenty of dress ups to cure this need to change clothes.

Don't Over Do It!

With four kids it's very easy to be overwhelmed with LOTS of clothes.  We have so many wonderful people in our lives that fill our dressers with cute new clothes, hand-me-downs, and "things I just picked up".  We are so grateful for their thoughtfulness!  However, what there's lots of love like this there could be lots of piles of clothes (and in our case mostly not dirty!).  So in our house we try to only keep out enough outfits for 10 days and 2 pairs of church clothes for everyone.  Each kids typically has 3 pairs of shoes, one for church, one tennis shoe, and one sandal/flip-flop.  This method has worked amazingly well!!!  The hardest part is deciding which cute clothes to keep out at the time.  Just remember to rotate your clothes or donate them to your favorite thrift store/charity.

Fold it right out of the dryer.

My poor hubby is such a good sport.  He hates to have wrinkled clothes so as soon as they come out of the dryer and typically get moved to the couch he lays them neatly in a flat pile to be hung up.  When he has time he folds and hangs them up too.  I've tried to get in the habit of folding right out of the dryer but sometimes things get in the way...

Movie Night!

A lot of the time I spend just one day and wash the clothes all in one day (and then declare that we are never wearing clothes ever again!).  I don't get to watch movies by myself very often so I'll put the kids to bed and watch a movie while I fold the clothes.  I love to watch movies while my hands are busy.

MY VERY FAVORITE METHOD!
This is my VERY favorite way to fold clothes.  LET THE KIDS DO IT!  My 5 and 4 year old boys are really good at putting the clothes on hangers.  They put away all their own laundry which for some reason is my least favorite thing.   For the towels I have a game that for every towel/rag they fold they get a penny!  ooooooh they love it, even my 3 year old can do this!

I will post more about this next week but for today I'll just say that I'm a HUGE fan of having the kids help with the cleaning!  After all, it's mostly their mess!  One night I stood in my kitchen and could see the dining room, living Room, office, and playroom from where I stood....all I could see was a cluttered mess.  It wasn't the worst it's ever been but at 10 o'clock at night when I'm exhausted it was worse than I was willing to tackle.  It probably would have taken me about 30 minutes to clean up by myself but I just couldn't bring my self to do it.
Then a beautiful thought came to my mind, "let the kids do it!"  We had already been working on this with the kids (and I'll explain HOW later...ooo....intregue!) so I went to bed and would let them do it in the morning.  The next morning clean up still took 30 minutes but I didn't have to do it!!  As any mom will tell you, that's HUGE! :)  I was able to do the other things I needed to get done and still have a clean house.

Have a great day!
Keep it simple :)