Live Chat!

Join us for a live chat at The Motherhood on Thursday, January 26th at 1:00PM EST to discuss disciplining without nagging!  Amy McCready, author of If I Have to Tell You One More Time, will be teaching us the strategies to get kids to listen without yelling, nagging, or complaining.  http://bit.ly/zymE1y

Become the COO of Your Home

By Bobbie Friedman of Simplified by Bobbie

Each new year is an opportunity for a fresh start; a chance to make your life better. Which is why now is the perfect time to become the COO of your home.  The CO-what?  The COO – Chief Organizing Officer!  As moms, wives, and even just as women we typically have the very BIG and important job of running our households (day in and day out).  So, why not have the title to go along with it?!

But, I don’t want you to just have the title… I want you to live up to it.  And here’s how you’re going to do it:  run your home like a business that’s been infused with order and lots of love.  Sound silly? Well, think about why big businesses are successful.  They have structure, plans, organization, and the dedication to make it work.  I have a feeling that you already have the dedication part which stems from love; so I’m going to show you how to put the rest into place.

Create a Business Plan: this is the backbone of a company. It’s like the road map for how the business is going to run. Your equivalent to this is a Home Management Binder.  An all inclusive binder that holds all of your important contacts, household, financial, medical, and personal information. If anyone in your home needs to know something – this is where they find it. If there is an emergency, this is where you go. I could write an entire article just on creating a home management binder! If you decide to make your own, you can find a template on the Tips & Resources page of my website. (You’ll notice that mine is a no frills version. You can get as pretty and detailed as you care for, but like everything I do I tried to keep it as simple as possible!)

Set Hours of Operation:  the big point I want to make here is that structure and routine are important parts of managing a household (or business). Make certain that you:

• keep a basic routine for the recurring chores & tasks you do,
• write everything down in your planner,
• make time for yourself (even OSHA requires break and lunch time), and
• “close down” in the evening and allow yourself time to rejuvenate and refresh.

Act like a CFO: the CFO is the Chief Financial Officer… in short he/she is the director of finances. You can imagine why this is incredibly important in a business setting, but it’s absolutely crucial to running your household smoothly as well. When your finances are not in order it creates stress; and there is no doubt that this stress will take a toll on you and affect every aspect of your life and home. Here are some of the financial basics you should have in place:

• create a budget (and stick to it),
• track your spending,
• balance your checkbook frequently,
• pay your bills on time (or early),
• keep your financial records organized, and
• set money aside for both savings and for fun.

Let’s face it, your family and home are more important than any Fortune 500 company… but when you combine their tactics and your dedication, your household is sure to become Simplified. AND you will be the proud COO of your home too!

Bobbie Friedman is a Professional Organizer, Home Management Consultant, and the owner of Simplified by Bobbie located in Pennsylvania.  She is dedicated to helping individuals and families simplify their lives!  Through personalized organizing services, hands-on help, and knowledgeable guidance she’ll help you establish effective ways to manage your schedule and home; turning CoMpLiCaTeD into Simplified.

Visit www.simplifiedbybobbie.com to learn more, view before & after photos, and read helpful organizing tips.  Contact Bobbie for your FREE phone consultation, and make your space & time work for you

Cold Weather, Warm Crafts

By Beth Engelman and Jenna Riggs of Mommy on a Shoestring

Weather too cold to play outside? Keep your kidswarm and cosy with these memeory making activities and crafts.

Family Scrapbook

You will need: Photos, paper, felt, stickers, magazines markers and anything “crafty” you have lying around the house.

Instructions:

Have your kids design their own scrapbook pages, which you can then assemble into a book. It is a perfect multi-age activity because the younger kids can color and glue while the older kids can do the “collage” thing by looking through magazines for cool letters and words. At the end of the day you can bind the pages with a hole punch stick in a binder for more scrap booking fun in the future.

DIY Snow Globes

You will need: Clear plastic bottle, 2 photos , Light corn syrup, Clear packing tape, and glitter

Instructions:

1. Make sure all labels are removed from bottle. Use warm soapy water or Goo Gone if necessary.
2. Crop your pictures, so they are about ½ inch shorter than your bottle.
3. Place your pictures back to back, making sure they are exactly the same size.
4. Waterproof your photos by completely covering both pictures (which are still back to back) with clear packing tape.
5. Roll your waterproof photos into a tube and plop them into the bottle.
6. Fill the bottle with a mixture of ½ water and ½ corn syrup.
7. Add glitter and sequins.
8. Close the lid and shake.

Block Photo Puzzle

Not only does this 6-sided photo puzzle provide hours of family fun, but it’s also a great way to reuse favorite family photos.

You will need:

9 – Wooden Blocks (I recommend using either old alphabet blocks or a wooden block puzzle)

6 – 8 x 10 Photograph Prints (colored copies work equally as well)

Ruler

Scissors or X-Acto knife

Mod Podge and Paintbrush

Directions:

1. Arrange blocks in a square and measure the length and width of the square.
2. Measure and cut print to the exact same size as the 9-block square.
3. Arrange blocks in a square on top of the print. Position blocks so they’re lined up neatly and as close together as possible.
4. Trace the outline of each block onto the print and carefully cut out using scissors or an X-acto knife.
5. Use a small paintbrush and Mod Podge to adhere the print pieces to the blocks.
6. Wait several hours until the glue is completely dry and then seal with a final layer of Mod Podge.
7. Repeat this process until your have covered all 6 sides of the blocks with different photographs.

Thank you to the creative folks at www.photojojo.com for sharing the snowglobe and photo block ideas!   Be sure to check out their website for more fun photo ideas.

Jenna Riggs and Beth Engelman are the creative talents and owners of Mommy on a Shoestring, a website and weekly radio show chock full of ideas on how families can live creatively and large on a small budget.

5 Tips for When Mommy Has To Travel

By Melanie Moore of Only a Breath

Many jobs, like mine, require mothers to take occasional business trips. These trips may cause anxiety in both children and parents. Normal routines become disrupted and children often feel very sad while mommy is away from home. However, Mom, don’t despair! There are several things you can do to make these times easier on everyone in your family!

Plan Ahead!

It is essential to plan ahead and ensure that all necessary school and appointment drop-offs, pickups, and childcare is arranged. If your family’s schedule is complicated with multiple appointments, you may even want to consider creating a “master plan” that identifies all responsible parties for drop-offs and pick-ups throughout the entire length of your trip.

Talk to Your Children Often

Children love to know that Mommy is thinking of them. Before your trip, explain the length of your trip, the purpose (so they don’t imagine you sneaking off to Disney World!), and how often you expect to be able to call them. Then, be sure to make every effort to call each day just to reassure your children that you are thinking of them.

Plan a Special Surprise

My children love to have a special surprise to look forward to when I come home from trips. This can either be a little souvenir from where my trip adventure took me or it can be a special privilege when I come home. For example, my oldest son loves to have “movie night” and sleep on the sofa together when I come home from trips.

Thank Your Spouse

My husband travels frequently with his job so I know first-hand how difficult it is to manage schoolwork, home responsibilities, and my own job duties — alone. It means the world to me when he takes the time to thank me and let me know he appreciates everything I do while he is away. Please remember to do the same for your spouse and everyone who helps to step in the gap while you are away!

Enjoy Your Time Away!

Of course you are going to miss your husband and children, but since you are going to have to be gone anyway…. Enjoy yourself! Try to enjoy the opportunity to do things you don’t normally get to do at home — like sleep all night, eat in restaurants, or take super-long showers with no little knocks on the door! You will come home to your family refreshed and ready to get back to Mommy Life!

Melanie writes at “Only A Breath” about life as a small-town, southern, girly-girl mommy of two rough and rowdy little boys. She is so thankful for a wonderful, hard-working husband who makes her laugh and is a wonderful daddy. She works full-time as an industrial software developer (“computer geek”) and offers practical tips and encouragement for moms who work outside the home. Her heart’s desire is to encourage others to celebrate life and cherish each breath of this journey.

Failure Hurts

I failed!  Ugh…that hurts, but it is the truth.  Technically it wasn’t just me who failed, they are family goals after all and all of us have ownership in completing them.    But as the designated household manager, I feel like I let us down and should have done a better job of helping us stay on track.  Putting the blame aside, here are the main reasons I we didn’t reach our goals in 2011.  Hopefully you can learn from my our mistakes….

Overly Ambitious – Looking back, our goals should have been less ambitious.  We had three family goals (community service, family nights, and saving for a vacation), and each goal had a little too much stretch.  This year we are going to keep similar goals, but scale them back to hopefully something more manageable and  achievable.

We Didn’t Have Regular Family Meetings – Having regular family meetings is REALLY hard for us.  There never seems to be a perfect time to have them and coordinating the schedules of six family members (two of which are teenagers with busy social and academic lives) is challenging to say the least.  And if I am being really honest, I should have done a better job of forcing the issue.  If we had been better about having our family meetings we would have reviewed our status more regularly and done a better job of staying on top of the goals.

We Didn’t Expect the Unexpected – One of our goals was to save for a big family vacation in 2012 and when we set the goal, we didn’t plan on having to replace a water heater AND a garage door.  Looking back we should have done a better job of planning for the unexpected when we set the goal.

Reasons aside, we are moving onward and upward in 2012 and have already begun to set our goals for the new year.  Wish us luck!