Tag: routines

National Down Syndrome Awareness Day and THM Tiramisu

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It’s crazy sock day!!! I don’t have on my crazy socks but I am rocking my #downsyndromeawareness shirt! Most of the kiddos have on some crazy socks to show their support for their extra special siblings and the other extra special people who were gifted with an extra chromosome.

I’ll admit that when we first got the news it was unexpected and I was upset, terrified, and a bit nervous but we had previously been told that what they expected she had would be incompatible with life.

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Put your Meal Planning on Auto-Pilot with the Perpetual Meal Plan for Winter – FREE Printables! (Updated)

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog19 Comments

Yay! I did it… my first big project of the year. I actually finished the Meal Plan that I’ve been working on and I wanted to share it with you. I know it’s not perfect and I’m sure there will be some changes made to it but it’s a place to start and I’m happy with that. These were inspired by The Dinner Calendar written by Fannie Merritt Farmer in 1915 but they have some modern recipes, most of which can be found on the blog. I love that I can pull/print recipes one time and be able to use them again and again over the next few months! The kids are also working on a list of muffins, oatmeal, quick bread, cookie, and dessert recipes as an add-on to this meal plan.

Why plan for the week or month when you could plan for the years to come all at one time? We have been using this for a week or so now and it has helped tremendously! I’ve also been able to simplify my Cozi calendar by using this meal planner… so nice!

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I don’t have enough time to get it all done!

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How many times have you said this or thought this? How stressful does it feel when you feel this way?

Maybe it’s not that you don’t have enough time but maybe you have too much to do, too much to take care of, too many unnecessary obligations. When you have young kids that time can slip by all too quickly and in the blink of an eye your toddler will be towering over you with keys in his hand.

I know that things can get really crazy, really quickly around here and I’m sure it’s the same in other homes as well. The past week was a train wreck with us being sick and not being able to do many of the things we had planned to get done so now we are almost a week behind already for the New Year!

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Getting in the right mindset to simplify… setting up routines

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It seems like our lives can get so hectic so quickly without us realizing it is even happening. I know that I seem to get one thing running smoothly but then ten other things seem to just fall off the track and then everything turns to CHAOS.

For me, the very first thing I need to do before starting this process is to find a little time for me & God… I often find that life feels overwhelming when I haven’t been able to have any quiet time for myself. I have tried getting up earlier but that just isn’t working out right now, I often would take a few minutes after lunch when the baby was down for a nap but our school routines have been out of whack since adding a new kiddo, when the time bedtime rolls around I am worn out. I do find little bits of time here and there to have little chats with God but I just haven’t been able to have my devotional time and I think that may be part of the reason that I am feeling so overwhelmed.

When something is frustrating me I often go to Him in prayer and ask Him to help me and show me ways that I can change or that we can change as a family. I ask Him to give me wisdom and guidance about the changes and things we need to work on so that they will benefit everyone.

Where do we start when it seems like everything is the problem?

We use this process in our home for a lot of different problems, part of it we even use for teaching the kids to make good choices. I’ll give a couple of examples of how we have used this system in the past.

1. STOP and identify the problem.

This might be the most difficult part of the whole process because sometimes it can be difficult to actually narrow down what the problem actually is when you are feeling overwhelmed. Many times there are multiple problems and sometimes the problems are not actually what we think they are. If you do find yourself with a multitude of problems then just try to focus on the biggest one first and work on ONE AT A TIME or you may find yourself even more overwhelmed and frustrated.

Maybe your mornings are very hectic and it just feels like you can’t get anywhere on time. What’s the problem?

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Getting your calendar organized!

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Do you ever feel like you are running a day late and a dollar short? I know this past year or two have been like that for me. Our lives were completely turned upside down for a bit and it has taken me quite a while to figure out which way was up. I have found a lot of comfort in going back to some of our old routines and they are helping us to get better organized.

It’s almost a new year so I am trying my best to get our home running even smoother which will help alleviate a lot of the stress that we have around here.

One of my best organizational tools over the past several years has been our Cozi Calendar. I also like to keep a large calendar handy for everyone to access so there is less confusion about what is happening and who needs to be where and when they need to be there. I haven’t tried out some of the newer scheduling systems because the one I currently use seems to work pretty well for us and I don’t really want to try to implement a lot of new changes while we are still trying to find our way back to ‘NORMAL‘.

We do pretty well about keeping our doctor appointments and such straight but sometimes it’s the other things that get overlooked… I actually almost forgot one of the kid’s birthdays last month! Thankfully I had already bought the supplies I needed so I was able to pull it all together fairly quickly.

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