Spring Cleaning for a Move

March 6, 2018 by Danielle

I’m excited to share this spring cleaning post, sponsored by Swiffer #SwifferFanatic

I have no idea how the whole ‘spring cleaning’ thing started, but I’ve always loved the idea of doing a major deep clean and organizing of my home at a regular-ish time each year. That way I know it’ll get done, and it makes our house feel fresh for the coming seasons. On a whole extra note, Spring Cleaning for a Move not only gets that job done, but also helps save time and hassle later when you’re switching houses!

I’ve shared some of my tips for Spring cleaning before, and today I’m sharing a few more – plus how it’s a great time when you’re also planning a move. As many of you know, we recently put our house on market to down-size a bit. We love our current house, but it’s just TOO big and pricey for us to stay in. So part of the preparation before we sell and move, is to purge a bunch of unnecessary stuff. It’s far too easy to collect ‘stuff’ when you have a big house, so by going smaller we can declutter.

The first step to decluttering for your Spring cleaning is to go through all the obvious places – closets, pantries, under stairs, shelves, drawers etc. Sort through your clothes and decor, your dishes, even the tools and supplies in the garage. Decide what you really need/want to keep, and what would be best to get rid of. Make a bag or box (or multiple, if you’re really trying to get rid of a bunch of things) for donations and also for garbage/recycling.

Now check the less obvious spots – in couch cushions, up high on the kitchen cabinets, and the like. Really go through and do a good check for any place items may have been shoved or collected. After that, you should have your excess or no-longer-needed items ready for either disposal or donating.

You’re now ready to start your deep cleaning – but don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be a huge project! I kind of make a list of everything that needs to be done, then check off things one room at a time so I don’t lose track of where I left off in case I’m interrupted.

Some of my Spring Cleaning items are:

Dust everywhere – don’t forget those hard to reach places like ceiling fans, high ledges, light fixtures and blinds. I love using my Swiffer® Dusters™ (my kids also LOVE cleaning with this, so that’s a bonus for me!) because they easily trap the dust, dirt and other fluff that accumulates everywhere.
Clean the windows – inside and out
Wipe the baseboards well – those can sure get icky!
Sweep all your non-carpet areas – our Swiffer® Sweep + Vac™ is my hubby’s favorite, while I’m more into the Swiffer® Sweeper X-Large™. Either one is great, as they do excellent at collecting the junk on our floors – including the ridiculous amounts of dog hair!
Clean the mirrors, counters, sinks, toilets and showers in the bathrooms
Clean the counters and sink in the kitchen
Clean the stove, oven and microwave. Wipe off and/or clean the dishwasher, as well
Vacuum all carpeted areas – don’t forget the edges really well, too, since these can often be skipped over during normal vacuuming jobs
Wash all bedding, towels, wash clothes, etc. – I know this gets done regularly, but I like having a time when EVERYTHING in the house is clean at once 🙂
Mop all non-carpeted areas – I’ve used the Swiffer® WetJet™ Mop since I was younger at my parent’s house, and now rely on it for my own home. For our wood floors, the Swiffer® WetJet™ Mop Wood Floor is excellent for our nice wood floors in our office and family rooms.
We also organize the garage, and give it a nice sweep
To top it off, we wipe off all doorknobs and light switches (because you know those collect germs like crazy)

It may seem like a LOT, but it’s actually not that much for an extreme deep clean once or twice a year – especially with the right tools to help you get the job done, as well as a family to help with all the jobs! Adding in the decluttering aspect is excellent for if you’re preparing to move because it 1) makes yours house appear nicer for selling, 2) makes cleaning easier, 3) gets rid of stuff so you have less unnecessary stuff to move and 4) makes stuff more organized so packing is easier when moving day arrives.

What is YOUR big Spring Cleaning item?

Announcing the Busy Mom Bundle!

March 1, 2018 by Danielle

I’ve been working like crazy behind the scenes creating something for all my fellow busy moms out there to make your lives a bit easier, and maybe even more organized. I’m thrilled to finally announce the Busy Mom Bundle! We’ve taken several of our most popular products and are offering them as a complete set for all the parents out there – whether you need help organizing your families important files, want meal plans already done for you for a YEAR, love Disney activities, need a reliable planner, or help planning the best summer camp ever – this Busy Mom Bundle has practically EVERYTHING to help out!

Busy Mom Bundle

From getting all your important files, documents & information together with the Family Home Binder, to having a whole year’s worth of weekly meal plans (with the recipes, of course) already done for you. Keep track of your schedule and tasks with our beautiful planner. You can even earn money hosting an awesome summer (or Spring Break) camp for kids with our FOUR different themed camp kits – or just enjoy them as bonus activities for your own kiddos!

Plus, both the Disneyland-California AND generic versions of our Unofficial Disney Activity & Autograph Books – perfect for that upcoming Disney trip, or just a great booklet for Disney lovers.

These fabulously fun and helpful books and kits sell individually for $2-$10 EACH (except the planner, it’s always free), but with the Busy Mom Bundle you can nab the whole set for just $8 – that’s less than the cost of ONE of the summer camp kits or the meal plan pack alone!

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So let me break it down a bit so you can see exactly what’s included in this incredible printable bundle pack…

Family Home Binder

4 Cover Designs
Weekly Tasks and To Do Spread
Page for listing household Utilities & Services information
School Information
Weekly Menu & Shopping List
Medical Forms
Family Emergency Plan, Map (fire escape route) & Contacts
Emergency Contact Sheet
Monthly Budget – one blank and one with some general expenses filled in
Babysitter Helper Sheet
Birthday List

2018 Printable Calendar & Weekly Planner

also includes 8 different covers (4 styles, each with the option for the stylized ribbon strip or without it)
This is normally a free printable anyway, so we’re just including in here since it’s also a helpful resource for busy moms

Summer Camp Kits – a great way to earn some extra cash!

The 4 themes include: Arts & Crafts, Wizard (aka Unofficial Harry Potter), Science and Superhero
Don’t want to do a camp? They still make great preschool themes, party plans & ideas or just awesome kid activities!
Each has:
- a cover
- tips and ideas for planning & organizing your camp
- themed food ideas
- activities, games, crafts and/or expiriments
- access to LOTS of free printables to assist in your camp, such as invitations, sign in/out sheets, name tags, coloring pages, photo booth cut-outs, banners, drink labels, food cards, etc.

Both Unofficial Disney Activity & Autograph Books (Disneyland-specific, and the generic version)

Pages for keeping memories and records from your Disney trip
Coloring sheets, games & activities
Plenty of styled & themed autograph pages (also work great for photo pages)
Disneyland version includes ride lists & height requirements

Meal Plan on a Budget

52 Weeks (a whole year) of weekly meal plans already done for you
Breakfast, lunch AND dinner
Recipes all included with page numbers for easy reference
Daily food costs average to less than $5 per person per day!
Blank shopping list for easy grocery list planning

Like I said, the Busy Mom Bundle will be only $8 – such a great savings from buying the printable sets individually! But here’s the thing – we’re celebrating this awesome kit by doing a TWO DAY SALE when it’s live – by selling it for just $7! Yup, when it becomes available in our shop next Tuesday, March 6th at 6am until Thursday, March 8th at 8am you can nab the ENTIRE kit for just $7 – that’s less than a single summer camp kit set or the meal plan book all alone.

So mark your calendars, because this amazing, parent-sanity-saving set will be available starting next week and you can save more by purchasing the first two days. WOOT WOOT!

Don’t want the whole bundle? Check out our other products HERE

Family Home Binder

Unofficial Disney Activity & Autograph Books

2018 Planner & Calendar

Summer Camp Kits or Kid Activity Packs

A YEAR of Meal Plans with Recipes – on a Budget!

Which of the printables would YOU most like to have?

Family Home Binder Printables

February 22, 2018 by Danielle

Isn’t it such a pain to sort through a ton of documents and files to find the information you need, especially when you’re in a rush? Now you can keep all your family’s important info in one, easy place with these Family Home Binder Printables! We’ve got everything from medical forms and emergency contacts, to shopping lists and babysitter sheets, plus budgets and more to make your life as a busy mom much easier and organized.

After lots of asking around as to what people preferred, we made our home binder printables simple and clean-looking, while still being stylish with some pops of color. It goes perfectly with our 2018 Free Printable Planner, as well as our awesome 52 Weeks of Meal Plans (with recipes) Book! We tried to include the majority of lists and documents that a busy family would need, helping you keep track of everything in one, convenient place. Once you have the PDFs, you can print off as many as you’d like (such as with the monthly budget sheet or weekly menu and shopping lists) – for personal use only, of course 🙂 We even included several cover options, so you can print off whichever you like best.

What’s included in the Family Home Binder Printable pack?

4 Cover Designs – front and back (front has choice of ribbon decor or plain in that blue label piece)
Weekly Tasks and To Do Spread
Page for listing household Utilities & Services information
School Information
Weekly Menu & Shopping List
Medical Forms
Family Emergency Plan, Map (fire escape route) & Contacts
Emergency Contact Sheet
Monthly Budget – one blank and one with some general expenses filled in
Babysitter Helper Sheet
Birthday List

Family Home Binder Printables

That’s a LOT of pages, but super important to have handy when your family needs them. You can nab the entire set now for just $1.99 – what a deal!

Let’s talk about the individual sheets now, shall we? Since many of us need help getting our tasks organized – otherwise we try to keep all our to do’s in our head – here’s the Weekly Tasks & To Do’s spread:

It has the days listed out along the top, and then to the left it’s divided into AM, PM or Eve (evening) so you can spread it out a bit by times, as desired.

One that many people forget to have on-hand is a list of their utility companies, contact information and account numbers – because we don’t really think about it until something happens and we need it RIGHT THEN. Now you can have them all neatly listed out on this sheet. We pre-filled some of the lines with the general types of utilities many people have, but it still has plenty of lines for adding in others as needed.

I never really thought to have a sheet of all my kids’ school information until we took a ‘parents only’ vacation and my uncles were watching them for almost 2 weeks.

Now you can print off a sheet for each school child, and have everything on there – from their homeroom teacher’s info, to their schedule (including bus) and more.

Along with having that easily accessible when you have a sitter, how about a BABYSITTER HELPER sheet? You can add the details for that particular time, plus things like what they should eat and what times. So useful!

For a long while I was using plain, boring paper to write out our family’s weekly menu – now it’s much more fun (and not such an eye-sore on my fridge) with this cute weekly menu that I can fill in.

This is the same design I use in our Meal Plan on a Budget Book, along with the fun shopping list page.

I’m crossing my fingers and knocking on wood right now as I type this (you know, just in case I jinx myself) – but we’ve only had to take a child to the emergency room ONE TIME. With 5 kids, that’s such a lucky blessing! When that did happen, though, I wish we had this medical form so I could have all of his information in one spot to take with us instead of trying to dig it all out and call hubby back home to find the stuff I just didn’t remember. Super stressful!

You can even use it when going to new doctors and such, since you can put all of their allergies, medications, past surgeries and the like on there. This page alone would’ve been well worth the mere $1.99 cost when we had our ER ordeal – and you can nab the whole set for that cost! Woot woot!

To go right along with that form – other emergencies can, unfortunately, happen to our families. Times like this, we don’t have a moment to spare – so it’s extremely important to have a plan. These emergency pages allow you spots to input your family’s emergency plans…

…including a sheet of more emergency contacts. We also included a mostly-blank page where you can draw out a rough idea of your home escape plan, for instances such as a fire.

This is great to practice with the kids regularly, so they know what to do should the worst happen.

Okay, now that we’ve covered those very urgent, hopefully-won’t-be-needed forms, let’s move on to something a little more fun – a place to put all those birthdays we try to keep in our minds constantly! Whether you just track your immediate family’s special days, or include every aunt, uncle and second-cousin-twice-removed, there’s spots for each month!

I know not everyone likes keeping a budget (I’m actually in love with budgeting, so for me it’s fun), but in case you do there’s a sheet to track all of your monthly finances!

We’ve included a sheet that’s partially filled in with common expenses, but also have one blank in case you really want full control over the items and order 🙂

Phew, that’s quite a ton of papers – but when you’ve got an entire family and household to care for it can be SUPER helpful to have all that information in one place. You can either put it in folders, staple it together, place it in a binder, or even just spiral-bind the packet yourself. Whatever you choose, this family home binder printable set is great for any busy mom, dad or family!

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This is included in our Busy Mom Bundle, along with other fabulous printable packs!

Check out our other products HERE

Unofficial Disney Activity & Autograph Books

2018 Planner & Calendar

Summer Camp Kits or Kid Activity Packs

A YEAR of Meal Plans plus Recipes – on a budget!

Organizing Your Mom Van

February 19, 2018 by Danielle

Do you have a “mom van”? We’re talking about a vehicle that you live in for the better part of the week because you’re always shuttling kids here and there. Yes, I have a mom van myself – between dance, karate, the store and running to/from school, it gets good use out of it. That means it can get SUPER messy with all our stuff, and crumbs (even if they don’t EAT in the van, they manage to get crumbs everywhere – what the heck?) So what can you do to keep yourself sane? Here’s a few simple tips on How to Organize Your Mom Van!

Organizing your minivan (or whatever vehicle you have) is one of the best things you can do to simplify your busy life. You spend tons of time in there driving here and there – and everywhere – so make it an enjoyable space. Here are some tips on how to do it:

Organize Bit by Bit – You will want to create sections within your mom van that you can organize according to who sits where and what their needs are. Toys and games for the toddler? Towels or extra shoes for a young sports star? Organize sections of the car and use collapsible bins for storing goodies and important items.

Create trash solutions – Nothing ruins a car/van quicker than trash and every mom knows that where kids go, trash goes, too. Fix this by putting some mini trash bags in your van on all seat rows/levels so it’s accessible to everyone. And ziplocking baggies can be your best friend when organizing your mom van!

Create snack solutions – How often do your kids need to have a snack in the car? Whether it’s an afterschool shuttle to soccer practice or a quick meal before going to a doctor’s appointment, there’s a good chance your kids are going to be eating in the car. And what about those days they forget their school snack and you’ve already left the house? Be prepared with some baskets or bins of car snacks that you keep in the van at all times – make sure they won’t melt, and the less ‘messy’ the better (at least for US, right?). Toss some water bottles in there, too, just in case.

You can also include some goodies for yourself – after all, even the chauffeur needs a special treat! Maybe a book or magazine to read while you’re waiting in that carpool line to pick up a kid?

What are YOUR tips for organizing your mom van?

How to Stop Multitasking and Get More Done

February 3, 2018 by Danielle

Raise your hand if you’re a multi-tasker! I sure am – but that’s not necessarily a good thing. As busy moms, we often pride ourselves on our ability to do many things at once – and with all we have to do, it’s not avoidable all the time. But really, we’ve got to learn How to Stop Multitasking and Get More Done!

You may think that multitasking is helping you get more things accomplished in your day, but many studies have shown that it does more harm than good. When you’re doing a specific task, you need to be sure you’re focused only on that specific task and not anything else at the moment. This will help you be more efficient with what you’re doing and you’ll get through things more quickly. It’s also super easy to get started on several things, but they never really get finished because we were handling too much all at once – or we were doing one thing, saw another and remembered it needed to be done and switched our focus, then several items later never make it back to the one we started with. Crazy, frustrating and exhausting, right?! By just focusing on one thing at a time, it not only gets done BETTER, but you can check more things off your to-do list, rather than have many things half started but not completed.

So, if you’ve been overwhelmed and trying to tackle several things at once, it may be a difficult habit to quit. Here’s some tips to stop multitasking and get more done:

Make a list of things you need to do, then prioritize your list. Put time estimates beside each task of how long they will take you. That way, if you find you have about 15 minutes, you can pick something that takes about that long to get done – instead of wondering what you can fit in and simply waste that time not deciding.
Take each task one at a time and commit to doing it until finished. This also frees up your brain power from trying to keep too many tasks ‘open’ in it all at once.
Block out your time throughout the day in chunks, based on your to-do list. I do better with smaller chunks of time, since it doesn’t seem so daunting – you can divide larger tasks up into smaller ones to help this, too.
Allow yourself breaks in between completing tasks. You’ll be more focused on getting it done, and have a chance to refresh knowing you get a rest time when complete.
Practice it until it becomes your new habit. Changes don’t happen instantly, especially with long-ingrained habits like this, so be patient and just keep at it the best you can.

What are your tips to get more done in the day?

Time Management for Busy Moms

January 23, 2018 by Danielle

Us moms have to juggle many tasks and wear many hats, from carpooling and checking homework, cleaning and laundry, managing the budget and shopping, and sometimes even a whole slew of job work! It might seem like you never have time to stop, or even slow down with your enormous to-do list – but it’s important that you manage your time and your busy tasks as well as you can so that you CAN still get quality time with your family, as well as some time for yourself. Here’s some Time Management for Busy Moms to give us ALL a little help!

It’s very important to your well-being, as well as the well-being of those you care for each day, and many moms just don’t make it a priority. I struggle with that all too often myself, so know what you’re up against! Maybe one or two of these time management tips will give you a little help and guidance.

Delegate – Whenever possible, try to delegate some tasks to someone else. Sometimes busy moms try too hard to do it all when there are tasks that others are perfectly capable of helping with. Despite what some husbands might think, they’re perfectly capable of helping with the house cleaning and such. No, they may not load the dishwasher perfectly how you want it – but if the dishes will still get cleaned, great! Are your kids able to help fold the clothes (who am I kidding, we don’t ‘fold’ clothes in our house – it’s wash, dry and put away in drawers or hung in closets!) or maybe wipe down the counters? Let them help!

Create a schedule – You need a schedule and you need to stick to it. It might seem difficult when everything is happening at a crazy, breakneck pace but it’s important you follow the schedule to help manage your time properly. Once you force yourself into a habit of following a schedule, it’ll become easier to do and help you get done what you need to while seeing where you can fit in other things.

Use a timer – Focus on one task at a time and use a timer to block out short blocks of time to get things done. The timer will keep you on task while also helping you see how much time you’re actually spending on things. It’s easier to tackle scrubbing toilets when I have a timer for only so many minutes – I can do REALLY good cleaning for those minutes, then I get a break!

Don’t overcommit – This is a difficult one for most moms but it’s important not to overbook and overcommit yourself. Sometimes you just need to say no because you already have too many things going on. There’s nothing wrong with this at all, regardless of why we tell ourselves we have to say yes or let ourselves feel guilty when we don’t. Us busy moms are AWESOME – but we’re not time lords or anything, so we just CANNOT do everything. Please let yourself say no sometimes.

Y’all remember when I shared how important it is for us moms to have a hobby of our own? I know that it’s easier said than done with how much we need to squeeze into each day – but with these time management tips for busy moms, hopefully we can ALL can keep ourselves on schedule a bit more and feel like we have some downtime now and then, because every mom deserves that!

What’s YOUR best time management advice for busy moms?

How to Create a Homeschool Area in your Existing Space

January 19, 2018 by Danielle

When you homeschool, you’re going to collect more teaching aids, books, papers, lesson plans, arts and crafts, and other related items than you’ve ever had before. You’re going to need someplace to put all this stuff, which can be frustrating when you have limited space in your house. Here’s a few tips and ideas on How to Create a Homeschool Area in Your Existing Space to give you a little help.

Create multipurpose rooms – Maybe your garage can double as a gym, and your dining room can double as a space for homework and art projects. Try to look beyond the typical room ‘assignments’ and come up with what works best for you. We currently have our ‘formal’ dining room as an office, and use our breakfast area as our only dining spot.

Make it livable – You might try to create a homeschool area inside a small portion of your home such as a small home office, a sitting room, or even a closet (at least for storage). If it’s not livable and practical with the rest of your home, it’s not going to work long term and will only cause more stress and frustration.

Work with the things you have – You don’t need brand new furniture, expensive student desks, or fancy gadgets to make your homeschool space work for your students. You can work with the things you already have, and you can use old furniture and other thrift store items to create your own workable homeschool area.

Have lots of storage – You can never have too much storage in a homeschool (well, you probably can – but I doubt many of us have reached that point yet!). Seriously, boxes and bins are your friends. You can work with the space you have when you maximize it with great storage solutions. And labels – don’t make it a nightmare to find what you need WHEN you need it!

Build around your goals – Don’t obsess over those homeschool spaces you see on Pinterest, or even what another family is doing. Build your space around the goals YOU have for your students and yourself. Then you’ll have everything you need right in the space that you have available. Win-win!

With these tips and ideas, you can create a homeschool area in your existing space that will work for all your needs, and hopefully will make your entire home life a bit less overwhelming for everyone.

If you homeschool, where do you do it in your home?

Housework for Busy Moms

January 11, 2018 by Danielle

Do you feel like the housework never ends? I sure do! This is a common complaint for busy moms and – whether you have one child or six – it can feel like the housework is constantly piling up on you. In the case of laundry and dishes, it LITERALLY can be piling up (story of my life, it seems!) However, there are a few ideas on tackling Housework for Busy Moms, to help streamline the cleaning process and help you to feel like more of your time is freed up, instead of spending it all cleaning all the time.

The housework tips below may seem so simple, but while many us might already KNOW to do these things, actually doing them is another story. After all, us moms are notorious for not asking for help – even when we really need it! Let’s try to get past that, and see if any of these ideas about housework for busy moms can help us out a bit.

Create a plan – Just like anything else in your busy life and busy schedule, making a plan will make it easier. What will you clean first? What needs to be cleaned every day and what is cleaned less often, like once a week? All of these details will go into your cleaning plan. If you’re like me and like checklists and such, check out all these great cleaning printables! It can really help our stress level just by knowing what the plan is, instead of trying to keep EVERYTHING in our head all of the time. You know what they say – being a woman is like having 237 internet tabs open, all at once, every second of the day. Let’s remove some of those tabs 🙂

Delegate what you can – If your kids are old enough, they can be helping out – don’t think you have to do it all on your own. If there are cleaning tasks you can delegate to others in the household – like your hubby, then don’t hesitate to ask them to pitch in.

Block out time for similar tasks – You can also streamline your housework by doing it in blocks and chunking similar tasks in those blocks together. Maybe you clean for 45 minutes in the morning and you knock out all the bathrooms. Then in the evening, you do dusting and vacuuming, for example. Set a timer, so you SEE your time and know that there’s a limit – you won’t be cleaning all day long. This helps me a lot, just knowing that it’s a very specific time that I’m stuck doing a task I don’t like.

These are just a few ideas to help us busy moms tackle the housework. Your mileage may vary since every home is different and your needs will be unique. However, some careful planning can help make the entire process easier for you and will help you save time. And don’t stress if there’s a few exceptions you need to address – like for me, it’s toilets – that’s a chore than hubby knows I refuse to do, so he’s wonderful and does it. Yay!

More Help for Busy Moms

update link on Jan 11th

Be Company Ready even when you HATE Cleaning

How to Get the Smell out of Shoes

Free Goal Setting Printable

January 6, 2018 by Danielle

Who else gets super excited to start a fresh new year? Other than the utter surprise that it comes so quickly, I love it! I know it’s silly to get all motivated just because it’s a new calendar year…why can’t we get that way in the middle of the summer? But just the same, it’s great and I’m looking forward to setting goals for things I want to improve upon and some that I want to accomplish. These Free Goal Setting Printables will surely help, too – and they’re now updated for 2018! (originally shared in 2015)

How likely are you to meet a goal without having written it down? Me….no chance! I need it in writing, plus the steps to reach that goal. It keeps me organized and stay on track by having it right there in front of me. Of course I had to include a neat quote along the top!

You can print off as many sheets as you need, and they match perfectly with our Free Printable 2018 Planner & Calendar and FHE Planning Pages! My favorite feature of the sheets is that there’s a line for the overall goal, then you can break down the steps below. If you’re like me, a goal seems much more achievable if I can see the baby steps instead of a giant leap!

To download and print our fun goal printable, be sure to sign up for our newsletter as it’s one of our many subscriber-exclusive printables! Just sign up, and you’ll receive an email with the link to get your free printables!

List of Our Favorite Free Printable Planners & Calendars for 2018

January 5, 2018 by Danielle

January means planning for a lot of people – looking at the year ahead as we make goals and schedule our events. Online calendars are just great, but there’s just something about the good ol’ paper ones that I absolutely love! I thought it’d be fun to put together this List of Our Favorite FREE Printable Planners & Calendars for 2018 to share with y’all!

Not only do I use my own Free Printable 2018 Planner for my weekly planning and blog scheduling, but I have a big desk one and even use an online Google Calendar – because that’s the only method hubby can keep up with, so I need to add our family things on there as well. Overload, you may think – but this is what works for me and helps me stay on top of my many to-dos and scheduling for family, self and my work. Check out the below list of FREE printable 2018 planners and calendars to find one that fits your style AND your scheduling preferences!

Free Printable 2018 Planner (with 200+ customizable files) from TheHandmadeHome.com

IRMA Monthly Calendars by ElizaEllis.com

Free Printable 2018 Planner & Calendar by BusyMomsHelper.com

Beauty & The Beast Calendar by TheCottageMarket.com

IRMA Weekly Calendars by ElizaEllis.com

10 Free Printable Daily Planners by ContentedatHome.com

Daily Planner Page by InkStruck.com

Printable 2018 Calendar by DearCrissy.com

Free Printable Happy Life Planner by HomePrintables.com

3-D 2018 Planner Printable by APieceOfRainbow.com

Hand-Lettered 2018 Wall Calendar by ClementineCreative.co.za

2018 Free Printable Monthly Calendar by OnSuttonPlace.com

Super Cute 2018 Calendar by PrintablesAndInspirations.com

Pop Culture Unicorn Calendar by TheCottageMarket.com

2018 Year at a Glance by MalenaHass.com

2018 Planners & 12 Month Calendar by TheOrganizedDream.com

2018 Kitchen Themed Calendar by MeinLilaPark.blogspot.ch

2018 Kawaii Mermaid Calendar by TheCottageMarket.com

Family Home Evening Planner for Busy Moms

January 1, 2018 by Danielle

Who does a weekly Family Night? We’ve sort of tried to in the past, but I could count the number of times we actually followed through on one hand. Pretty sad! This year I want to really make a better attempt at it, despite our crazy schedules with dance, karate, school and work! I know I need to be a lot more organized to pull this off, so I pulled up this awesome Printable Family Home Evening Planner for Busy Moms from few years ago to use!

The colors & style match really well with our 2018 Free Printable Planner, so you can stick it right in with the other fabulous pages! This 2-page printable for Family Home Evening has spots for practically EVERYTHING I need to successfully plan and prepare for your fun night together! There’s sections for keeping track of assignments….

At the top you can put the Theme for that month, and there’s a handy NOTES section at the bottom of one page!

I love that there’s a cute section just for Family Goals, since we’re working on some things together as a family this coming year. Teamwork all the way!

On the right page of the spread, you can fill in each week’s specific TOPIC, so preparing the lesson will be that much easier!

I really enjoy quotes, so I even included a specific area where you can fill in a theme-appropriate (or just one you really like!) to give some thought and inspiration during the month.

Along the line of loving quotes….I put two WONDERFUL family quotes from Uchtdorf (one of my favorite speakers) and one from Thomas S. Monson along the bottom of each page!

I know this planner will be uber helpful this coming year, and can do wonders helping us keep up with our goal! It’ll take a little time getting use to it, especially when the younger kids have the lesson and need ‘some’ help. I’ll try to look at it as a great learning time and quality teaching moment, hopefully that’ll make me a little less short-tempered! I know it’ll be great, though, and can’t wait to start learning even more about the gospel with my sweet family!

Print Pages Here

Family Home Evening Planner – Left Side

Family Home Evening Planner – Right Side

Don’t forget to check out our full 2018 Free Printable Planner for busy moms!

Organize Your Life with The Container Store

December 30, 2017 by Danielle

I have a major problem functioning when a room is in total chaos. If I have to spend forever to find something among piles of other somethings, forget it! For example, we’re currently remodeling my kids’ huge loft playroom. But with so much stuff, where was I to put it all? Thank goodness you can Organize Your Life with the Container Store! Originally shared in 2015, but the big ELFA sale is back and I just had to reshare!

When we decided to makeover their playroom, I knew that one of the major things I wanted to change was where their million toys, action figures, costumes, legos, cars and other kid-stuff was stored. Up until now, it took over my hallway linen closet. For a visual….

See any towels, bedding or other normal ‘linen closet’ items in there? You wouldn’t, because none of that stuff would fit! I wanted it OUT of my storage place, and nicely organized in their HUGE playroom…they’ve definitely got the space for it! I picked out one of their corner areas where I wanted their storage to be….

That corner…totally blank except the couch and occasional forts. Plenty of space to move stuff around! I painted it from the blah ‘Arctic Frost’ color that our house came in to a Pebble Grey on the walls and normal white for the ceiling. Then I headed to The Container Store near us…in Frisco/Plano area…and had the AMAZING people there help us out!

I got so excited, because their Elfa Storage Solutions are ON SALE RIGHT NOW through February 11th! That’s a full 30% off all Elfa products AND 30% off installation services! We actually find it totally simple to install Elfa systems, so choose to do it ourselves. It’s awesome! The store will even help you DESIGN YOUR SPACE FOR FREE. Yup, they’re awesome! We gave them the measurements, then they worked with us to figure out exactly what type of stuff we needed. They even helped us choose between things so we could stick to our budget!

We stuck with the platinum, since it will go with our playroom theme great (shhh…that’s coming soon!) I also love how durable and safe the Elfa stuff is…there’s a slit at the top runner, so it’s not like the kids could slide the down hooks off themselves.

They also have end pieces you can put on so the edges of the shelves LOOK nicer, and are more safe against rough or pokey edges!

After just a little bit, we had our shelving and drawers all set up!

Then it was just a matter of organizing all of the kids’ stuff out there! As we were putting their toys here, we did decide to make a couple changes as to where things went (drawers lower, etc.) and it was a super quick and easy switch!

I’m totally in love with this…how it LOOKS, how EASY it was, how FLEXIBLE, and how much the kids are loving the simplicity of getting out and putting things away! I’m totally in love with how ORGANIZED things stay, too, since even my youngest can figure out where things are suppose to go with this!

So contact your nearest Container Store, have them help you (for FREE) design your own space – whether it’s a playroom, closet, garage, or bedroom – and take advantage of the amazing Elfa sale before you miss out this year!