Lego Challenge Cards

Hi, ya'll.  It's been a few months since I have posted. Whoops! Guess time and holidays and kids and laziness got the better of me and I didn't get much in the way of this blog done. Hopefully I will be better in the months to come, but no guarantees:) Anyways, here are Lego Challenge Cards for anyone who is tired of their kids saying they are bored! We have had too many snow days recently and my kids were feeling cooped up and bored with their toys. So, I came up with some fun lego cards for them! They put them all in a basket and had to draw one out, complete the challenge, and take a picture before they could move on to the next one. It was a huge hit and killed a few hours. Score!! A few of the cards I made are Latter-Day Saint based. So, if those one's either confuse or don't appeal to you, feel free to throw those ones in the trash. I'm also including a blank Lego Challenge page for you to get creative and add your own challenges on.  Hope they your kids (or your husband!) have as much fun as mine did. Print, cut, laminate (or don't). Pretty easy!
Disclaimer: I made these cards quickly, for my own use, but have been asked to share. Please excuse any spelling errors, alignment issues, grammatical errors, etc. I was whipping them out fast for my kids to take advantage of! Don't judge:)

 Click HERE for Page 1

 Click HERE for Page 2

Click HERE for Page 3

Click HERE for the Blank Page

Room Mom

With school starting, the blog has been a little on the back burner.  Not that I still haven't been making things and working on stuff, I just haven't gotten around to putting anything up.  Well, as if I don't make myself busy enough, I have now volunteered to be my guy's 3rd Grade room mom. I was his room mom in kindergarten and loved it. I love getting to go to the class and meeting his friends. I love thinking up fun games and crafts. I love making treats and just generally getting to see him in his element, away from home.  I have received questionnaires in the past about the teacher's favorites for parents to refernce during the year for little gifts or special occasions.  Last night I sat down to make one for Trey's teacher and thought I would make a more general one that any other room mom could download, send in for the teacher to fill out, copy, and send one home with each child.  I thought it turned out pretty cute and a little less boring than usual.  I know it has the same exact info and no one actually cares but me probably, but being a very visual person, I know I will make a point to keep it handy and look at this reference sheet more often.  Click on the link below to download.

A few of my teacher's favorite things printable

Goodbye, Summmer. Hello, Chaos

I just returned from a six week trip to visit family and friends for the summer.  After only one day of being home and still not being fully unpacked, I resumed the old habit of making more work for myself. I went straight into project mode and decided to switch the girls room with the toy room.  Since the toy room is getting a mini makeover (can you call it that when you never decorated to begin with?), I wanted to make a few printables with some "inspirational" (read: a mom can hope, right?!) quotes to put up.  Since we are painting a neutral color, I wanted something that added bits of color on the walls.  I'll be finishing up the rest soon, but here is a preview of the first one:

After I finish the rest and load them on here, I will make them available to download for anyone who feels the need to change up their frames. 

Who, me?!

It is always kinda funny to me when someone tells me that they are impressed by my organizational skills. I can just hear the my mom, dad, sister, and three older brothers all guffaw in my head. Seriously. Growing up, I really did have my "own system" for organizing, aka everything was thrown into my desk drawers and only I knew where they were. My mom would come in, look at my drawers, see the "chaos", dump my drawers on the floor, and require me to reorganize in a way that made sense to her. In all fairness, quite a few CD's were ruined during this phase of my organization because none really made it back into the case. However, it has taken me these ten post-graduated years to realize that I actually AM organized! Maybe it is just that I have had to find a way to organize since I am now juggling four kids' schedules, appointments, clothes, toys, books, along with my own (and sometime Nate's). One of the major things I am doing right now is trying to organize schedules. I have a little planner that has a monthly page and then each double page spread has the week on it, set out in a vertical blocks for each day. This may sound ridiculous, but it is hard to glance at the pages and see what is happening when during the week because it is not lined up in horizontal boxes with mornings, afternoons, and evenings lining up nicely. Crazy, no?! So, to remedy my problem, I made up a page for me to ease the anxiety looking at that planner was causing:) I printed them out in a variety of colors and wrote the coming weeks up on the date line, so they are all ready for me to fill out when appointments, games, playdates, etc. arise. I also added a few other areas to keep track of things I need to accomplish within the week: calls, emails, errands, and projects, as well as a little spot for a weekly goal at the top, like focusing on daily scripture study, no soda, exercising 4 times, being more patient with the kids, my list of self improvement goes on and on... I put the current week up with magnets in the kitchen so I can quickly check what is going on for the week or add things on that I need to. If you are like me and coordinating schedules, your list of things to do, or daily life can sometimes stress you out, print them off and fill 'em in. And, if I am being completely honest, I really just love looking at the colors of the weekly glances all in a row. I am a sucker for vibrant colors. Click on each color word to download corresponding sheet. PLEASE let me know ASAP if there are problems downloading, since my last post apparently had issues. Thanks!

Gray:

 

Purple:

 

Blue:

 

Teal:

 

 Mint:

 

Green:

 

Yellow:

 

Orange:

 

Red:

 

Watermelon:

 

 Enjoy the rainbow!

Medical Mess

I hate when I go into the doctor, for either myself or on behalf of my kids, and am requested to fill out medical history forms including the dates of procedures in the past and current prescription and over the counter medications. Yes, I realize that is lame. My kids really aren't THAT old or have had THAT many procedures. But when I can't even remember what I had for dinner two nights ago, recalling the month of past surgeries or hospitalizations is like asking me to recite the periodic table of elements. Not gonna happen.
My lack of medical history organization has been particularly on my mind recently. Not only did my daughter have her appendectomy, but my oldest boy had a tonsillectomy yesterday, along with his 2nd adenoidectomy. Yes, they grow back. How crazy is that?!  All of that combined with the different allergy appointments for the four kids, different plans of action for each, regular check ups, and other little issues that arise here and there, I needed somewhere central and organized specifically to my needs. I saw a cute set of printables for sale online and decided to make my own, in my own style, specific to my own needs. I will be putting all of these printables in a Family Medical Binder, along with copies of insurance information, medical bills, course of action letters, and anything else that we collect along the way. Each family member will have their own section where I can keep track of their specifics. I am sure that more needs will arise or things will come up that I completely forgot that I wanted to track, so I'll be adding along the way. If you are like me and are needing a new system that works for you, give it a try and let me know if it does/doesn't work. Not sure if this is something everyone can use or just me in my disorganized life!

The Binder Cover. Always gotta have one of those. Click HERE

 There will be a few things at the beginning of the binder, before I section it off for individuals. This will be at the very front, since I need all of the help with reminders I can get. Click HERE

I will also keep this at the front, just for a quick reference guide. Click HERE. And yes, I will have to print a couple of copies to cover everyone here.

 

 Each person will get a copy of these in their sections where I can keep track of individual records. Click HERE

 Click HERE

 Click HERE

 

 And finally, click HERE

If you have any questions or any ideas of things to add, please let me know!

I'll be using these a lot

Last weekend, my 6 year old daughter had an emergency appendectomy.  My husband is a resident, which is not fun in and of itself. Add in the trauma ICU rotation he is on in May and it has been a nightmare! So, of course, come Sunday morning when Jayci woke up in so much pain that she couldn't even sit up, Nate was already at work. I scrambled to find sitters for the three other kids so I could take Jayci to the ER for the 2nd time since midnight. (Long story. They sent her home the first time. Pretty sure they thought she was just being dramatic. Doctors...:) Finding friends on such short notice and before 8 in the morning is not fun. Especially when your normal church time has been moved up 5 hours so that people could go down to Moore to help with the tornadoes. Everyone was already scrambling around trying to make arrangements for their own families! I felt awful throwing more kids into the mix for my friends. It was especially hard because my 18 month old PANICS when I leave her anywhere, so I rarely do. On Sunday, I had two AMAZING dads take my kids while their wives went to help with tornado clean up. Poor Jared ended up having to change a blown out diaper and her clothes, along with juggling his own 5 kids. Both of those men deserve a HUGE Friend of the year award!  Since I had to be back at the hospital by 7 on Monday morning so Jayci wasn't alone for too long after Nate left her for work at 5:30, I again had to drop my 3 kids with friends...on Memorial Day...with no idea when I would be back. I sincerely hate doing that to people, but I appreciate them and am so thankful for good friends who were willing to help me out! So, to show just a little bit of my gratitude, I wanted to give them a big old Symphony Bar and a quick note.  I came up with these Thank You tags that I could print off, write my own note, and attach to the bars. (If you are one of those people, please act surprised when you get yours!)

Nothing fancy, but cuter than plain white paper. Download them HERE and, if ever you need to scramble to find sitters for an indefinite period of time at 6:30 am, please feel free to show your gratitude! Seeing as my oldest son has a tonsillectomy scheduled for this coming Friday, I am sure to be printing off more of these suckers.

Sleep Deprived

Griffin, my 3 year old, is having major issues sleeping.  He has been for about a year and a half. At first, we attributed it to the major eczema problem he was having. He itched all day long and all night long. The Dr. told us to give zyrtec during the day and benadryl at night, which we did. We thought for sure the benadryl would knock him out but nope! He still wandered into our room multiple times a night.  A few months later, we were able to get the eczema under control and we only have a few rare outbreaks. Well, guess what? The horrible sleeping habits persist. Last night, G came into my room 3 times then got up for good (and woke the rest of the house) at 6:00.  Not only am I getting deprived of sleep, but I KNOW Griffin isn't sleeping nearly enough either. Bad situation. I've been wracking my brain for months trying to find something that will work. Threats, treats, whatever! Then I remembered that when he was potty training last year, the thing that worked best was a sticker chart. Go figure! It wasn't the treats or the bribes, but just being able to put a sticker on his chart and feel the immediate gratification and visually see his chart filling up. So, without further ado, his new sticker chart for sleeping in his bed ALL night!

We'll see how this works out for us. Hopefully, it is as easy as potty training him was! When he fills the whole chart up, he gets a prize. Not sure what yet, but that's not really the point anyways.  I made some without his name for ya'll to print out and use. And the great thing about these is that you can laminate them and then use a dry erase marker to make different goals. I am all about multi-use things! Here are the links for the blank Teal and Yellow, Orange and Teal, Pink and Mint, and the Purple and Green.  And just for fun, here is the potty chart I had made Griffey:

There is a download link for this HERE, just in case someone wants it. Again, we laminated it and stuck it on the fridge. He filled it up with angry bird stickers SO fast. Hopefully the sleeping chart works just as quickly! Hey, a mom can dream, right?