A Dear Santa letter template for your littles to write their yearly letter! This letter template is free for download. Print as many as you need!
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A Day in the Life: #onedayHH 2021
Do you follow this hashtag on Instagram? It’s so fun and something I look forward to every year, but this was my first time participating! I thought I’d summarize here for those who may have missed it or aren’t on IG, and for my own posterity.
OneDayHH was started by Laura Tremaine and has blown up into such a fun way to share about our ordinary days, hour by hour. My ordinary day might look different from yours, and that’s the fun!
For some background, I’m a stay at home mom, small business owner, I babysit my niece during the day (so I have three kids at home, two of whom are toddlers!), and my oldest is currently in virtual school. We just sold our home this past summer and are living in a rental.
So here’s a glimpse into a day in the life, November 9th, 2021:
8:30 | I was a little late to the game, but was able to catch up quickly!
9:30 | Ezra is in virtual 4th grade, and he works best when I’m in the room with him, even if he doesn’t need my help. I try to get some computer work done while he has class time and work time.
10:30 | He does well keeping track of his assignments but I keep track of everything in my virtual school bullet journal because it’s still a LOT for a 4th grader to manage, especially when it seems like every assignment is in a different software or app.
11:30 | This is my busiest window of the day. The younger kids need lunch and naps, Ezra has another class meeting, and I need to do a little housework. It’s a LOT to do but I reward myself with quiet time later 🙂
12:30 | The hustle bleeds a little into the 12:30 block because Ezra’s finishing up school, eating lunch, and Cody comes home for lunch. It’s a big transition hour, which can sometimes feel like a lot.
1:30 | Ahhhhh, time to relax. As an introvert, my quiet time is paramount to a successful day. It’s my own version of putting on my oxygen mask. I just need time to not be needed and not have any responsibility that I don’t choose. So while some days, I may do laundry or work, I mostly do something that’s fun for me: reading, video games, tv, etc. I try to keep it guilt-free. I’m not a machine! I’m a person who needs downtime!
2:30 | Quiet time is finishing up around 2:30-3:00 so I squeezed in a few minutes of reading.
3:30 | I try to get outside with the kids in the afternoon. It’s a good break in the playtime routine and we all enjoy being outside, especially now that it’s not hot.
4: 30 | This is our completely unstructured time. The kids are free to play or read and school work is done, so I usually work on dinner and do a little more work, depending on the day and my motivation 🙂
5:30 | Ahhh dinner. This dinner was AMAZING. Garlic mustard pork loin in the slow cooker (so yummy and easy), boxed Mac-n-cheese (no shame!), and fresh rolls from a bakery that we stopped at last weekend. Delish! And the fancy plates, well, easy clean-up is a good trade off some days!
6:30 | Henry takes the longest to eat and we don’t like to scatter from the table until everyone’s done, so sometimes we pull out a game to play. Rummikub is a favorite! Highly recommend!
7:30 | The kids go down at 7:00 (Ezra reads until he falls asleep) so I always get a shower and don the coziest attire that I have. We watch TV or work (Cody freelances after his day job, so sometimes his evenings include computer work) and enjoy the evening. Again, my battery is LOW at this point in the day, so I don’t feel guilty for resting and leaving house work for the next day. I’m not the mom who cleans the house top to bottom after the kids go to bed. As a SAHM, I view my housework as my day job and after dinner and kids are in bed, I clock out! It helps me stay motivated during the day to get stuff done and it ensures that I have down time that I need. A good friend told me years ago that we all have a certain capacity, and once that capacity is reached, it’s okay to walk away. Laundry, dishes, cleaning – it will all be there tomorrow.
This was such a fun way to share and it really helped me connect with others in a way that I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t jumped on board. Thanks for following along!
Book Organization that Kids Can Maintain
This is not staged, and unfortunately, it looks better in this pic than it does most days. This eyesore of a bookshelf sits right behind our living room sofa. You see it immediately as you walk in the front door, coming down the hallway, sitting in the dining room…there’s no place to escape from it. Honestly, it’s the best location in the house for Ezra to get to his books whenever he wants, and I’m all for encouraging as much reading as possible. But I was so weary of it looking like a mess ALL. THE. TIME.
I knew that in order for it to get organized and stay that way, I had to come up with a system that was simple, easy for him to maintain, and most importantly, free using what I had in the house. #covid19quarantine
Here’s what I came up with: colors! Imma genius, right?
Colors = categories, and here are the categories I used:
• Royal Blue: Storybooks (These are collections of stories and we have several of them.)
• Orange: Comic books/graphic novels
• Navy Blue: Beginner children’s books
• Pink: Books in a series
• Light Blue: Dr. Seuss books
• Purple: Magazines
• Yellow: Educational books/textbooks
• Green: Bibles and bible story books
• Maroon: Chapter books (I suspect this category will grow the fastest at this point in Ezra’s reading level and interests)
These are loose qualifiers and arguments could be made for certain books to belong to different categories, but I chose what would work best with our collection of books and I sorted them in just a few minutes, so I was making quick decisions.
To marry the colors and categories to tangible organization, I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut vinyl rectangles about 2″ x 1/2″. I created a Silhouette file that would cut an entire 12″x12″ sheet of vinyl into 138 rectangles. Notice that I left one long strip at the bottom. I’ll get to that in a sec.
[I’m including this Silhouette Studio file for free if you are interested in using it!]
I peeled off the rectangles and stuck them on the spines of the books toward the bottom. Then took the long piece of uncut vinyl at the bottom, trimmed with scissors to the length I needed, and stuck in on the shelf right beneath the coordinating books. That way, it’s easy to see at a glance where each color is and where the books need to go.
If I didn’t have a vinyl cutting machine, I would use small pieces of construction paper or washi tape on the spine and cover it with clear packing tape.
Sometimes, with kids, you have to make things easy and straightforward so that it sticks! And that’s okay! And for me, it’s all about empowering Ezra to take care of his belongings on his own. And it keeps me from nagging.
So here’s the final product:
SO. MUCH. BETTER. I much prefer this look. And when it gets untidy, it will be easy for Ezra to tidy up quickly. Bonus: as Henry grows, it will be an easy system for him to learn!
It’s not perfect, but it works great for us! Overall, this project only took a couple of hours from start to finish and will be easy to keep updated as more books come into the house. It will also keep library books easy to distinguish from home books.
And since I’m feeling extra, I made a TikTok of the process. If you’re in to that sort of thing, enjoy 🙂
@willowwhiteletters Organizing my 8-year-old’s books ##quarantine ##keepingbusy ##stayhomestaystrong ##organize ##books ##kidsbooks ##adhd
♬ Paris (In the Style of The Chainsmokers) [Karaoke Version] – Instrumental King