Trio of Terrific Tools!

Occassionally, I have brilliant ideas that make my life - and occasionally, the life of my family - easier.  Most of the time, though, I just copy my ideas from other people!! Here's my latest three ideas we've incorporated into our home.  

Countdown Chain   

  This idea is TOTALLY not mine. I got it from here: Children's Learning Activites: Countdown Chain . But, its totally cool. We're heading "home" to Canada in a few weeks and despite my best efforts NOT to tell Kelsey about the trip until we were in the air - Grandma's have a way of letting the cat out of the bag. So, here we sit with a 2 year old who everytime we put our shoes on, says, "Is it time to got o Canada now?"

Funny side story: We were getting ready to go for a walk yesterday when she (kelsey) comes up to me and says, "Mommy, I'm just going for a little walk to Canada now. I'm going to give Grandpa a big hug and a kiss. But I'll be right back.". Yep.. so something had to be done. So, this chain was the answer. I cut up bits of paper in varying colours. Wrote the necessity things on a few - Go to Canada, Preschool and Church and while Kelsey was decorating those ones, we talked about diffferent things she could do on the other bits of paper - things like, Vaccuum bedroom, make bed, Hug Daddy, Skype Grandma & Grandpa etc. So, as she decorated the bits of paper, I wrote the words and then stapled them together to form a HUGE chain.
And now, every moring at breakfast, we take off a chain and that's Kelsey's "task" for the day. Unfortunately, every day when I ask her to "read"  her paper, she insists it says, "Go to Canada"!! Soon, Kelsey.. soon!!

Meal Plan 

We've been meal plannign for a while now. The worst thing for me is standing in the kitchen at 4 or 5 pm and wondering what to make for dinner. I also hate making grocery lsits, having to go to the store for just one thing.. so.. to combat all those things, and to try to save money, we meal plan. I've always done a weekly plan. But its hte worst 1/2 hour of my week. Trying to come up with 7 meals that I want to eat at a time when I'm not hungry or motivated. Then, I had a brain wave. I thought, what if I had 4 weeks of menu's planned. I still shop once a week, and it was planned in such a way that I could still tweak the menu and have flexibility. Could it work?   So, I sat down and wrote down all my meals that I make. All the meals we like etc. At first I could only come up with about 14. That sucks -s o I checked with the hubby. He haed a few more ideas. Is tarted to throw them into a 4 weekly plan and suddenly, I realised I was done. I had done it. I had created a 4 weekly meal roster with flexibiltiy, but structure. There are a few repeats - we have always had pizza night once a week - however, even our pizza night can have variations. Firstly, its not always on the same night, sometiem we do mini pizzas, big ones, make our own crust, buy a crust, buy a hwole pizza, do a calzone etc. So many variations. 

Anyway, here it is for you:

Meal Plan

Just so you know, MPV stands for meat, potato, vegies. Talk about the ability to have variations!! 

Anyway, so far its working pretty good. Its not great for saving money, as you can't always predict what's goign to be on sale, however, if I know that next week we need a roast chicken, and its on sale this week, I can buy it early and freeze it. But, there are a few glitches to work out in that department - either that or I need a bigger freezer!!  

Magnetic "Schedule"

Finally, my last brilliant idea (or this week, anyway). I'm a sucker for structure. I love the idea of having a schedule for my kids, my cleaning, my work etc. I love routines, lists etc. I love knowing what I'm going to be doing, and I love knowing that if I do this thing now, I'll have time to do that other thing later. 

However, all that being said, I'm HORRIBLE at sticking to a schedule. I've made up so many schedules for me and my kids and stuck to none of them. They just don't work. My excuse is always that Marco's work roster interrupts my schedule, but, they jsut don't work. 

But now, I have a 2 year old. And there's something peculiar about 2 year olds - maybe especially first born two year olds - but they really like to have routine. They too, like to know what's coming next, what's going to be happening etc.  So.. I've done it.. I'm come up with somethig that gives my 2 year old the knowledge to know what's coming next, but me the flexibility to live our life. 

So.. here it is.. my magnetic schedule!

I made up all these little cards with the different things we do all day: One for each of the meals, tv time, Bible time, story time, nap time, roomtime, art time etc. I also made up some cards for different places we go to: Grocery store, Preschool, Church, Park etc. And on the back of each one, I stuck a peice of magnetic tape (which I had tonnes of lying around) I was going to do it with velcro, but I had the magnetic tape, and velcro dots were expensive! I painted a board from our shed, and my dear husband cut up some strips of metal and stuck it to the board so the magnets would have something to stick to.  Now, every morning I put up a few cards and go throught eh morning with Kelsey. First we'll have breakfast, then we'll watch tv, then we'll do some chores. Then we can do it again in the afternoon. I didn't want to have to do a whole day at a time, so I decided to only make the board big enough for a couple hours at a time. Kelsey absolutely loves it. The other day she says to me, "Mom, where's the black stroller?" I said, "Its over there. " She says, "NO, mom, the stroller on the card". She wanted to go out for a walk and wanted me to put up the "Walk" card first!! Isn't that cute?

Anyway.. that's it. These idea may be boring and stupid to you..but they've made a HUGE difference for me this month.