How to organize your life, starting with your kids.
Remember the post I did about organizing my kids suitcases for our future trips? Well, I kept going. And going. And going.
Because every mama knows, when you stay home with your kids you have to have order or you cannot function. I don’t care if you have one baby or nine different ages all through your home, order brings peace and order brings happiness.
No, order looks different in every house and every family, but we all crave the same thing. No confusion, no miscommunication, always working towards that goal.
Once I did the suitcases, I went ahead and started color coding the sleeping bags. Tim actually suggested it on our way home from our last camping trip, so I just took that as a green light to go on Amazon and find coordinating colors for each suitcase I had just finished painting.
By the time I was finished shopping, every child had a sleeping bag matching their suitcase heading on their way to my front porch.
A few days later, Tim tried to take the kids hiking and each child spent a good 15 to 20 minutes looking for their water bottle to take with them.
Those 15 to 20 minutes of shenanigans and searching and whining and complaining and tears and accusations and weeping and gnashing of teeth made me want to fix the next level problem: coordinating water bottles.
Once they left the house that morning, I got to it and me and Amazon had a good old fashion click party. Using the same colors from the suitcases and the sleeping bags, I ordered a water bottle and every color for each child.
Kymber’s pink one was actually cheaper and more quickly available on Walmart Grocery Pick Up, so I got to play with hers first.
I am not a label baby in the least, but I have to say that I love the Contigo water bottles. You can get them at Walmart super cheap, or Sam’s Club in a super value triple pack sometimes, or Amazon had some great colors as well. I went ahead and ordered the right colors for all my kids and just waited for them to come in.
I took the plain pink water bottle and just measured with a scrap piece of paper how big I wanted her name sticker to be.
I typed the text with her name on my Cricut Maker and used a scrap piece of vinyl that I had sitting there in my stash. This particular one was 6 1/2” x 2 1/2”. The font was “Hello” and I just welded it together for the best cut possible.
It is outdoor premium vinyl so they claim it will even last in the dishwasher, but I just tell the kids to hand wash each one to try to get them to last the longest.
I cannot tell you how excited I am to watch my whole vision come together: a suitcase with a sleeping bag with a water bottle for each child, all color-coded, all personalized, and all responsibility getting doled out to each person who wants to go on our next family adventure.
I don’t know how long it will last, but I have to believe that it will help. I know the kids were so excited to hear about their new things coming in, and knowing each color belongs to each child really keeps the bickering to a minimum.
Until they figure out how to blame each other for taking and hiding each other’s water bottles…????
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