Fennell Seeds

Growing skills in parenting and organizing.

Vow This Year to Get Laundry Under Control

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In previous years when making resolutions I would vow this year to get laundry under control. Over the years of adding 3 kids to our brood I have finally found how I best keep laundry under control. I thought I would share my method since I love to peek into other mothers world’s to see how others “get it all done”.

Vow to Get Laundry Under Control

Tip #1 – Have a Main Laundry Day

Personally I start on Monday since all my kids are in school that particular day. I start with my and my husbands clothes and sort them into 3 piles –  whites, colors/shirts and colors/pants. This way my shirts that may be more delicate aren’t tumbling around with Matt’s heavy jeans. I start our clothes and try to get as many loads through the day complete as possible.

I hang to dry most of my clothes. I like to put all my clothes into the dryer for 5 mins to get the wrinkles out and then pull them out to hang to dry the rest of the way. This way I avoid ironing. Now, I am a super distracted person running from task to task so I MUST SET THE TIMER ON MY PHONE!!! When my timer goes off I know to run up and pull the clothes out of the dryer.

I loved reading the blog A Slob Comes Clean and if you want to read about her Laundry Day click here.

Tip # 2 – Have the right tools

I was using a small sink in my upstairs guest bathroom to soak one shirt at a time if there were stains. This caused a back up in laundry. Usually several of my boys shirts need to soak overnight in Oxyclean before being washed. I needed to purchase a small tub to be able to soak several shirts at one time. No, I do not have a sink in my laundry room. 🙁 So sad but I use this bucket and it works for me. I like the low sides so I can easily fill it in my sink and keep it on the counter when I have something soaking.

Tip #3 – Don’t sort the kids clothes

Yes, throw all the colors in together in one load! Unless it is a brand new red cotton shirt they will all be just fine. I wash them all on cold. I do one load of my boys clothes and one load of my daughters clothes. Trust me, I am particular about my laundry. I don’t like anyone else to do it since I hang dry most of my clothes and some of my daughters too.

Don’t you love reading how others do daily tasks? I know I do.

Update Your Outlets to USB Ports

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We were recently at a party at a friends newly constructed home and my husband was so excited to see these outlets. He wanted one in our house too and went straight to Lowe’s the next day. It is such an awesome thing to have with all the power cords we need for our iPads and iPhones. I am going to have him give you some tips on how to update your outlets to USB ports too. Here is Matt, my awesome and super handy husband….

Home Improvement | Upgrade Outlet | USB Port | Update Your Home | Update Outlets to USB Ports

There are multiple options when it comes to selecting an outlet with USB ports.  We went with the one pictured, one normal plug and 2 USB ports.  The Best of Both Worlds if you ask me.

Update Outlets to USB ports

Make sure you turn off the power at the breaker before starting to remove the original outlet.  You can do this a few different ways, I use a volt meter as seen in the picture below.  Another easy way to do it by yourself is to use a clock radio.  Plug it is and turn it on with the volume up sort of loud.  You need to be able to hear it when you are at your breaker box.  Most of the time your breakers are not well marked when it comes to wall outlets, so it becomes a trial and error to find the correct breaker.  This can mean a lot of running back and forth if you are by yourself.  This little trick will save you a lot of trips to the breaker box.  When you don’t hear the music, you found the correct breaker.  It is now safe to go to work.

Update Outlets to USB Ports

The only thing to remember is that when you buy the new outlet, you will probably need a new wall plate too.  As can be seen in the pictures above, the wall plates are different.  The old one just had cutouts for the outlets themselves and the new one is a rectangular cutout.

Thanks Matt, I need to have him become a regular on my blog. He is not afraid to get into things and try to fix or build it himself. An awesome skill that I wish I had, he will tinker with things by himself to try and figure it out first before asking for help while I am just the opposite. I scream for help at the first little frustration. Can you say no patience? Ha Ha.

And now our home is up to 2015 technology, well at least one of our outlets.

Fennell Family Life – Weekend Update

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The weekend before Christmas is always full of great events. Our neighbors had a fun party on Friday night. We have a great neighborhood and know a lot of people but now I was able to meet some new friends.

On Saturday evening we took our boys to a basketball clinic at our school held by the University of Louisville Women’s Basketball team. Very random since we do not live in Kentucky but they were in town to play a local school and did a clinic at our school. My boys had a lot of fun.

Louisville Basketball Clinic

My boys are in a stage where they tell me they don’t want to do anything. I told them about the clinic and they fussed and carried on, saying they weren’t going. They only want to go to things where they know they have friends at the same event. I need to constantly tell myself not to listen to them and to push them to do things like this because they always end up having so much fun.

Basketball Boys Clinic

I have family that works at University of Louisville so that is another connection we had to the school.

Then last evening we hosted a work party for my husband. It was a good time and very nice to meet some of the people he works with on a daily basis. I don’t really get to meet a lot of his coworkers since they work on a secure site so I can’t go visit him there. They are all great people, no duds in the bunch. 🙂 It was also a great reason to use our Christmas china. I can’t even remember the last time we used it.

Christmas China

The next couple days are crunch time. I have a couple more gifts to get for a few people on the list. I have never had such an issue with gifts. Some people this year are very difficult to come up with ideas.

I had better get moving and get some of my to do list accomplished.

Family Room Lighting Updates

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Our Christmas tree is up and beautiful. We have a new 12 foot tree and I love looking up at it. One problem that is highlighted by this tall tree is our ceiling fan. I would love to replace it with a chandelier. After having 8 years of kids in this house, it is time for some replacing and changing of several items in our family room.

Christmas Tree Ceiling Fan

After looking online, I have found several options. I need a big pendant light that has a lot of light bulbs. It also needs to be large enough to fit in with the two story ceiling. It can get dark in this room so I need to brighten it up. Whenever my father comes to visit he constantly talks about how dark it is in here and that I need more overhead lighting and lamps. I also want to change my family room to a more coastal feel. So here are my favorites.

Parrot Uncle Pendant Light

 

This would fit the bill. I just went thru some pendant lights at ParrotUncle.com. They have great affordable options for large pendants and chandeliers. I love the antique wood and metal finish. It looks like a substantial light that would fit the space.

I also need a floor lamp. I put away all our lamps when we had twin toddler boys. They would climb everything and I was worried they would knock them over. 🙂 I am hoping at almost 8 years old I can trust them not to climb on the tables. I need something by our chair so I can actually read or work in comfort. Working at the kitchen table is getting old and I would love to have another option to sit but it is too dark to even read a magazine sometimes.

These wooden floor lamps are definitely the vibe I am going for, coastal and modern.

Parrot Uncle Wood Floor Lamp

There are several that I would love to add to my room. I am a terrible decision maker, it took me 6 months to decide on a new rug. I’ll do a rug update in the next few weeks too. Luckily I remembered to do some before shots and would love to do a before and after post on my room changes once I get it completed. I am taking down the red curtains and going to change them to a blue-green color. I think it will really brighten up the space as well as some more lighting.

Are you thinking what I am thinking? That Santa needs to bring me a chandelier/pendant light to replace the ceiling fan. Happy Holidays!

 

 

Bonus Cleaning – Dusting Cloths Review

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This post may contain affiliate links. See my full disclosure here.

There is nothing like hosting a party to get you motivated to deep clean the house. I needed to dig deep and thoroughly dust the entire house.  A couple months ago I had bought some store brand dusting cloths. I normally buy Swiffer brand but the other brand was on sale so I thought, “Hey, I’ll give those a try.” For fun I thought I would do a side by side comparison.

Review of Dusting Cloths

I pulled out the two cloths and as you can see there is a pretty big difference between to the two. The Swiffer brand is soft with lots of quilting. The store brand is thin and feels very waxy.

Comparison of Dusting Cloths

My testing shelf. It is extremely dusty and the black surface made a great photo of the dust.

Before shot of the dusting cloths review

So now let’s get to using the cloths. I did a big swipe with each cloth. The dust was picked up by both brands. It held onto both of the cloths so didn’t just fall to the floor but I did feel like the store brand had a few fly aways into the air.

Dusting Review Action Shot

My final thoughts on the two brands.

  1. The Swiffer cloth is much softer and thicker.
  2. They really both did the job sufficiently.
  3. If you have an allergy to dust I would definitely use Swiffer brand due to the airborne particles I saw.
  4. Both of them do the job sufficiently so it comes down to whether the feel of the cloth is worth the more expensive price. Everyone has a different budget so that is up to you. If you use a bunch of these regularly then it is probably best to go store brand but I will probably buy Swiffer just because the feel of it is important to me. My husband would totally roll his eyes at this but hey…he isn’t using them so I get to pick! 🙂

Personalize your Phone Charger

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Is everyone “borrowing your phone charger? We have several family trips with extended family and since we all have iPhones, the chargers get all mixed up. Sometimes I would be packing up at the end of our trip and had no clue if I had already packed our charger cords or if mine was still one of the many near an outlet.

Phone-Cord-Washi1

So I saw this idea to personalize your phone charger with washi tape. It has made it so easy to keep track of my charger. I haven’t lost it yet and everyone knows it is mine.

Just take your favorite washi tape and wrap it around the outlet and the cord. This way each piece is marked as yours. Mine is peeling up a bit so I may need to redo it soon, but it has lasted almost a year which I think is pretty good for keeping up with my phone cord.

Now if only my kids would remember to plug the iPads in when the battery runs low instead of just leaving it on the table, we would be all set. Sigh… 🙂

 

 

Fennell Family Life plus Weekly Goals

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Last night we went to our local Christmas parade. I forgot what going to a parade with a 4-year-old is like. It was a blast. She loved everything about it. The lights, the candy and especially waving at everyone was so much fun to my little girl. We had debated whether or not we were even going to go and everything fell into place that we did it and I am so glad.

Christmas Parade

Does everyone else feel like this week is crunch time? I feel like everything has to be done by this Friday. I am starting to have so many lists in my head that I am forgetting things.

Last weeks goals:

Family

  1. Borrow some new books at the library for the boys. They are about done with the current stack. Done, plus I checked out a book for myself and read it in 2 nights. It was a quick read and I am too embarrassed to say what it was. It was written by a reality tv person.

House/Home

  1. Deep clean the bathtubs upstairs. They need a major scrubbing and toy clean-out. Some of the toys need to be secretly thrown away. I only think of it when my little girl is taking a bath so I can’t do it in front of her. – FAIL. My husband has decided to have some people who work for him over for a Christmas party on Saturday so I will be busting my tail getting this house together this week.

Blog

  1. Link up with 6 Blog Hops.
  2. Research where I should be storing my photos to help my site run fast. I am just downloading them from my computer to the Media tag in WP but am not sure if that is what I am supposed to be doing. Still need to do this.

This weeks goals:

2 Huge Tasks that I have to FOCUS on completing!

  1. Clean the house for my husbands Christmas party.
  2. Finish Christmas shopping.

What I really want to be doing is working on planning our trip to Napa next summer. I need to stay off the Napa info until after Christmas but I keep procrastinating.

Friday Favorite – Other uses for Waterproof Crib Sheets

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This post may contain affiliate links. See my full disclosure here.

I am so grateful to a friend that told me to keep my waterproof crib sheet. Who knew there are other uses for waterproof crib sheets? I would have never thought I would need it after the crib stage. Now when my kids are sick and I can protect my furniture from potential accidents.

Another Use for Waterproof Crib Sheet

Here is my little girl today.

She had to have a small procedure and the doctor gave her a muscle relaxer to help her through it. He warned me that she would want to lay around the next few hours and to make sure she was on her side if she fell asleep because the medicine could cause her stomach to be upset. Cue Mommy panic about what could happen to the furniture. Luckily, I keep these sheets in the closet so I can pull them out and protect my furniture.

Other Uses for Waterproof Crib Sheets

These are the sheets that we used when the kids were babies.

They were great because you made up the bed with your regular crib sheet and then snapped this over top of the regular sheet. Then when your little one’s diaper leaked in the middle of the night you could just unsnap this sheet and not have to remake the bed at 3:00 am.

I don’t know about you but my boys had middle of the night diaper leaks almost every night. I guess it is a boy thing because my daughter had no problem.

When I bought these I had no clue that they would still be used 8 years later, I would say they have been a good purchase.