Let’s Get Organized: Babysitter Printout

Babysitter Printout  Keep everything your sitter needs to know in one spot! {The Mommy Games}

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these Let’s Get Organized posts. Honestly, I’ve been on a sort of mental summer break myself and have felt anything but organized. I sat down the other day and made a list of all the closets I want to reorganize and various things that needed to be done around the apartment. This list ended up being over 30 items long. I then proceeded to open my kindle and get lost in new book, because really, it was just too much for my checked out brain to handle at the moment.

As much as I would like to just snap my fingers and everything be done, sometimes the only way is to just chip at it bit by bit. So I started with one of the easiest points – redoing the list I leave for our babysitters that is always on the side of the refrigerator. Do you use an information sheet like this? I think it’s so helpful to a sitter, and also makes life more convenient for you since you won’t have to scramble to remember and write out all this every time you need to leave the kids. This one includes important numbers (I always include the pediatrician, vet, and poison control, as well as any necessary family members), home address, major schedule points, and also some extra information that might be helpful to the sitter. I started writing favorite toys, foods, etc. at the suggestion of one of our sitters who says this is the one thing she wished parents would share more often.

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Let’s Get Organized: Getting out the Door

Let's Get Organized Getting out the Door by The Mommy Games

I think most moms find the process of actually getting themselves and their children out the door a difficult one. It’s no easy feat getting little ones dressed and slathered in sunscreen, making sure you have everything you need, and getting out the door on time. We recently moved, and in our new place I developed a sort of “going-out” station. Right by our door we literally have everything we need to make our daily trips to school, the playground, or work. It’s made our mornings so much easier.

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Let’s Get Organized: Grocery Shopping

Grocery List by The Mommy Games

Look for my “Let’s Get Organized” posts on the 1st Tuesday of the month. You can find previous months HERE.

If there is one chore I’m not super fond of, it’s grocery shopping. I would be forever grateful if the ingredients I needed would just plop themselves into my fridge (wasn’t there a ride at Epcot that promised this would happen?!). I am not one of those people that loves to peruse the market or store, figuring out what’s fresh and looks great for dinner that night. Firstly, because I usually have the kids with me, and even on their best behavior, I’m only going to subject them to so much time confined in the stroller. Secondly, aside from basic things like tacos or steak, I generally follow a recipe and I simply don’t have the mental capacity to remember all the ingredients I need for a dish. Aside from the logistics of actually getting to the store, there’s also an art to grocery shopping so that you leave with just the right amount of food. Buy too much, and food is bound to spoil. Buy too little and you will inevitably be met with the innocent (yet irksome), “what do you mean we don’t have anymore cereal/bacon/beer/etc.” from your well meaning husband.

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Let’s Get Organized: Menu Planning

Menu Planning by The Mommy Games

This is Part 2 in the “Let’s Get Organized” series. If you missed it, here’s Part 1 on Recipe Organization.

Weekly menu planning can be life changing. With a minimum amount of time (we are talking 10 minutes tops), you can set your family up with a week’s worth of healthy, delicious meals and keep yourself from those last minute dinner time scrambles. A good meal plan accounts for all the various activities your family might have and gives you flexibility as to how much time/energy you have to invest in making dinner. If you want to go the extra mile, you can also line up breakfast and lunches, further streamlining your day. Here are my how-to’s for weekly meal planning:

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Let’s Get Organized: Tame those Recipes!

Let's Get Organized - Tame those Recipes

I love the start of a new year. It feels like everything is fresh and clean – a chance to renew and restart. Just looking at my empty and pretty planner makes me excited. I know that a lot of people make resolutions to get more organized this time of year, so I thought I would start a “Let’s Get Organized” series of posts dealing with how to do just that. Each month I will do a post on how to improve your life with a little advanced planning. I’m not talking about hours of cleaning out your closets, more like streamlining your daily tasks to make your life easier and more efficient. By no stretch of the imagination am I a neat freak, but I’ve found that having some semblance of order to my day and planning things out in advance have helped me be a better mom and wife.

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