October 5, 2016 by Krista

Printable Halloween Planner

“How did this happen?” I thought as I stared back and forth between the two invitations. Yep, just as I had feared. I had committed to two different Halloween parties, in two different locations, on the same night, at the same time. Clearly, the holiday excitement had gotten the best of me and my organizational skills had taken a steep nose dive. If only I’d had this Halloween Planner.

LET THE HALLOWEEN PLANNER HELP YOU AVOID MY MISTAKE

Don’t let the holidays get the best of you. Put in a little bit of planning and a little bit of time and you’ll have the best Halloween ever. You won’t double book yourself, you won’t miss any costume details, you won’t forget to do any of your fun Halloween traditions. This Halloween Planner will help keep your October organized.

I looked back and forth between the invitations, trying to decide how to fix my faux pas. We’d committed to bring something to both parties and I didn’t want to leave any one unprepared. Could we go to both parties? The idea of putting my family through all that running around did not appeal to me. If only I’d been more organized and planned it out better…

HOW WILL THE HALLOWEEN PLANNER KEEP YOU ORGANIZED?

Use the Event Tracker and calendar to keep all your commitments and events within a glance. No double bookings!
Plan all the costume details for the whole family so everyone looks their very best.
Make a bucket list together so you don’t forget any traditions or so you can make some new ones.
Plan the perfect Halloween party! With 5 pages of party planning organizers, it’ll be so easy to keep track of all the details.

I called up my brother and had to tell him that we’d try to make their party, but that I’d double booked us. I arranged to drop off our food contribution that afternoon and apologized again. We spent most of the evening at the other party, but we did make a stop by my brother’s before we called it a night. And now I double, triple and quadruple check that we aren’t double booked during the holidays! And I use a planner to keep track of all those details.

GET YOUR OWN HALLOWEEN PLANNER AND TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR HOLIDAY.

This 11-page planner is yours. I want you to have it so you don’t experience the same scheduling mishap I did. I’ll even send it right to your inbox.

Print your planner at home, on regular 8.5″x11″ printer paper. Print copies of the pages you really want. And enjoy October while it’s here. Before you know it, we’ll be eating turkey and stuffing around the family table.

Happy Halloween!

Don’t forget to add your favorite Halloween activities to your plans. Get more ideas with this Halloween Bucket List! Or check out this one to find some fun activities the kids will love to do!

October 3, 2016 by Krista

6 Steps to Fewer Toys and a Happier Home

Hey, are you feeling overrun by the toys? Do you fear having to get up in the middle of the night because you know you’ll trip over something? Legos, I’m looking at you. Do you just wish there were fewer toys?

I’m tired of the same scene repeating itself in every room of my house. I’m tired of the toy takeover. No more wishing! I’m taking my house back! I will walk the hallways without fear!

Do you want to take your house back too? Today, I’ve got 6 steps for you that will get the toys under control.

You’ll need some storage containers and some trash bags. Hefty Ultra Strong Kitchen Trash Bags were a huge help with this project. The Ultra Strong bags have active tear resistant technology and were super strong even when I put heavy toys or toys with sharp pieces of corners in them.

The break resistant drawstrings made the bags easy to tie up and to transport around my house, out to my car and into the donation center. Definitely a plus, since I was doing all the heavy lifting and hauling myself. John Cena has teamed up with Hefty and I sure could’ve used a set of muscles like those to haul my bags around during this project.

We are now using the bags in our trash cans and I love the Arm & Hammer patented odor neutralizer that keeps the stink down – no one likes a stinky house! My only complaint is that they aren’t quite long enough for my kitchen trash can, but they are perfect in my bathrooms and my office. The Hefty Ultra Strong Kitchen Trash Bags are Hefty’s best bag ever, at a new low price. Can’t beat that!

6 STEPS TO FEWER TOYS

Follow these 5 steps and you’ll find fewer toys littering your floors. You can try to do it with the kids, but I always find it much easier to get rid of toys without the “help” of my kids. Toys they haven’t played with in months are suddenly their favorite toys ever and their little inner demons are out for vengeance. It’s also faster for me to just do it.. I don’t feel the need to stop and play with every. single. toy. Just the really good ones. Kidding. Mostly. Let’s get started, shall we?

1. Designate ONE place in your house for your toys.

My boys had toys in four different rooms in our house. Of course there were toys out all over the place! They’d play with something in one room, get tired of that and move to another room. I’d run around all day, tyring to get them to clean up a mess that they didn’t care about. Putting all the toys in one place will make it more necessary to clean up what is out now before something else gets pulled out.

2. Find a container for each kind of toy.

Imagine if you were putting your jewelry away and all you did was to drop everything in a box or bag. I don’t know about you, but I would dread trying to find a pair of matching earrings in my collection. What a mess. Put all the Lego bricks in one container, all the cars in another container, and all the animals in yet another container. You see where this is going. When the kids go to pull out the toys, they pick ONE container. Everything is there and the rest of the toys stay put away. There’s fewer toys out and less toy mess. I used several empty animal cracker containers and a few small toy chests and things we already had.

3. The Great Toy Gathering

Begin by gathering all the toys to one room. Yes, all of them. And, preferably the room where you will be keeping all the toys. It’ll just be easier. Check everywhere for pieces and parts. If you have all the toys, the next few steps will be easier and go much quicker.

4. The Great Toy Sort

Sort the toys into types. This will help you see where you can get rid of some toys and if you have any overlap. We sorted ours into building toys, cars, baby toys, dress up, and everything else. We had several different kinds of blocks and it was easier to part with a couple sets when it was clear to see we weren’t losing all the blocks. Same thing with the cars. It was a lot easier to convince my kids (and myself) that we didn’t need a 25 gallon tote of cars. Seriously.

5. A Place for Everything and Everything in its Place

Put the toys away into the space you designated in step #1. Give everything a place. If there’s no space, find one or get rid of the toy. We have a hutch we picked up off of Craigslist about 5 years ago that is now used to store our toys and games. Our general rule is that if it doesn’t fit in the hutch, it doesn’t stay. We do have some exceptions – the dress up bin that gets stored in the top of one of the closets, for example – that are granted a pass. I also allowed each boy to keep 3 toys in his bedroom. We’re talking self-contained toys here, not something with 3,000 pieces. I may allow them to rotate out which toys are in their room every so often. I haven’t decided on that yet though.

6. The Wonderful Purge

This may be the most important step. DO NOT SKIP THIS. All your hard work will be for nothing if you don’t get those banished toys out of your possession. Not just out of the house. Give them away. Donate them. Sell them. Recycle or put them in the trash. The secret to less toy mess is… are you ready for this… to own fewer toys! They will always find a way back if you don’t get them out of your possession. The sooner, the better. You can do this!

I put our “Donate Toys” into Hefty Ultra Strong Kitchen Trash Bags, tied them up so my kids couldn’t get anything out before they made it to the donation center and loaded those bags into my car so we could drop them off the next time we were out. Mr Napping was out of town and I sure could’ve used a big strong muscly man (like John Cena) to carry those out for me… but, no pain, no gain. Right?

Make This Project Even Better

How can this possibly get better than less toy mess? If you use Hefty Ultra Strong Kitchen Trash Bags to gather your toys in for donation, right now, you can save $1.00! Hey, a dollar is a dollar. Now you can splurge on that candy bar you’re eyeing at the check out stand.

Right now, when you purchase Hefty Ultra Strong bags, use Ibotta and get a $1.00 rebate! Don’t have an Ibotta account? Sign up and use code yynqdwj to score an extra $10 when you redeem your first rebate!

Here’s what happened to my home with fewer toys:

Your kids might rebel at first – mine did. You might get frustrated that you got rid of a specific toy – I was. But everyone will adjust and you will love what happens to your home. The change will ultimately be for the good, promise. Here are a few things I saw in my home:

I stepped on, tripped over, and cursed far fewer toys almost immediately.
My kids started to clean up their messes with less nagging after they realized that they would not be getting any other toys out until they cleaned up the ones they were playing with. Because each toy had it’s own container, they knew how to clean up the toys and where to put them. This was definitely a matter of consistency and took a couple weeks.
My kids take better care of their toys because there is less to take care of. The responsibility doesn’t overwhelm them anymore. I noticed this about a month after we donated our toys and I couldn’t stop smiling. Did I just have a mom win?!

I think I did.

You can live a simpler life with fewer toys and have happy kids. It’s possible. Good luck on your toy purge and don’t forget to get $1.00 off with Ibotta when you purchase Hefty Ultra Strong Kitchen Trash Bags.

October 1, 2016 by Krista

Happiness is Homemade Link Party #140

Welcome to another week of Happiness Is Homemade Link Party!!

We are so glad you are here!

Happy Fall, Y’all! The trees are starting to change colors, I am not sure where you may located but here the foliage is starting to look pretty spectacular. Mornings and evenings are getting chilly and that crisp Fall feel is starting to happen. Last weeks party was pretty spectacular and there were so many wonderful fall crafts and recipes, it was hard narrowing the spotlight to only four.

[Read more…]

September 30, 2016 by Krista

Be Oh So Happy

Are you happy right now? Do you ever get into a funk? One you just can’t seem to get out of?

I’m so there right now. I feel a little like I’m drowning and I just can’t get on top of things. My to-do list is always longer than my day. I always add more to it than I get crossed off. And there’s no end in sight.

Have you ever felt that way?

I have been wrestling with this lately. The responses I’ve gotten back from asking about your biggest struggle have been pretty clear. This is something we all struggle with at some time, I think.

I don’t have any miracle solutions that will help you magically get your to-do list crossed off and I’m still a little bummed that the time I’ve been putting in hasn’t paid off like I had hoped it would. Okay, a lot bummed. But, I want you to know that I know what it’s like.

This funk. This plateau. This treading water. This rut. Whatever you want to call it, I know it.

But, this is what I’ve decided to do about it. I’m not going to just survive anymore.

I’m going to LIVE.

I’m going to enjoy this season. I’m going to do what I can and it’s going to be enough. I’m going to play with my kids. I’m going to savor the cooler days and the changing leaves and I’m going to do all the Fall things I enjoy.

And I’m not going to feel guilty about it.

I am going to be oh so happy.

Do you want to be happy too?

Maybe you’re thinking you’re already happy. Or maybe things are bad right now and you think you can’t be happy.

Know what I say to that?

HOGWASH.
BOLOGNA.
BULL CRAP.

YOU CAN BE HAPPY.

If you’re already happy, could you be happier? If you’re having a hard time right now, that’s okay. There is still enough good in the world that you can be happy. Even if it’s just for a moment. For one tiny little piece of your day. You CAN be happy. I can be happy. Life is too short for to-do lists that never end and plateaus that never come to a rise or fall.

So I’m taking control and I’m doing it. I am going to make time to be happy. I’m going to live in such a way that I will be happy. Will you join me?

If you’re in and you want to make being happy a priority this season, click the button below and sign up for my Be Oh So Happy Challenge.

I’ve got more details coming your way. I’m still piecing it together in my head and planning it out, but I needed to tell someone about it. Someone who will hold me accountable. Someone who wants to be happy too. Someone who wants to live more intentionally this season.

Is that you? Will you hold me to this? Will you join me?

Grab a blank printable coloring page of the Be Oh So Happy image above.

Give yourself permission to take the time to color your Be Oh So Happy color page. The dishes will still be there later. Color while you’re on your lunch break. Or right before bed. It’s not a complicated design and won’t take long. Coloring always makes me feel happy and this way you’ll have a pretty reminder that you are going to be oh so happy this Fall.

I can’t wait to have you join me and, together, we’re going to live more intentionally and BE HAPPY!

September 24, 2016 by Krista