The Sensible Mom

Food, DIY, Chicago Mom Blogger

4 Weeks to a More Organized Home {Simplified}: Day Four Update

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I’m loving this series! It’s giving me motivation to not only get the daily assignments done, but also to be more productive with other tasks that I need to get done.

Here is how I did with the Day 4 Assignment:

:: Get dressed in something that makes you feel great. — This is an outfit that I wear regularly.

This is what I wore on Day 4.

:: Refer to your list of weekly goals, and make a list of no more than 5-7 specific things you want to accomplish today. — I have everything done, except for writing the additional blog post. I have a start on it, but haven’t finished writing it yet.

My Day 4 List

:: Do a quick-clean of your most-used bathroom. — No pictures, but I spent time cleaning the master bathroom. 🙂

:: Set the timer for 10 minutes and quickly clean out underneath your beds and furniture. — Again, no pictures, but I mainly picked up LEGOs and dryer sheets that somehow ended up under the beds.

That’s it!

And I realize I’m still running a day behind in posting. Lol! I’m trying to get caught up. 🙂

Are you participating in this series? Have you cleaned under your beds lately? 


4 Weeks to a More Organized Home {Simplified}: Day Three Update

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Time for my day three update! Again…I’m a day late, but I’m trying to catch up. 🙂

Here is how I did with the Day 3 Assignment:

:: Get dressed in something that makes you feel great. — Done, and I didn’t get a picture snapped for day three, but I did for day four, which is coming.

:: Sit down with a cup of coffee or tea, refer to your list of weekly goals, and make a list of no more than 5-7 specific things you want to accomplish today. — Done, and I got all of my goals accomplished!

For the screencasts, I made one last night and discovered that I’d have to create more than one, so I created two more screencasts today. The screencasts are for a client project. I make them for clients to help them learn to navigate their new websites and also to help them understand how to use WordPress.

:: Set the timer for 10 minutes and do a quick-clean of your bedroom. — Done.

:: Set your timer for 10 minutes and do a quick clean-out of your freezer. — Done, and my freezer looks pretty bare before we stocked it again with food from our deep freezer, which we keep in the garage.

Here is the before picture:

Here is the after picture:

Clean freezer, and my husband brought in more food from our deep freezer to stock the kitchen freezer. I think I only threw away one thing – an opened bag of freezer burned pineapple.

That’s it!

I’m going to work on Day 4 today and get my progress posted asap.

Have you cleaned out your freezer lately?


4 Weeks to a More Organized Home {Simplified}: Day One Update

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For the next month I’m joining in Money Saving Mom’s 4 Weeks to More Organized Home {Simplified} series.

It’s all about completing small daily tasks to get organized, and I need a little more organization in my life right now.

Here’s how it works:

Crystal posts the assignments for us in the morning and we work on getting those tasks done during the day and blog about our progress in the evening. If you don’t blog about your progress, you can still join in and leave a comment letting us know how you did. 🙂

Here is how I did with the Day 1 Assignment:

:: Get dressed in something that makes you feel great – Done. I wore jean capris and a nice fitting t-shirt.

:: Sit down with a cup of coffee or tea and make a list of 5-10 goals for this week. – I adjusted this to write some of the things that I needed to get done on my whiteboard calendar. If it’s there, there’s a high probability it will get done.

:: Set the timer for 15 minutes and quickly pick up the main living areas of your home. – I only got as far as the schoolroom with this goal, but I’m glad I got it done and thankful for the motivation. I had just cleaned the schoolroom before my sister-in-law’s visit recently, but the kids spend a lot of time in that room so it never stays clean for long.

Here’s my before picture:

Here it is after I spent time cleaning it:

:: Clean out your purse and/or diaper bag. – I chose to go through my purse, and I purged a bunch of expired coupons and other papers that needed to be thrown out.

That’s it. 🙂

My Day 1 progress was technically supposed to be posted on Monday, but I didn’t have a chance to write the post before bed last night. So I’m posting it now, and I’ll get my Day 2 progress posted as soon as I can.

Are you joining in this series? How do you stay organized during this time of year?


Building their winter wardrobe with Cookie’s Kids

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Colder weather is here, and that means it’s time to put away the summer clothes in favor of some fun winter fashion. I had mentioned before that my children have been blessed in the past to have their grandparents, aunts, and uncles buy most of their clothes for birthdays, holidays, and ‘just because’ when we lived in Illinois. Now that we are in Georgia and family isn’t right around the corner, we are finding ourselves in a new position of having to buy the majority of our kids’ clothes. 🙂

Kid’s clothes for five kids can get pretty expensive, and I’m always on the lookout for ways to clothe my kids in a budget-friendly way. But I also want them to feel good about what they are wearing, and my children love clothes with characters on them. Angry Birds and Disney characters are big in our house right now.

I recently did some online shopping for clothes for two of my children, and I shopped from CookiesKids.com. When I visited the site, the first thing I wanted to see was what they has on sale and what kind of character clothing they had to choose from. I was pleasantly surprised to find extremely affordable prices on clothes and items that my kids would love.

I ended up buying an Angry Birds outfit for my 3 year old son, David. We told him ahead of time that it would be coming in the mail, so he was anticipating it. When it arrived, he took no time changing into it, and it’s definitely his new favorite outfit!

I also decided to get some new winter items for my baby girl, Elisabeth. She is growing quickly and learning to walk at almost 11 months old, so I decided to get her some new winter pajamas along with some adorable Minnie Mouse socks with grip to help keep her feet warm and stable on the hardwood floors.

These socks are just as adorable in person as they look and the quality is fantastic.

Her new pajamas are totally adorable, too. The ruffles are my favorite part. Baby girl has worn them several times already, but she puts them on at night when I’m not snapping pictures…so I didn’t get a picture of her wearing them.

Overall, I’m impressed with my online shopping experience at Cookie’s Kids. They not only offer cute kid’s fashion, but also affordable, budget-friendly prices. And I know I bought items with fun characters on them for my kids, but Cookie’s Kids is also a great place to shop for school uniforms, toys, and a plethora of other clothing styles.

If you sign up for the Cookie’s Kids email list, they frequently have promotions going on that help you save even more, and if you use the code: thesensiblemom between now and December 14, 2012, you can save 10% off your order – sitewide!

Let me know if you do some of your winter shopping at Cookie’s Kids and what you buy. I’d love to know! 🙂

Tip: While shopping, once you click on an article of clothing, be sure to look for the Alva Kids icon by the size option. From there you will be able to tell what size your child wears in that particular item. Very neat! Here is what the Alva Kids icon looks like: 

I created a Google+ Story of my Cookie’s Kids experience as well. You can see it here. There are lots more pictures!
Learn more about Cookie’s Kids

The Cookie’s Kids Story

In 1972, a young man named Cookie and his brother Marvin went into business together. They rented a 1600 square foot store in Jamaica, Queens, fixed it up, bought inventory, and opened a day after Thanksgiving with a full stock of holiday toys. The toys were a success and they put the extra money toward buying children’s clothing for the next season. When that did well, they bought more clothing. The business was on its way.

As the brothers Cookie, Marvin and Sonny, who had come in as a third partner in the business, began to open new stores in new locations, inventory expanded. Besides the latest fashions, our customers wanted shoes, toys, backpacks and accessories and we were prepared to deliver.
By the late 1990’s there were six superstores throughout the NYC area, and though they previously had different names, by that time they were all named Cookie’s Kids.

Also in the late ’90s came an important addition to Cookie’s Kids’ inventory: school uniforms. It was the steady success in uniform sales that paved the way for founding CookiesKids.com in 2007, which originally sold uniforms and soon after the entire Cookie’s Kids Inventory.

I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and CookiesKids.com #CBias #SocialFabric #CookiesKids – All opinions are my own. 🙂