Organizing the Laundry

I know I'm not the only mom who despises laundry. I think between the monotony of folding and the fact that it's a never ending cycle of clean & dirty, most moms would love to have someone else take care of the laundry for their family! But like me, just because you hate to do it doesn't mean you can get way with not doing it! Sure if you're J. Lo or someotheroverpaidfamouspersonwhoneverhastodotheirownlaundry the laundry probably seems like a joy...drop it off and it comes back clean and folded and you didn't have to do any of the work! But in my house laundry is work, and the best way to make work easier is to be organized.

We've had the dirty clothes part organized for a while thanks to this lovely creation that I bought at Walmart a few years ago.

 My organizational issues with laundry start after the clean clothes come out of the dryer. We have spent the last few years with just two laundry baskets. You can do the math and probably figure out that two laundry baskets for five people just doesn't work very well. And most of the time the clean clothes end up piled on the couch {and the chair} kind of like this...except this is a much smaller pile than normal:)

 So I decided it was time to get my clean clothes organized by simply buying a few new laundry baskets. My original intentions were to find some fun colored baskets {ideally in blue, green, and orange to continue our tradition of color coding}, but Walmart and Target didn't seem to get the memo and only had either black or white baskets. I decided on black mostly because they seemed a little more sturdy, but also because they seemed a little more formal too...you know just in case I wanted to leave them sitting around full of laundry when we have guests over!

 Now I had three identical black baskets, and I knew that would be an issue. It is is a lot harder for my kiddos to find their clean {wrinkled} clothes if they don't know which basket is theirs. My simple solution was to cut a few pieces of ribbon {blue, green, and orange} and tie them to the handles of the laundry baskets. Now everyone knows which basket is theirs without digging through a basket for 10 minutes while looking for clean underwear!

Do you have any simple solutions for making the dreaded task of laundry easier? Please share them with me....I need all the help I can get when it comes to the laundry!

Wordless Wednesday: Having a Ball

My Very Own Mythbusters

My boys don't watch a whole lot of tv. Besides early morning preschool shows, the occasional DVR'd episode of Tom & Jerry, and a new AFV here and there, they would honestly rather be outside running around in the yard! The one exception to that rule is MythBusters...they would give up playtime outside to watch MythBusters with their daddy any day of the week. We usually watch as a family {since it is a more adult show and you have to be careful about commercials}, and I love how much they love a show that is teaching them stuff!

Henry came home last week asking about an experiment we saw on an episode of MythBusters years ago. They had apparently tried out this myth at school, and he was dying to try it at home!

Here's a clip just in case you haven't seen this fun Diet Coke and Mentos experiment: 

So last weekend, we picked up a few 2 liter Diet Cokes and a roll of Mentos at the store, and headed to the backyard to test out this myth!

The boys had so much fun doing this, and I think they may have learned a little something too...at least maybe Henry did, Grant was too worried about trying to drink the spray of Diet Coke:) This was a fun experiment that kept the kiddos entertained for the cost of a few bottles of soda and some candy! If you haven't ever done this experiment with your kiddos, you should try it sometime!