Cutting the Chaos in the car

I don't know about anyone else, but it seems like we spend a ridiculous amount of time in the car these days. Between taking Paul to work, picking him up from work, taking the girls to dance and school and just running errands we are in that thing all the time! We have to wait for Paul to come down from work, wait for Skylar to come out of school...wait, wait, wait!!

I should tell you we are very old-school and currently do not have a DVD player in our van, so needless to say I felt like I needed to come up with some ways to keep my young kids happy, our nice new van clean and be prepared for anything that comes my way. Here is my attempt at that :)

I put together all these containers, each with a seperate purpose, but each giving me the chance to be organized and prepared. It has been SO lovely to not have to try and grab a million little things as I am trying to run out the door, they are all ready for me in the car :)

These 3 containers provide different things I am always in need of in the car. The bigger one is full of trial sized cleaning supplies so I can keep the car nice and clean. I have a garbage bag, Windex wipes, Clorox wipes, and Febreze spray in there. It has been so nice to wipe down the messy spills in the car and leave a little spray when we get out. Its lovely to climb into a clean, nice-smelling van every morning. The middle-sized container has essential toiletries that you always want to have on hand: diapers, wipes, pull-up, Kleenex, hand sanitizer, feminine products, lotion and sunscreen. I cannot tell you how many times that extra pull-up would have come in handy! And finally the smallest container has band-aids and all kinds of medicine.

Now this container has been heavenly! I filled it with fun little toys the kids can play with in the car....but they HAVE to stay in the car! That way the kids actually look forward to playing with them and are not already bored with them. I have basics like books, Color Wonder coloring books with markers that came with a little tray and holder and those magnetic drawing things...doodle-something-or-other :) I also got some small puzzles and attached magnets to the back of each piece. Then I stuck a small magnet board in there and the girls are loving putting together their magnetic puzzles and I am loving not finding puzzle pieces everywhere! The beautiful thing is when they get in the car they pick up what toys they want for the drive, and when they get out they put them all back in the bucket.

Finally...the snack bucket!! I don't always have time to grab things as we are running out the door so I filled this bucket with kid-sized water bottles, fruit leather, kidz clif bars (so good!), instant breakfast packets, and packs of trail mix. Once a week I try to replenish the bucket and change it up...its also been quite nice for me to grab a healthy snack on the go too! :)

All these things are helping to make our van a less chaotic, happier place to be!

LOVE Family Home Evening

Tonights fhe is a great one, partly because of content and mostly because I was able to find the entire thing on line....all I had to do was push print! :)

Seriously, I found THIS amazing blog and they have some truly fantastic family home evenings. Go HERE to print out this great fhe to use around Valentines Day.

For treats I am making these goodies...

My kids love em! (and so does Paul!)

We are also going to use tonight to start our Wall of Love, its going to be a great week!! :)

It's LOVE week! :)

I LOVE Valentines Day!! I think it is such a fun holiday to celebrate, so I have been looking forward to this week for a while :)

I found a wonderful Family Home Evening that I will post about soon, but in it you teach the kids 3 basic principles: To love the Lord, love your neighbors, and love your family. I thought this was a great thing to model our week of love around and here are some of the things I am planning!

This is the Johnson Family Wall of Love. We hang up these fun little decorations and everytime someone shows love to someone else we write down what they did on a heart and tape it up on the wall. It is a great way to make the kids more aware of showing each other and every one in our family a little more love. One tip: this is the 3rd year we have done this and last year I finally came up with the brilliant idea to cut a ton of hearts with my Cricut and laminate them. Now I have them for every year and I just write on them with a dry erase marker and then we can reuse them for next year!

Family Fun is THE place to go for adorable, easy valentines crafts, recipes and more!! We are going to make these simple valentines to take to all the kids friends. We are also going to be making sugar cookies and delivering them to our new neighbors. I think this will be a great way to teach the kids about loving our neighbors and a good way to get out and meet the people in the neighborhood.

I LOVE this little valentine card because no matter how young your kids are you can still have them participate! We are going to make these for all of the wonderful Grandma's and Grandpa's in our lives and deliver them with a special little treat.

We also make these treats every year. It is a nice break from all the sugar the kids will inevitable be getting in their valentines...and the kids love to help with the cookie cutters :)

HERE is a cute matching game you can print out on Family Fun that I have laminated that my kids really enjoy playing.

I hope you all have a fantastic week-before-valentines-day and that you are feeling the love in your sweet families!! :)

I think its going to be a long day

Britton was up all night with a bad fever and cough. We are trying to get Kendall off of Pull-Ups and that is not going so great either. Today is going to be full of sick kids, washing all the bedding, cleaning my messy house and trying to battle this constant headache I have had for the last two weeks. SO....just to cheer myself up a little bit (and anyone else that may be having a less than stellar day!:) here are some pics I just love that remind me why I do what I do every single day...and I would never trade it! :)

Kinecting as a family :)

Paul nagged and nagged me to get the Xbox Kinect for Christmas...obviously I gave in and we have LOVED it!! It is so fun to have something we can all do together as a family...I think bowling and dancing are our favorites. Even Britton gets in on the action :) Here is what we did last Friday night:

Skylar rocking out to Lady Gaga....the girl's got moves I tell ya! :)

Believe it or not...Paul actually has moves too :)

Kendall LOVES the dancing game, as in screams her head off when we make her stop. But you could never guess that from this sweet face.

Good form!

Oh yeah, another strike baby!! (Okay, it was probably a gutter ball!)

So if you're every bored and don't want to go to the club or the bowling alley, just call the Johnson's and come on over!! :)

Cutting the Chaos...its back!!

Ok, its been a while, but we are back!! I can't guarantee I will be posting a Cutting the Chaos post every week, but I'm going to do my best!!

One of the things we focused on in our Family Home Evening last night was making the Sabbath Day in our home more holy. I have been excited to put in place an idea I have had for quite a while....introducing the Sunday Bucket!!!

This bucket is full of activities my kids can do on Sundays. We ONLY pull out this bucket on Sunday, and I really think that helps keep it special and something to look forward too. I am always on the look out for things to add to the bucket, but some of its contents right now are:

Coloring books of the bible with crayons

The Primary Songbook CD

A binder with all the Gospel Art kit pictures in it

A Noah's Ark matching game

Book of Mormon floor puzzle/book

Pictures I printed from The Friend to color

Latest issues of the Friend magazine

Book of Mormon Bingo

Articles of Faith game

LOTS of book about Bible stories and Jesus

Book of Mormon Eye Spy Game

Sunday Quiet Book

and so much more!! :)

Many of these things I have gotten for SUPER cheap at Seagul Book in their clearance section. Other things I have gotten at the Distribution center and some I have made myself.

To go along with our Sunday Bucket I also made a little CTR jar for our family...always reminding us to Choose the Right to keep the Sabbath Day Holy. In this jar I put different ideas for activities we can do on Sunday. Each week the kids pick one out and that is what we do. I love doing this because the kids get SO excited to see what they will pick, and it also ensures that we don't end up doing the same activities and have the kids get sick of them.

Here is a list of some of the activities in the jar:

Go for a Walk (weather permitting:)

Act out favorite Scripture Story

Color a Sunday Picture for Grandparents

Play Sunday Games on the computer

Listen to our favorite Primary Songs

Pick a game from the Sunday Bucket

Play with Sunday Quiet Book

Watch a Sunday Movie (The Testaments, etc)

There are many more things, these are just a few. I have been thrilled with the Spirit that has been in our home that last few Sundays. Of course it is not perfect, but it does feel like a different day, just as it should. Cutting the Chaos and making Sunday's a more holy day in our home has been a huge blessing....what do you do with your young ones on Sunday's??

Family Goals FHE

The fhe this week is very different from what we normally do. There are no cute handouts, no themed desserts and very little fluff! :) Kind of a stretch for me. However, after ward conference last week and a great combined Relief Society/Priesthood meeting yesterday, I have felt inspired to share some things with my children that we all need to work on.

We just moved a few weeks ago and the new stake we are in has listed 4 goals for the upcoming year for members of our stake. They are as follows:

1. Spend 30 minutes a day in the scriptures.

2. Make our Sabbath Day more holy.

3. Attend the temple monthly (at least!)

4. Be free of consumer debt within 3 years.

Our bishop pointed out yesterday that its kind of cool how the first goal is something we can do every day, the next something every week, the next something every month and the next we can work on for the next year and then some :) That really made it feel not quite so overwhelming to me and made me excited to share these goals with our little ones. Even though they are young they play a big part in these goals...especially numbers 1 and 2.

We are going to mostly talk about having family scripture study and how we can make our Sabbath Day more holy. I have some fun ideas about the latter that I will hopefully be sharing with you tomorrow in a throwback to "Cutting the Chaos...one week at a time!" Remember that??

Anyway, it will be short and sweet but I am excited to get the whole family on board with the goals we are going to be working on. I know these are things that will be pleasing unto the Lord, and I know He will bless us as we strive dilligently to do the things the leaders of our church have asked us to do. Hope you all have a great family night!!