Food Organization

Our home does not have a pantry so we've had to designate two cabinets for our food storage. Here is how I have organized these cabinets.

We use the two cabinets that are on the far right of this picture for our food storage. They are close to the stove making it easier to access food items while cooking .

This is the upper cabinet which stores our baking goods on the top shelf, canned goods on the middle shelf and pasta on the bottom shelf. I bought those three green bins from the dollar tree and added labels. Those store our spice packets (top), onions and garlic (middle), and spices (bottom) Keeping these smaller items organized and separated in bins allows me to easily see what I need.

 This bottom cabinet is home to all of our "junk." We keep our chips, crackers, cereal, gummies, granola bars etc. in here. I use clear tupperware bins to store some of these snacks. It allows me to visualize how much of that item we have left so when it's time to go grocery shopping I'm not searching through cardboard boxes for inventory.

How do you store and keep your food organized?

Keeping it all together

One of the challenges I ran into being a new stay at home mom was keeping our family on a schedule. Being a working mom everything was very rigidly scheduled. Although I was happy to kick our feet up and kick our once rigid lifestyle to the curb I quickly realized our lives still needed to be somewhat scheduled in order to maintain a sane household! So I began my "family schedule task." I started by observing our family's patterns ex. when we woke up, when we ate, played etc. Next step, establishing a routine that worked for all of us. Here's a look at an example of a day at our house ( I apologize in advance for the lengthy explanation eeks!)

• My husband wakes up and starts his morning routine and heads to work.

• I get up shortly after him and start my morning routine. I find that getting up before my kids allows me to not only have a little time to myself but also get a head start on my daily household chores. The more I get done before the kids wake up the more time I have to dedicate to just them during the day.

• Once my kids are awake we have breakfast.We usually try to stay busy doing crafts, play dates, walks etc. until lunch.

• I try to keep lunch time at the same time everyday so my kids know about when to expect it. 

• After lunch is quiet time. Phew! We all benefit from quiet time! Although my oldest doesn't actually nap anymore this is when I allow some T.V. time and it provides him with some much needed down time. Quiet time is also known as "my time" for me. This is when I can catch up on cleaning, blogging, phone calls etc.

• After quiet time we stay busy with fun activities such as playing with toys, going outside, taking a trip to the park etc.

• Once my husband is home we try to keep that as relaxed family time. 
•  My husband usually entertains the kids while I prepare dinner (or vice verse he's actually the better cook shhh.)
• After supper it's time to clean up and RELAX we usually allow our kids to watch a show on T.V. before our bedtime routine begins.
• Bedtime consists of baths, books, and bed.

 I find that consistency not only helps our children but also helps us as parents. If everyone knows in advance what to expect I find the days (usually) run smoother! Please share with me your daily routines I would love to hear what helps smooth out the wrinkles in your day!

Our story...

Welcome! I'm so glad you found my blog. Let me introduce myself, my name is Meaghan and I'm happily married to my high school sweetheart Dean. We have two wonderful boys, Dylan and Blake and we are expecting our third child in early March. I used to work a 9-5 job and recently made the decision to be a stay at home mom. Although it has its challenges, I couldn't be happier! I find that instead of rushing around and just simply "surviving" the work week I'm now enjoying each day with my family. Our household has gone from being on a strict schedule to being much more relaxed. This blog will be about maintaining an organized household while dealing with the chaos that raising a family brings. I hope you join me in this adventure!