Back to School 2017

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School is "almost" here and I am skipping around in excitement. Not that I don't love spending time with my kids but they need school ad the structure/schedule that comes with it. No more sleeping till 9 or 10. Up by 6 for the girl and 6:30 for the boy. We are dealing with two schools this year. Boy is still in grade school but the Girl starts middle school.

I keep asking myself when did that happen. How do I have a 6th and 2nd grader all of a sudden. I mean it seems the Girl just started kindergarten like yesterday but I have a 11 and 7 year old who will turn 12 and 8 this school year plus 40 is right round the corner of me!

Back to school planning honestly starts for me in mid July because I need to time to get my stuff together plus usually good sales are happening. Girl needs uniforms this year so they were on sale in mid July plus good deals for the boy. I figured let's just knock that out of the park.

Supplies are a whole other issue. I started a few years ago to just get the school pack which is so much easier but middle school doesn't have it plus the girls asked me not to even if they did, so we needed to get all of that stuff. We started slow, getting an item here and there. I found good deals on lunch boxes and thermos as well.

The other big thing is getting organized for back to school. Honestly this is more summer cleaning up and getting us in a good mindset.

My list of to do felt like a mile long and well I went about tackling it.

Things that I needed to do:

1. Update our Family command center.
I wanted to have something with more information that last year. As much as I love the area, it needed a update to fit our family better. You can check out the post from last year.

Here is the update:

It is spread out more and I updated our weekly calendar with more room for each day. The only thing I bought was hr letter board that says "Make Everyday Count". I figure we can update it as needed. It is sort of our school theme for this year. 

2. The Kids bedrooms. I did the boys back in June so it was pretty good and we had somewhat did the girls but it was still crazy bad. We pulled clothes, got a new hanging organizer. I got one like this one. 

It is great to store all her polos and pants. We still had room left over for other things like her shorts. 

This is a big help in getting her stuff sorted. 

Also I got her a hanging shoe rack for the back of her closet door to store all of her leggings. This is a must have if you or your daughter wears leggings. It was the best thing to organize them all. 

The boy was pretty simple and I use a hanging rack as well for his shorts and pants. He can just pull his shorts out and pick a shirt for himself to wear. He is super independent so this is up his alley. 

3. Fridge organization. 

My fridge got a deep cleaning and organization in order to prep for school lunches. I purchased this really nice bins from Amazon last year and still love how they function though I did switch things around some this year.

I also purchased inexpensive clear plastic shoe boxes that you can get most places for a buck. I labeled each one for main course, fruit, veggie and drink so the kids can just go in and grab their items for the day. We are planning on doing meal prep on Sunday so everything is ready to go for the week. I am "hoping" this makes it less stressful overall. 

4. Family Contracts for behavior and chores. 

We are really needing this one and it is still a work in progress with the kids. My kids have been slacking big time and they need to right their path. Nothing says fun like a  tween with an attitude.

I went to various websites and composed a contract that outlines our expectations, responsibilities for the house and punishments. My kids think everything is unfair so hopefully this will help with that. 

Thanks for stopping by!