Kimber's Five

Having my house on the market with 5 kids has been nothing short of a cluster f*ck. I say that with all due respect. To have your house show ready, you need: The beds made. All 6 of them that we are sleeping in. Laundry put away. Laundry for 6 people. Meaning, the 1 adult adult, me-- who does the laundry-- and the 9, 7, 7, 3, and 1 year olds who create most of the laundry. The laundry situation is a nightmare. Can we please talk about the sheets? The kitchen towels? The bath towels? Did I mention the laundry? Neat and tidy. We are talking toys in the bedrooms. In the loft. In the halls. In the bathrooms {why are there toys in the bathroom?!}. On the stairs. In the family room. In the kitchen. In every single nook and cranny of our house. Horizontal surfaces cleared. This means the folders from school that get emptied x3 everyday have to be immediately taken care of. The bathroom counters in all 3.5 of our bathrooms have to be cleared. The kitchen counters. Nightstands. Bookcases...

"[Women] are taught from their infancy upwards that it is a wrong, ill-tempered, and a misunderstanding of 'woman's mission' (with a great M) if they do not allow themselves willingly to be interrupted at all hours." -Florence Nightingale, from Cassandra In my 11 years of being a stay-at-home spouse, I have received no awards or respect for my job. That's usually when people laugh at me-- when I say job. "Your job ? You stay home all day. With kids. " People have said that to my face. And they mean it. From a young age, I wanted a big family. I mean, a lot of kids. I honestly wanted 10 kids. I still want 10 kids, but I lost my uterus after birthing baby #5 so we are not having anymore. I know there are other ways to have children and we haven't ruled them out, but my body is officially out of commission. I also knew that I wanted to have my kids young. I wanted to start having a big family when I was young-- a newlywed. Not just to g...

Feeding our 5 children Feeding our big family requires planning. We have 5 children: 9 years old, 6 year old twins, a 3 year old, and a 1 year old. I tried meal planning, but our schedule is constantly changing. If the baby doesn't nap and the toddlers get sick and our elementary kids come home with too much homework, how do I commit to a meal I planned 3 days before? I found that I would grocery shop for meals that didn't get made, which meant ingredients I had to re-purpose, which meant waste, because the ingredients would go bad before I used them. Well-stocked pantry and a Costco run every 2 weeks   Because I am a woman in America, I of course have a not-so-small girl crush on Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman. One of her concepts is having a well-stocked pantry. I will leave Ree Drummond to talk about what that means, so check out her post: "Stocking Up." With a well-stocked pantry, I have a lot of flexibility to make easy, on the fly meals for our...