Review: Purex plus Fabric Softener with Crystals Fragrance

The Purex brand provided me with a sample of Purex detergent plus Fabric Softener with Crystals Fragrance for a product review. However, all the opinions expressed here are my own.

After trying (and liking) the Crystals for Baby a few weeks ago, I was excited to try this new detergent from Purex (Purex plus Fabric Softener with Crystals Fragrance) that included the Purex Crystals fragrance! The detergent also includes fabric softener, which we don’t normally use but were excited to try.

Purex plus Fabric Softener with Crystals Fragrance is a new product by Purex, which uses the DirtLift Action to “work deep into clothes to get out dirt.” It has the fragrance of Purex Crystals added to it in order to “enhance your entire laundry experience by bringing the fresh scents of line-dried laundry and clean florals into your laundry room.”

I used it on a load of towels first and LOVED how they smelled afterward! I liked the subtle but great scent the Crystals provided.

The other thing I enjoyed was the added fabric softener. I don’t typically use fabric softener because (in my opinion) I don’t see it as a necessity. If I do want to use a type of “softener” I just add vinegar to the softener dispenser. BUT, I really enjoyed the softness from having the added fabric softener. I noticed a difference.

Would I pay more for this detergent to get the added softness? Probably not. I just don’t find fabric softener to be a necessity. But, again, that’s just me. If you use softener, then this may be a new way to go…not having to buy it separate from the detergent.

The ONLY thing I did not enjoy was its effect on my baby’s skin. I know babies have sensitive skin, but since I don’t separate baby clothes from the rest of our loads I went ahead and washed some of his things with the Purex plus Fabric Softener with Crystals Fragrance. He almost immediately started to have a reaction on his chin and lower face when it touches his clothing that was washed in it.

While I enjoyed the Purex Crystals for Baby, I understand now that this new detergent is not going to be the detergent I’d use to wash baby clothes in.

“New Purex plus Fabric Softener with Crystals Fragrance is available in the liquid detergent aisle at your local Walmart, Target, Kroger and other Purex retailers.”

Creating a Routine After Baby

Any mom knows that everything changes after the baby arrives. Whether you are a mom of one or a mom of ten….things change.

With our newest little guy, I found that things changed quite a bit for us. I had a little anxiety about starting up our school work again and balancing it with housework and cooking/baking everything.

After much prayer and tears, I discovered a few things about finding a routine after baby.

1. Ask for help (or at least accept it when it’s offered!).

My husband has reminded me often that I need to accept help. Whether it’s from him or friends or family, I need to stop trying to do it all on my own.

After this delivery, I accepted his help around the house. For several days after I got home, he did everything – baths, food, laundry, cleaning. It was amazing how much more rested I felt this time around. My body healed much more quickly also. I was stunned, honestly. I didn’t have any issues with healing or moodiness after Ethan was born, like I did with most of my other babies.

This time around I accepted offers from friends and neighbors for meals, as well as an offer today from our friends to pull our van up to the front after church. I was with all five kids, without Arthur (due to work), and I hesitated accepting the help because these friends have seven kids. BUT, I’m glad I accepted because with a crabby 18 month old and snowy weather…I don’t know if we would have made it to the parking lot!

2. Accept the fact that there will be a NEW “normal.”

I struggle with this one after every pregnancy. You’d think I would have learned by now! As much as I love our former routine and how great we were at getting things done and going places…things are very different now. We can still get things done, but the timing has changed. I can’t do all our laundry on Mondays now; I have to spread it out over 6 days of the week. There’s just too many clothes!

And with a baby not yet sleeping through the night, there is no way I can expect my body to function at 5:15 AM like it did before to get up and shower and get things done before the kids are up. I am lucky if my eyes open by 6 AM now! I still force myself to get up and cook us all breakfast, so we can eat together before Arthur leaves for work (we LOVE this time together, and I don’t want to give that up!). Until that baby sleeps a good 8 hours, I have to accept that our new routine is me getting up and cooking breakfast. Showers and former early morning chores are getting bumped to after breakfast or other reasonable times of the day.

Even once the baby sleeps all night, our routine will be different from now on. With seven people, things will evolve into a schedule and routine that keeps us functional (and sane!).

3.Give yourself GRACE.

I am very big on completing my “To Do” lists each day. It drives me nuts to have things carried over to another day. HOWEVER, with a newborn, things don’t always go as planned and my plans don’t always take precedence. Even simple chores like dusting get pushed into the next day because baby is fussy or poopy or both, my three-year-old found new places to put sticky tack around the house, or my eighteen-month-old is the ONLY one that discovered I didn’t lock the water dispenser on the fridge door and has decided to change his bath time (and kitchen floor cleaning time) to RIGHT NOW!

Rather than beat myself up over not getting everything done when I think it needs to be done, I am learning to give myself a little grace and accept that there is a lot going on these days. Until we have a more regular routine and baby adjusts to sleeping more and eating a little less often (every two hours is just exhausting!), things are going to be delayed sometimes. As long as we are all clean, fed, and uninjured…that’s a productive day!

4. What works for one doesn’t work for all.

I have tried modeling our routine after what I’ve read on other moms’ blogs. It never works! I can’t use what works for a family with a different set of tasks and different personalities and different people! I need to find what will work for US; I may need to try and fail several times, but we will figure it out.  And what I find works for us will probably not be what works for each of you and your families.

5. Remember to cherish these early days!!

I often remind myself I need to slow down and just enjoy the kids. I get carried away with our school work and cleaning and baking that I miss out on some beautiful moments. When did Ethan first smile at me? Couldn’t tell you. And this morning during church I found myself devastated by this. He was smiling at me during the service, and I was trying to think of the first time he caught my eyes and smiled. I know it was recent, but because I was too caught up in getting things done I didn’t pay enough attention to write it down or even sit and enjoy it!

As moms, we often put so much pressure on ourselves to “bounce back” and be as we were before the baby arrived. Like I said above, things will be different going forward, once baby is here. There’s another life to enjoy and to look after. Schedules will have to change. If we can’t ease up and allow the changes, I think we miss out on the joy of it all.

I hope those couple of things can help out any of you that might be in need of some reminders on how life changes after baby. Whether it’s your first baby or your fifth , life changes…for the better, ultimately…and we have to be willing to adjust and enjoy!

Ok, I’m off to snuggle this baby , who is desperately trying to fall asleep in my arms!

 

 

It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like…

a NEVER-ENDING stomach flu here!

I feel like I am washing an obnoxious amount of laundry these days…and I am. I washed 11 loads on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Thought we were in the clear after making it to the kids’ Christmas program Sunday night, but Iris came down with the bug last night after dinner.

So, I’m back to washing tons of clothing and sheets…again. At least we have a nice washer and dryer that I don’t mind using.

I forced us out of the house this morning to pick up meat from the “meat lady” in town after Iris went a whole hour without puking (the first time since 8pm last night!). She held a bowl in front of her face in the car. I felt a little bad that I made us go, but we really needed the meat for the week (and some fresh air, even if just for 10 minutes or so). And I figured it was going to be a while before we got out again.

She’s managed to keep down one cracker and some sips of ginger ale and Powerade, so hopefully she can rest a little more this afternoon. She was literally up every 30 to 60 minutes last night. Poor girl got no sleep (and neither did Mom or Dad!) til this morning. I also ended up giving her apple cider vinegar diluted in water to take and help stop the vomiting (thanks, Mom, for forcing that on us as kids…it works!). That’s what helped her stop long enough to fall asleep for a little while.

Now, it’s time for Mom’s nap. Hopefully my brain stops thinking for at least a little while, so I can keep from falling asleep in my food at dinner.

 

Back to School with Purex

 

Purex has a whole section on their website dedicated to getting you back to school…pain free! Go HERE to see the different articles, tips, and even lists for grades you can download to make sure you have all the supplies before the kids’ first day! You also have the chance to WIN A $1,000 BACK TO SCHOOL SHOPPING SPREE!

And don’t forget to LIKE Purex on Facebook for your chance to win $10,000! So much information on their site and so much money to win.

Happy School Shopping! And have a great first day back to school!!

 

Tuesday’s Tips: Organizing Your Child’s Closet

I can’t believe it’s almost June! Erika at Just Peachy Photography and I have been posting together for almost 4 months now! Today’s post is about “Organizing Your Child’s Closet”. Go HERE to read Erika’s first half of the post about how she handles and organizes clothes for her 3 boys. Then come back and read up on how I’ve organized our one larger closet to be our family closet!

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I have posted previously about our family closet, but today I wanted to touch on it again as an option for organizing your child’s (or children’s) clothing.

We live in a small home for 6 people, with just 2 bedrooms and 2 closets to contain all of the clothes we currently are wearing. I think I do a good job keeping the number of outfits we each have to a minimum, but I still found it hard to keep all four kids’ clothes in one small closet in their bedroom. My husband and I have a larger, walk-in closet that we could not fill with our own clothes, so I decided to combine everyone’s clothing into our larger  closet, leaving the kids’ closet for toy storage (with 4 beds in one room, there is very little room for toys).

The first thing I had to do was decide what types of storage units (dressers, plastic bins/drawers, rods, shelves, etc) would be best for the space. We already had  rods secured on the wall, with a 4 shelf unit as well. I had also acquired a 4-drawer dresser from my mom, as well as numerous plastic drawer units that we used in the kids’ closet and for my husband’s and my clothes. I decided to use the dresser for my husband and I and just use all the plastic drawer units for the kids. I did this for two reasons:

1. The kids can see through the front of the drawer, so they can know which drawer is for which kid.

2. I felt more comfortable giving the kids the plastic drawers to fool around with, opening and closing, rather than the nicer wood dresser. Sorry, kids…don’t trust your “gentleness” that much!

I gave each girl 4 drawers (one each for shirts, pants, pj’s, and underwear/undershirts, socks), and I stacked their drawers by items rather than by girl. For example, I have all the underwear drawers stacked together, then all the shirt drawers stacked, and so on. I found this easier for me when putting away clean laundry – I went to one section only to put away all the undies and socks, rather than to each girl’s section. And when I pick out outfits for the next morning, I find it easier to grab a shirt for each girl, then move on to grab pants for each one, and so on.

The baby got 2 bigger drawers (one for shirts/onesies/hats/socks/bibs and one for pants/pj’s/shorts).

Two of the rods on the wall are for my husband and me. The shorter rod is for the kids’ nice clothes – Sunday clothing and other dressy items. I don’t hang up much for them because of the limited space and because I fold and stack them pretty well in the drawers, so I don’t find that we have a lot of wrinkled items when they put them on.

This system is what I found works best for us in this current house. When we move this month, we will have 2 more bedrooms and plenty of closet space for each child to store their clothes in their own room. Then, I’ll have the challenge of  simple organization in a whole new way!

Do you have any ideas or tips for easy closet organization for your kid(s)’s clothing? Feel free to share!!

Related articles

• Time to Purge! (eyeononederland.wordpress.com)
• Closet Organizing (patinageneral.typepad.com)
• Frugal Organizing Series – Dresser (theolivebuffet.wordpress.com)
• Closet Clean-up (teachinstyle.wordpress.com)
• 6 Super Useful Storage Solutions for Brand New Parents (wegotkidz.com)
• 5 Simple Steps To Organize Your Child’s Room (monicaricci.net)

Simplifying Your Closet – Part 3 Completed

I said I didn’t want to drag out Part 3, but apparently I have anyhow. Sorry about that.

For my final thoughts on Part 3 – Closet Organization, I would like to just run over shelving and “mix and match.”

With regard to shelving in your closet for organizational purposes, it can be helpful or it can be hurtful.

Shelves are a really great idea for those who like to keep things super neat and tidy. Shelves require great folding and stacking skills. If you don’t want to worry about keeping things folded and stacked well, shelves may not be your best bet. Clothing piles can look quite disorderly if things just get tossed on the shelf into a pile. If you’re looking to stay motivated, unkempt piles of clothes probably aren’t going to do the trick.

If you already have shelving units in the closet and don’t want to take them out (who would?!), try using baskets or bins or cute boxes on the shelves to contain unfolded items. I do this with belts. I don’t like to roll up belts each time we aren’t using one (that’s at least 2 belts a person – except for baby – so that’s at least 10 belts I would have to roll a couple of times a week!), so I just toss them into a fabric bin on top of our drawer units. Keeps them all contained, but I don’t have to be overly tidy with them.

Shelves can be very helpful to see exactly how many of something you have, and if you acquire too many somethings, shelves can help you realize how overwhelmed you are becoming with that item and cause you to pare down to a reasonable amount. Jeans, for example. If you fold and stack your jeans on a shelf, you will quickly notice when you have too many and need to get rid of some.

Pros to Shelving in the Closet:

1. Keeps things visible. You know exactly how many you have. Motivates to keep tidy, if you tend to be inclined to tidiness.

2. Easy to maintain – just fold and stack.

3. No boundaries, so you can lie several piles of different items on a long shelf, without having to worry about space like you do in a drawer.

Cons to Shelving:

1. Keep things visible. Shows sloppiness and probably won’t motivate to keep tidy, if not already in your nature to do so.

2. Doesn’t contain loose or small items well. (bins would help with that)

My final thought about organization is what I call “mix and match.” Most of us already have a closet configuration. We’ve spent money on shelves or drawers or dressers, and we probably don’t want to go out and buy more things to organize. If we can mix and match with what’s on hand, we might end up with something better than we had hoped.

I had drawers to contain home school supplies earlier this year. I found that the three-drawer unit matched ones in our closets for clothing and re-purposed that unit for clothing, to give us more drawer space in the closet without having to go buy another drawer unit. (I found another area to hold my school supplies.)

My laundry supplies were contained in a fabric bin in the downstairs bathroom. I found I really didn’t NEED them in a bin, since they were contained and hidden in the cabinet under our sink. So, I took that fabric bin to use as our belt bin. Again, I did not want to go pay $10 for a silly little bin to hold belts.

We go through a lot of diapers, and I saved a diaper box to hold all of our slippers. Sure, it’s not cute and solid colored, BUT it was free (minus the cost of the diapers!) and is sturdy. Plus, I don’t have to worry about the kids wearing it down and wasting money. I’ll just hang on to another diaper box when this one gets too worn!

Be creative when it comes to organization. Unless your closet is going to be featured in a magazine, there’s really no need to go out and buy a bunch of pricey containers or drawers to hold everything. Use what you have. Keep things sorted and tidy. Nothing is more of an energy drainer than a messy area in your home. Putting clothes away after doing laundry won’t seem as much of a chore if you have a specific place to put the clean clothes – a place you purposely created and planned out and organized. If you work to get it organized, you will probably feel more motivated to keep it that way!

Simplifying Your Closet – Part 3

So, we’ve gone over simplifying the amount of clothing for adults and children. For this next part, I am A LOT to say (I know, shocking!), so I plan to break down the Organization post into a few mini posts and hopefully keep from overwhelming (or boring) anyone.

#3 – Organization Options

Here are the options I have decided to go over with regard to organizing your clothing:

1 – Family Closet

2 – Dressers/Furniture

3 – Plastics, Bins and Baskets

4 – Shelving

5 – Mix and Match

Today, I will go over number 1 only.

The Family Closet. I mentioned a few weeks or months ago that I have adopted this organizational method for our family. Please understand that this type of organizing is not for everyone. It requires planning and constant discipline with regard to cleaning and organizing. A family closet will become overwhelming if you do not keep on top of laundry, keeping clothes put away, and regularly removing clothing that the kids have grown out of.

Let me back up.

What is a family closet? It is a closet/room/area that holds ALL clothing for every member of the family/household. I do not have a video of our closet (my pictures are below, though), so here a two links to  family closets. The first is of the Duggar Family closet. They have 19 kids (with the 20th on the way!), so their need for a serious clothing organizational system is obvious. They have created a room in their room to hold all clothing for everyone. This makes it easier to pass down clothing sizes to the next child, which I am sure they are doing constantly!

The second link I’d like to share is to a blog called Keeper of the Home. The mother here has a video of their family closet (and another picture, actually, of the Duggar’s closet). This video is actually what helped me see how a family closet was the best choice for us.

Here’s our situation: We are a 6 person family living in a 2 bedroom, 1100 square foot home. On our best days, we feel a bit cramped. Our master bedroom has a walk-in closet, while the second bedroom has a decent size “regular” closet. With 4 children, we have clothes and toys for all ages, and even after paring down both we are out of room! I watched Keeper of the Home’s video and thought of moving everyone’s clothes into our walk-in closet and keeping the kids’ closet as home for most of their toys! Genius.

If you have a home with enough rooms for kids and closet room for all, then maybe a family closet isn’t the right route for you.

Here are the reason I love our family closet:

1. Everyone’s clothes are together, so when I pick out clothes for myself and the kids each night, I only have to go to ONE place to find everything….and if I don’t get to it before the kids go to bed, I don’t have to worry about waking them to sneak in their room and pick out clothes.

2. For laundry day, I only have ONE place to go to put everyone’s clothes away!

3. It motivated me to simplify the amount of clothing we all have…because it ALL has to fit in one closet!

4. It moved almost all of the toys out of sight…which I love most! I do not like to see clutter or toys taking over our house, so to be able to fit them all into the kids’ closet at the end of the day was a HUGE plus for me!

I created our family closet on my own. We do not have a lot of bedroom furniture for us or the kids, so I didn’t have a lot of things to move. We use the 3-drawer Sterilite carts for about half of the clothes and other Sterilite drawers for the rest. My mom gave us a dresser in the Spring, that I had been using in the kids’ closet to hold most of their clothes. That was the only big item I had to move into our family closet.

Below are photos of what I’ve come up with….and it’s working so far for us!

This is the dresser Arthur and I share for clothing, with bins up top holding his running clothes and both of our sweaters, other winter attire, and our jeans.

The top rack of hanging items are all of Arthur’s work clothes. The bottom row is all of the kids’ clothes that hang up – dresses, skirts and boy church clothes.

The center of the rods has a shelving unit. The bottom two areas hold everyone’s sweatshirts and a box for all slippers. It’s empty right now because we’re all wearing them! And yes, those are bottles of ranch dressing on the row above. Small pantry = creative places to store stockpiled items!

This rod has my hanging up items. It is a bit crowded because I have a few pants suits that I am trying to decide if I should keep or not. And I have a few dressy dresses on there that I need to pass on. The baskets shown are for dirty clothes.

Here are all the drawers for kid clothing. The bottom 3 drawers on the far right hold: swimsuits and summer hats, tights for all the girls, and next size up for baby Artie. The big drawer up top on the right has all of baby Artie’s current size pants, sleepers and jackets. The 3 drawers just to the left of those 3 on the right hold pajamas. Each girl has their own pj drawer. The big 3 drawers just under the baskets hold shirts and sweaters. Each girl has their own shirt drawer. The 3 wide drawers under those hold pants and jeans. Each girl has her own pants drawer.

And lastly, this is my cluttered area. The one big drawer under the clutter holds all of baby Artie’s onesies, shirts, bibs, socks. Beneath that are 3 drawers that hold the girls’ undies, socks, and undershirts. Each girl has their own drawer. That clutter up top is extra diapers, the girls jewelry box (which they get in to too often, so I have to keep it out of their room!), and clothes that the baby has grown out of that need to be given away or given back to the lender.

That last picture shows a great example of how much discipline a family closet demands. Yes, it’s nice to be able to keep everyone’s things together, BUT there is no room left over for clutter. I need to stay on top of taking out clothes that the youngest has grown out of, otherwise I end up with a pile like that above. I’m blaming it on the busy weeks of Thanksgiving and illness.

So, this was just part 1 of number 3. That’s confusing. The sub-sections of this Part #3 will be posted each day, rather than spacing them out a week like the main points. Otherwise, I might never get through this series! Monday, you can expect to see the second and third sub-points…Dressers/Furniture and Plastic, Bins, and Baskets.

Happy Organizing!

House Help: Laundry Lament :)

Up until two weeks ago, I had planned on posting about how we should all do laundry on one day each week, so that it doesn’t drag out over several days.

SINCE having a new baby in the house, I have found that washing clothes for 6 people is A LOT of clothing. Babies have a way of dirtying several outfits each day, as well as burp rags and blankets. Between spit up and poop, this little bundle of joy has created quite the mountain of laundry for me!

I designate every Monday as laundry day. I try not to schedule any doctor, dentist, or other appointments for Mondays. We tend to not run any errands and stick close to home, so that we can tackle all the dirty clothes in one day.

Lately, I have also been washing sheets, towels, bathroom rugs (little bottoms have been dirtying these with accidents or dirty shoes or dropping toothpaste!) and a load of socks and underwear later in the week, like Thursday or Friday. This week, I did 4 extra loads of laundry – yesterday I washed all the dirty sheets and the heavy blanket from our bed (it’d been awhile since it was washed) and today I did a load of socks and underwear as well as a load of rugs.

So, what kind of help can I offer with regard to laundry?….now that my whole opinion of it has changed. My advice is this: stay on top of it.

If you designate a day to laundry, DO the laundry that day. Start it first thing in the morning. Keep up with it when the cycles end. Switch the loads out right away. Fold and put away everything as it’s done washing and drying. The more you leave in a pile or basket to do later, the less likely you are to sit down and do it. For me, it’s all mental – if I have more than one clean load sitting there waiting to be folded and put away, I will see how large the pile is and keep putting it off. Right now, I have a basket with the load of socks and undies sitting here staring at me. The rugs load just ended in the dryer, so I really need to get this basket of laundry here folded!

If you need to do an extra load each day, do it! Throw it in first thing in the morning, rather than leave it for later in the day when you’re bogged down with other activities and your energy level is depleted.

If you have to keep changing the routine or way you do it to find a way that works, DO IT! You won’t find the best way for you to stay on top of it, if you give up and just settle with never being able to get it done.

On that note, I’m off to fold!