Foster Care and Adoption Archives

Ink Obsession

March 29, 2018 by Jules Leave a Comment

I had a facebook friend asking about printers and ink options the other day. I thought I'd share about our because between life, fostering, homeschooling, and church planting, our family prints a LOT of stuff.

>this is not a paid post but does contain my referral link that could help supplement our ink obsession if you happen to sign up using it<

Life and becoming a foster home has all of us in need of printing things no and then. Party decorations, random signs, receipts, seasonal coloring pages, homework assignments, paperwork that needs signatures, things you have to keep posted in your home, etc. I'm sure I'm missing something.

We have had 2 printers in the 7 years of homeschooling. I run them ragged. We don't do the box-curriculum for lots of little reasons but one of those is space in our budget. There's more to it but basically, we do a store bought grade-level workbook and supplement with educational games, activities, field trips, movies/shows, and free/cheap things found on the internet. Although free to download, things found on the internet often require printing them off, sometimes 3-5 copies at a time. There's also the copying of curriculum we've been passed down. That's a lot of paper and ink.

We planted a church nearly 5 years ago. Being a new/small church, we do a lot of DIY or from-my-home stuff including printing children's curriculum, door hangers, post cards, sermon notes, signage, handouts, and all kinds of stuff. That too can be overwhelming and strenuous on me and my printer.

My current HP Envy 4512 [wireless!!!] does printing, scanning, copying, web, and photo stuff. We have had it for at least 4-5 years. It occasionally jams but is a super easy fix. Sometimes my wifi doesn't like to play well but that's just because our small town offers very little in the way high speed access. Another cool feature about this printer is that it works with "instant ink" via HP.

Instant Ink works with SEVERAL different HP printers that allow them to track how much ink is used and then automatically sends you more before you run out. After that, you return the empty cartridge in the package they provide. You can do monthly rates of $3-10 plans based on how much you print. It also allows for roll over pages, the plan can be change super easily, doesn't matter if you're printing colored or black and white. WHAT!? I [heart] color!!! Instant Ink way cheaper than buying ink in the store but it is also way less stressful than running out of ink unexpectedly, having to remember to buy it when you do make it into a store, or making sure to pick out the right cartridge [face palm].

Now, that I've referred you to get ink cheap, can someone refer me to a a program for PAPER usage. You know, one that kept inventory, anticipats needs based on upcoming calendar events, and automatically sent you the appropriate stalk. Or maybe I should plant some more trees. Or MayBe I should start a recycling plant in my backyard with all this paper build up.

What do you use your printer for most often? Got any tricks for making it cheaper? How do you deal with paper-build-up!? For real though, I hate paper- ask my recycling guys. They know I'll kick it out the door by the ton.

Filed Under: as Jules is living, Deals, Foster Care and Adoption, Homeschool, Parenting, Products I've Tried, The Ones about Jules Life {Randomness}, The ones about the Rothacher Home

Foster Family Organization: Our Kitchen

May 2, 2016 by Jules Leave a Comment

Being ready for new fosters for me means having the essentials ready. Some things we can keep stocked are kitchen items.

We store all our dishes in lower cabinets to make it easier for our kids to do the dishes chore. we also make sure we have plenty of plastic plates and silverware for up to 6 kids. Although, some of them have disappeared...probably eaten by the trashcan. I would LOVE to have enough for 6 kids and 3 meals but we're not there yet.

I love the the Ikea kids' plastic tableware! 1. It's awesome bright colors. 2. Microwave and dishwasher safe. 3. There are 6 different colors! Why do the colors matter? I may or may not color code my children...and I have 4-6 kids at any given time.

I also found cheap water bottles in the Target dollar spot {they didn't have them this year but I found the same ones at the Dollar General for ~$.50 more}. My kids get milk for breakfast and watered down juice for lunch and dinner so water bottles are a must for any other time during the day. We have like 6 extras right now because water bottles are one of the things we send with our fosters when they get to leave.

I only let my kids have one cup a day. If they can't find it then they don't get a drink until they find it OR they get their water bottle. The next thing we started when we had 6 kids, most of whom were bigger, was "cup spots". My kids knew they were supposed to put their cups on the counter next to the fridge but if they weren't using "their color" that day, they could't remember which one was theirs. Soooo, I put scrapbook sticker letters on the counter. You can't see them from far away but they're easy for the kids to see up close.

I'm hoping to find more and more things that can help us function with more ease and be ready for what foster care may bring us.

Filed Under: as Jules is DIYing, as Jules is living, Foster Care and Adoption, Homemaker, Organizing, Parenting, The ones about the Rothacher Home

Foster Family Organization: Keeping Our Home Ready and Running

April 25, 2016 by Jules Leave a Comment

I'm a planner for when you couldn't tell. So when we started fostering it was very difficult to keep myself calm when you just never knew how to prepare for the children coming into your home. There are a few things that I've learned that helped us me cope by keep some order and being ready for any age that may come.

It may seem odd but if you know or are a foster family, you understand that each family is unique in what they can handle and who they family will be able to care for. For us, at this time, we are only taking males under Jamin's age. That helps me tons in way of preparation but still leaves a vast area from infant to mature preschoolers. I want to share some things we've learned that can still be pre-planed to keep your sanity in such a transitional life-style.

Some of the things I've already shared about so you can click the images below to read more about those.

Having a simple way to keep shoes, hats, bags, and coats makes life less cluttered. This mudroom system right in our living room is so easy my 2-year-old knows exactly who's what goes where.

Having a fun "parking lot" set up for my kids riding toys allows for fast and easy clean up after outside playing.

Having our dry erase menu and our "boarding" month planned out takes one more thing off my plate.

Having bedrooms set up with some wiggle room allows us to not have to over think when a new call for a placement comes in, no matter how late at night it is. Our room is ready to receive an infant. The guest room is ready to receive an infant through a child. Jamin and Ellie share a room currently but we have a bed ready for her if a child needs to share with Jamin and a trundle ready if it needs to be moved into the guest room.

Our guest closet is socked but at the same time trying to make it still feel like a child's own closet rather than a guest closet. We have diapers of almost every size, blankets, baby toys and gear, air mattress and bedding {for guest not fosters}, and a few pieces of clothing for every size from 0-3 months to size 6.

My biological kids are all on daily allergy medicine and foster kids often come in with their own set of medications. The only kicker is you can't leave medications out to help you remember to give them because they would then be accessible for littles. Depending on the age of the child, I leave the vitamins out on the custom lazy Susan but otherwise everything goes in the locked cabinet and I leave medication cups out to help me remember. Fosters have to have all medicines recorded so we place a clipboard with the medicine log out in the open with a pen hanging on it so we can quickly record everything.

counter cleanup

Babies come with all kinds of things like bottle, formula, burp clothes, and diaper that need to be readily available. Therefore leaving your house in survival mode. That doesn't mean it has to be unattractive. I decided to wrap a formula can in cute scrapbook paper so leaving it on the counter next to the drying bottles wouldn't be a total eyesoar.

I hope this glimpse into our home was fun, helpful, or just interesting. I know I like snooping in other's homes with great detail and thinking through things with them about why they do certain things. Any questions?

Filed Under: as Jules is DIYing, Decorating, Foster Care and Adoption, Homemaker, Organizing, Parenting, The ones about the Rothacher Home

Spring Break Plans 2016

March 21, 2016 by Jules Leave a Comment

This week is spring break for a lot of families. Even though we homeschool, we try to do most holidays and breaks that the local school does since that's who we want to minister to ans well as do-life with.

We'd fallen a bit behind compared to where I wanted to be in our school work so last week I bribed my big girls and trudged through a lot of work to get caught up, allowing us to take this week off from school paper work. Now we can focus on what I'd rather be doing: playing with friends OUTSIDE, enjoying our last days with our #spidie before he possibly heads to provisional care, spring ~~cleaning~~ purging, recovering after a traumatic baby injury, and doing a special unit about EASTER! That's just the stuff we plan to do at home, not including the valley stuff like working on interior construction, cleaning, partying at the building with friends, cleaning out storage units, preping for our Easter service, and normal weekly responsibilities.

maybe someday I'll be able to talk about this...but not now

If I write all this down, maybe several things will happen, I'll have a better picture of what I want to accomplish and maybe I'll actually do the things on the list! #accountability

I was planning to publish a post last week about minimizing toys in your home BUT then I realized that toys had taken over again. They were everywhere. Requiring way too much of our time during our day to clean up. Having fosters who have been overly *blessed* with stuff as well as 3 birthdays and Christmas in resent months, I had not been diligent about keeping them out of the house.

new playroom shelves last year vs this year

The purge plan includes sorting items into #spidies toys to go with him, toys to be donated to the valley, toys to sell at Duck Duck Goose, and then a few toys to keep. The toys that are being kept will be open-ended toys that require imagination, are manipulative for school, and or are educational all by themselves.

Our Easter plans include the resurrection garden we made Friday night, helping prep for and attending the community Easter egg hunt, the holy week calendar that I'm already behind on, sinning rocks that we usually don't do until good Friday, and teachable Easter baskets that I'm doing similar this year but rather than 4-5 baskets, I'm doing one large "family basket". My hubs and I already had a date night and purchased all the things for it but they're currently in the trunk of our car in the baby pool because...where do you hide that? hehe

We also already have the stuff we plan to use to make our spring baskets for our neighbors. Now we just have to figure out how to get those items out to make the baskets for them without my kids seeing the other stuff.

I like planning to just stay home. Its nice to be able to plan flexible trips with my family while others are in school. PLUS, lots of our neighbor friends don't have big plans either so we can play lots more with them. What are your plans for spring break?!

Filed Under: Cleaning, Foster Care and Adoption, Homemaker, Organizing, Parenting

Fit Chips {nothing to do with fitness}

November 9, 2015 by Jules Leave a Comment

Do you have lots of littles? Or even just a single little who knows how to throw a fit about Every. Tiny. Minimal. Pointless. Non-life-threatening. Thing? Yeah, me too!

Currently, we have 6 littles under the age of 7 years old. Besides the tattling, fit-throwing is the most common offense in our home. While we are still using our "Rocking Behavior" chart to handle most of those, I decided today that FITS were gonna have to be treated like a sacred thing. Before you tell me that fits can't be limited, I once grounded my daughter from her imaginary friends during nap time. Absurdity in parenthood is my forte.

Do you ever catch yourself ignoring the screaming your child is doing because they've 'called wolf' too many times and it doesn't mean anything anymore? I often "change my name" for the same reason. In my opinion, fits should be reserved for worth-while circumstances. Like death.

You throw a Fit, you pay a Chip.

How to create and follow through with this system:

I created cups to hold each child's chips as well as a Fit Chip Collection tub. For about 5 minutes, I was going to use empty baby food jars but then..glass. So we ended up using an old frosting tub and 6 laundry detergent cups. Cut up index cards and packing tape took care of the labeling and I cut a giant hole in the lid for easy deposits.
Next came the budgeting and consequence/reward system: I used plastic gold treasure coins we already had. Every one of my homeschool kids got 3 chips and those who attend public school got 2 because they were here way less of the day.
For any reason, if a child screams, cries, hollers- as soon as it happens, they go pay me a chip, then we deal with the event {exception is actual blood is involved or assistance is needed for injury}. Our first day actually solved this problem pretty quickly. As soon as they thought about screaming because they didn't get the color plate they wanted they would laugh because they didn't want to give me a chip.
If they run out of chips, simply say, "NO! You can't afford to throw another fit. You're out of chips." If they continue, create consequences and follow through. For us, they will drop their clip on the "Rocking Behavior Chart".
If they have chips left at the end of the day they get to move their clip up for every chip they have meaning it pulls them out of consequences or pushes them into fun rewards.

Example 1: My children were playing in the backyard when Mags (7) came in screaming. Assuming she was hurt, but not badly because she was walking, I said, "Go pay me a chip." When she responded, "But I'm really hurt." I said, "That's what they're for! I'm sorry you wasted them. I hope you don't get hurt again." She went and paid me a chip and then we discussed how she got kicked in the head on the slide but was really trying to get someone in trouble for the accident.

Example 2: J the man (4) lost all his chips {because he's exhausted and threw fits about Everything} so he ended up falling off the behavior chart, lost his iPad time, movie, AND earned a slightly early bedtime. Although devastated, he's healthier for each of those consequences in my opinion. LOL

Example 3: Iz (5) has a chip remaining which earned her 5 extra minutes of iPad time tomorrow.

Example 4: El {almost 2} has no clue what's going on yet but when she threw a fit because I wouldn't give her the drink she screamed for, I told her "Nope. Pay me a chip. {snicker} Pulled a chip from her cup and said, "That just cost you a chip." She stopped and stared at me confused.

Example 5: M and P (4 and 6) thew fits about having to clean up toys and all the other children shook their heads and said, "Sorry. You have to go pay mamma a chip."

I don't know how long it will last but its fun and kinda working for now. What kinda of shenanigans have you pulled on your kids that get results?!

Filed Under: Foster Care and Adoption, Homeschool, Parenting, The ones about the Rothacher Home

Ink Obsession

Foster Family Organization: Our Kitchen

Foster Family Organization: Keeping Our Home Ready and Running

Spring Break Plans 2016

Fit Chips {nothing to do with fitness}

You throw a Fit, you pay a Chip.

How to create and follow through with this system:

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