Children are a gift from the Lord;they are a reward from him. Children born to a young man are like arrows in a warrior's hands. How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them! He will not be put to shame when he confronts his accusers at the city gates.
Children are a gift from God. They have wonder, imagination, curiosity, and trusting spirits and can be a real joy to be around. However, they can also be a "handful" as many people say it! We love having a handful of kids-5!
Many of you may have noticed in the pictures of the kids that they always seem to be wearing the same clothes. Well, they are-kind of.
The farm poses a special circumstance when it comes to laundry. For each person that works outside, you have a wardrobe of "barn" clothes, and then you also have their "good" clothes. When the two oldest boys were younger, their barn clothes were merely good clothes that were past their prime. They shared these clothes; and often we would find them on the floor at the end of the day (not in the dirty clothes basket) or there would be arguing over the favorite shirt that they both wanted to wear. There was also a lot of outfit changes. They would start the day off in good clothes, then change to barn clothes, then back to good clothes. The good clothes (although not dirty) would end up in the dirty clothes basket, resulting in needless washing.
As our family grew, my sister recommended a book, called Large Family Logistics. It is written by a farm mom of 9 and is packed full of good ideas for house keeping, organization, meals, etc. Our laundry system is adapted from an idea out of her book.
I assigned each child a color. I actually tried to pick one that they liked, and one that complemented them. Each child got 2 crates, one for shirts (6) and sweatshirts (3), the other for pants (4) and shorts (4). Early on I ordered color-coordinating sweatpants for each child online. The older boys now prefer jeans, which I buy at the local second-hand shop. These are their barn clothes. They also got an apartment sized laundry basket, and I duct-taped the handles with their coordinating color of duct tape.
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| Crates for barn clothes with the oldest child's at the top. When the baby is old enough, we'll add a shelf and move everybody up one shelf. |
The system:
1. Each child size 2t+ puts on a new set of clean barn clothes each morning.2. The older boys then put their dirty barn clothes in their own basket in the evening (or when dirty).
3. The older boys are assigned a wash day, and wash their own barn clothes by themselves using the washing machine in the barn. Its good practice for them.
A. If they have no clean clothes, it's their own fault.
B. If I find clothes on the floor, I know exactly who they belong to, by color.
C. They are responsible for drying and taking care of their clothes, too.
4. The younger kids still put their dirty barn clothes in with ours and we wash them...for now!
Now, we do not go through as many "good" outfits as we used to. They change before we go out; and we are instructing them to hang them back up as soon as we get home, unless they actually have debris on them. They do not need as many outfits, either. Less clothes for each person is also much easier to manage. Each of the kids has 3 good pairs of jeans, and 2 pairs of shorts, about 5 collared shirts, dress pants, and numerous t-shirts from their clubs,teams, or activities.
With our family of seven, we still can get by doing laundry only 1 day of week for the most part. Occasionally we will have an extra load during the week, but not often.
This color-coded system also works for towels:
and water cups:
The initial investment was around $280 for the barn clothes, plus the crates (6 to start, then 2 more added later). The t-shirts we ordered have the farm logo on the front, and are going into their 3rd year of use. The boys love their "uniforms" and I will have to replace them soon, and go a size up for them. We have occasionally had to replace pants and shorts due to unrepairable holes. I'm not sure if I can count the cost of the towels and cups as extra, given that the towels were the first that we bought since our marriage, 12 years ago.
In a perfect world, all of our "systems" would work, all the time. Truth is, they don't. When there is a system failure, we just try our best to tweak what needs fixed or what is no longer working. It also allows us to use real life as a tool for training the kids how to not be wasteful of things, time or money. Remember, everything we have is a gift from God-especially the kids!
-Terri
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