lists Archives - Wait Til Your Father Gets Home

{guest post: a glimpse inside}

May 25, 2012 by meredith · Leave a Comment

Hi friends! Today I’ll be guest posting for Allison at A Glimpse Inside since she just had Baby M this week! Congrats to Allison and Travis on their brand new baby girl! Please visit her blog to show her some love and also check out my guest post tutorial on making my little guy’s {20 Questions Birthday Memory Book}! I made one for my niece in March and just had to make one for Jackson’s upcoming birthday as well!

Enjoy!

About Meredith Hazel

Meredith is a stay at home mom and has been blogging since 2012. She started Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home as a creative outlet in between nap times for her little one. Wait 'Til Your Father gets home is a combination of crafting tutorials, DIY projects, recipes and, sharing some of life's journey along the way.

Filed Under: Crafting, Family, Gifts, Inexpensive Tagged With: birthdays, blogs, gifts, guest posts, kids, lists, photography

{clip, clip…take 2}

April 13, 2012 by meredith · 6 Comments

Remember when I posted about couponing and coupon organization? Well, my lovely, organized coupon box bit the ~~dust~~ pavement on Monday in the parking lot of the pediatrician’s office.

R.I.P. broken (and not as sturdy as I thought you were) coupon box. Luckily it wasn’t a windy day and all of the coupons just plopped out onto the parking lot to soak in the sun. So before I got little man out of the car for his nine month checkup (he’s doing fantastic by the way), I grabbed all my coupons and stuffed them into an empty Target bag that just so happened to be hanging out in the back of my car. You can never have too many Target bags!

When I got home I put all the coupons on my kitchen desk until I figured out what I wanted to do with them.

Ugggghhh…that sight just makes me anxious. All my hard work alphabetizing….wasted!

I decided that it was time for a new system (again). My coupon box was getting a little too full, and it made it hard to find exactly what I was looking for most of the time. I did some research on a few of my favorite couponing websites including this one and this one and decided to make the switch to the most organized binder I’ve ever seen in my entire life courtesy of The Krazy Coupon Lady.

She has two methods for coupon binder organization. One method is to buy a HUGE binder (I’m talking 5-7 inches my friends) and organize the full sheet of coupons (no clipping) by date. That way when sales come along you can use a coupon site, such as The Krazy Coupon Lady to find specific coupons. This method didn’t really match my couponing style, so I went with her second type of binder organization.

The binder I chose to make is organized by category. She even has an entire PDF you can download to use in assembling your binder. To set up a coupon binder, organized by category, you’ll need:

1 1/2 or 2 inch binder
40-50 sheet protectors (letter size)
50-75 9 Pocket sheet protectors (I found mine on Amazon—100 ct box for $12.49)
label maker
index dividers
coupons

Luckily I had almost everything I needed to get organized on hand and only had to purchase the 9 pocket sheet protectors!

Category Dividers (download the free PDF here, courtesy of The Krazy Coupon Lady) & Sheet Protectors

9 pocket sheet protectors (found on Amazon)

Label Maker (I’ve had this for over 6 years. It was a “congratulations-on-becoming-a-teacher! Trust-me-you’ll-need-this! Gift ” I think I’ve used this more in the past few weeks than I ever did when I taught! But it’s a great gift nonetheless!

Obviously I already had all of my coupons clipped, so I began with setting up the binder first. You can watch this video of The Krazy Coupon Lady showing you step by step how to organize your Coupon Category Binder. She also shares how to set up the Organized By Date Binder as well. I found this video to be very helpful in setting my binder up, but also included some of my own ideas in my personal binder.

For each tab, I used my label maker to make the following tabs: Coupons, Shopping Lists, Store Ads, Meal Plans, and Receipts. As I mentioned before when I discussed coupons here, you’ve got to save the store ads each week if you are seeking a price match at stores that honor competitors advertised deals. Just hold on to them for the week, trust me, it’s worth it! The Shopping Lists section is handy because I’ve turned into a multi-store shopper. I go where the best deals are, and that sometimes means travelling to a few stores a week.

All coupons are organized by category behind the Coupons tab. At the very front of this section is an Index of all Categories. So if you don’t have the categories memorized, simply find the category, the corresponding number, and flip to that section, for easy coupon finding! Each category has a header page that I inserted into a letter sized sheet protector, like so…

I like how most categories have sub-categories listed as well (in case of confusion)!

After each header page, I put 2-3 of the 9 pocket protectors behind those. Now I can easily see all of my coupons in each category simply by turning through the binder!

Baking Coupons

Baby Coupons (I can never have too many of these)!

I always take my coupon binder with me when I leave the house. Remember, your coupons are doing you no good sitting in your house! I will say that before I venture out to stores, I really research what I’m buying, the coupons I’m using, and the money I’ll be saving. I pull all the coupons I plan to use ahead of time and attach them to a shopping list for each specific store. It’s nice to bring the whole binder in with me however, in case I stumble upon a sale that I didn’t read about ahead of time!

So far, I’m very happy with my new coupon binder! Let me know if this method works for you

I’ll be linking up today…

I’ve also been featured again by Kelley @ The Grant Life!

Please leave a comment! I love to hear from my readers!

About Meredith Hazel

Filed Under: Organization Tagged With: coupons, lists, organization

{favorite things: baby stuff}

March 15, 2012 by meredith · 1 Comment

Over the past eight months, (yes…my baby is already eight months old now) I have learned that there are a lot of baby products out there. I’ve also learned what works best for him and for us as a family. Here are some of our favorites…

Desitin

I’m pretty sure my mom used this when I was a baby. Desitin has been around for years. I received several diaper rash creams from my baby showers and have tried all of them, but none even compare to Desitin in my opinion. I love the way it smells (is that weird?), and I also love how easily the cream spreads on my babe’s little tush. I’d say that I apply Desitin at least every other time I change Jackson’s diaper and (knock on wood) he’s never had a diaper rash. Another plus? There are coupons for Desitin available all the time!

Doesn’t he look so guilty? I wonder what he’s thinking!

MAM pacifiers

My little one started out using the 0+ version of these cute little binkies (as we refer to them in our house). Looking back at that size now, they seem so itty bitty. Where did the time go?! Now little man is using his big boy binks as we had to switch to the 6+ month version at around 4 months. I guess his mouth is big? We knew it was time to switch because the baby binks just kept popping right out of his mouth.

Oh so little! There’s the 0+ MAM pacifier.

And here’s my rock star using the 6+ month version!

Gentle Giraffe

The Gentle Giraffe by Cloud B is a soothing sound machine with four sounds. While I realize that the thing that really helps Jackson fall asleep is the sound coming from the giraffe, I like to think that he loves just having the giraffe near him to do some cuddling. Nine times out of ten when Jackson falls asleep he is either near or holding onto a leg or arm of his giraffe. We actually have two giraffes, a large one in his crib and a smaller travel giraffe that spends most of his days in the car. The only negative I have to report about Gentle Giraffe is that there are only two timer settings: 23 minutes and 45 minutes. Our giraffe is always set at 45 minutes. I wish that it could just continuously play (especially during naptime). We are to the point now that he pretty much sleeps through the night, but I feel like if the giraffe would continuously play during naps it would help Jackson to sleep a little bit longer. Oh, and the battery life on both of them is awesome! We’ve replaced the travel one twice and the crib giraffe only once so far.

Aden + Anais Burp Cloths

I absolutely love these burp cloths! Not only are they super cute, but they are very absorbent too. They double as a bib if needed by snapping two small snaps together around baby’s neck and are curved to fit perfectly over your shoulder as well. For the first few months we could always count on Jackson to spit up just a little bit, especially after a feeding. These burp cloths were always the first that I would grab out of the burp cloth drawer because they were my favorite. We have four of them and they were purchased at Babies R Us and Buy Buy Baby.

Some of my other favs (I’ll talk more about these in a future post):

Johnson & Johnson bath products (all of them!)
Gerber baby foods (I tried the homemade route and FAILED)
The First Years Bottle Warmer
Medela Breast Pump

What about you…what are your absolute favorite baby items? Did any of mine make your list?

About Meredith Hazel

Filed Under: Baby, Family, Favorites Tagged With: baby, lists

{nobody puts baby in the corner}

January 27, 2012 by meredith · Leave a Comment

I’m in the mood for another list, are you? Lists are super easy to think of, and I’m in a super easy kind of a mood! Remember my friend Vanessa, got her inspiration for creating a Listable Life over on Moments that Define Life. Since I’m sure you’ve heard the quote above a time or too, I’ll just jump right in…

My top five favorite movies of all time…this was REALLY hard and I definitely have cheated a little bit on the making of this list.

{#5 How to Train Your Dragon}

I’m a huge sucker for animated movies. I love all classic Disney movies from my childhood and would not feel weird totally having a Disney marathon one rainy day. Toy Story 3 might have been one of the cutest movies ever and don’t even get me started on Enchanted, Tangled, Kung Fu Panda or Monsters Inc. The people over at Pixar and Dreamworks are geniuses in my book! (I’m totally cheating on this list; I just named 5 additional movies plus all Disney movies from my childhood…I’m a kid, I know.) My recent, most favorite animated movie is by far How to Train Your Dragon. Toothless reminds me of my doberman, Huck for some reason. If you haven’t seen this movie, you must!

{#4 The Wizard of Oz}

Follow the yellow brick road, follow the yellow brick road! I can hear the little munchkins singing now in their little munchkin voices. Granted, when I first saw this movie I was pretty confused as to why all those “kids” lived by themselves. My 6 year old self did not understand that there were adults among the munchkins too. This is one of those movies that I could watch over and over again. I like to try to notice things in the background that I didn’t notice the time before. The songs are all fun (and quite catchy), and the story just never gets old to me. If you too are overly into The Wizard of Oz, go see the musical Wicked if it ever comes to your town. My dream would be that they made that into a movie as well. A girl can dream, can’t she?!

{#3 Christmas Vacation}

About halfway through the year I get a little Christmas fever and MUST watch Christmas Vacation. It is by far the best Christmas movie and the best “Vacation” movie ever! I love when the Griswold’s head out to chop down their Christmas tree, when cousin Eddie shows up with his dog Snots, and when Clark freaks out over his jelly of the month club enrollment. I can just hear the excitement now…

{#2 Dirty Dancing}

They had the time of their lives, and baby finally got out of her corner. I first saw this movie when I was very young and watched it quite a lot. What I didn’t realize until I was in college, yes college, was that my mom had purposely not recorded, yes recorded from the TV onto a VHS tape, the love scene between Baby and Johnny. I remember I wasn’t feeling well, and I was in the mood to watch one of my favorite movies. Lucky for me, my college roommate owned it on DVD. I popped that thing in, and suddenly there were all these scenes I had never seen before! Apparently my mom not only skipped recording the love scene, but there were about four others she left off as well. I’m sure my shorter version of Dirty Dancing was partly due to the fact that mom didn’t want to have to explain things to her young daughter, and she also didn’t know how to correctly record it in the first place. I like both versions just the same and am happy to lend out the VHS if anyone is interested.

{#1 Harry Potter Series}

For the past decade I’ve enjoyed not only reading the best selling books, but also watching the movies. I love the story, I love the characters, and I desperately still want to go to Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry by way of platform nine and three quarters.. I’m still waiting on my owl to arrive and give me the good news.

It’s raining outside, and I’m totally going to watch one of these movies now. I’m thinking that Harry Potter may win, it usually does! What are your top five movies of all time? Did any of mine make your list?

About Meredith Hazel

Filed Under: About Me, Listable Life Tagged With: lists, movies, wizard of oz, yellow brick road

{taking a stab at it}

January 23, 2012 by meredith · 3 Comments

Since leaving the world of full-time teacher (aka mommy to 25+ kiddos at a time) and entering the world of full-time mommy to the cutest little guy on the planet, I’ve developed a few new…let’s call them habits. I’ll get into more details over the next few weeks as I slowly begin to share these habits, but the one I wanted to start with today is my new found love of reading blogs. I look forward everyday to seeing what John, Sherry, sweet baby Clara, and Burger (their photo-bombing pup) are up to over at Young House Love. And don’t even get me started on the queen of sass herself, the Pioneer Woman! She’s got such a fun way of writing and delicious recipes. Those two are definitely my top fav blogs to read everyday. A few others include: Pearls, Handcuffs, and Happy Hour (fun name, right?), Two Twenty One, Centsational Girl, and a blog belonging to a long-lost friend from college Vanessa Schrotenboer, who also happens to be a fabulous photographer!

Yes, I love reading these blogs so much that I’ve decided to take a stab at it myself. I like to think of myself as a good writer. It’s definitely something that I used to enjoy very much. I figure that if I can sit around and read blogs for a few minutes here and there during my day, then I most definitely can start to get my words out there as well. I don’t necessarily know where this blog will go, but I do know that I have tons of ideas swimming in my head.

I stumbled across one such idea from Nicole over at Moments that Define Life. She just started a new series that you can actually link up to called Listable Life. With all good intentions, she purchased this and intended to start to record her life in lists. I can strongly relate because I’m such a list maker. I feel naked if I even park in the Kroger parking lot without some sort of a list going, and don’t even get me started on Target. If I so much as even look at that store without a list that I ~~always~~, ~~sometimes~~, who am I kidding–never stick to, I walk out of there $100 later when I really only needed a bag of cotton balls. Where was I going with this? Thinking of Target made me lose track…ah yes…

I thought it would be fun to introduce myself and a little bit of my life through lists. It’s a lot better than a little “Hello my name is” boring-ness. So, without further ado…My Top Five Favorite TV shows of ALL TIME!

{#5 Last Man Standing} I feel like I’m already cheating on my list since this show is only its first season and only has just a few episodes until its belt. I was a huge Home Improvement fan and have three letters for you my friends…J-T-T! Come on, you know you loved him! Sadly, Jonathan Taylor Thomas is not on this Tim Allen show, but his three TV daughters are definitely a lot funnier than those quirky, yet loveable boys. I know this list says favorite tv shows of ALL TIME, but I have a feeling it definitely will be!

{#4 Modern Family} Oh Phil Dunphy, I love watching your awkwardness every Wednesday night. And Gloria, your accent makes me laugh out loud at least twice an episode. I love the family dynamic of this show and how witty the kids are–all the kids. I have never seen an episode of this show that I didn’t love. Here is a clip from one of my favorites highlighting the complete non-dramatic Cam:

{#3 Lost} I didn’t watch this show until after it went off the air, and my husband and I decided to give up traditional cable tv (the bill was getting a bit outrageous). For about a year now we have been subscribers to Hulu Plus. It’s so easy and super cheap at $7.99 a month compared to $100+ for cable. There really is no comparison there. Well, on good old Hulu Plus some TV shows have all of their seasons and episodes just sitting there waiting for you. We decided to start watching Lost and finished the entire series in just a few months. I’m glad we watched it this way because I really don’t think I would have been able to wait each week for a new episode over a seven-year time period. I like it because it made me think–A LOT!

{#2 Dawson’s Creek} I was and forever will be a proud member of team Pacey and Joey. I like to think that they are living a sweet little TV life, still on the creek, in a beautiful little house that always has the windows 0pen and cute little Paceys and Joeys running around barefooted (sorry Tom Cruise). I watched this show every week, own all the seasons on DVD, and secretly only started watching Fringe because Pacey is on the show. And no, his name is not Joshua Jackson, it’s Pacey. Period.

{#1 Friends} If I had to watch one show for the rest of my life, it would be Friends. I truly feel like I know every line from every single episode. Let’s watch some bloopers, shall we?!

Well, that’s it! Hopefully my taste in TV gives you a little glimpse into my life. After looking through all those clips I’m the mood to watch the Lion King and eat a fancy trifle (minus the beef), how about you? What would your list include?