10 Minute Challenge 10/22

I’ve started giving myself 10 minute challenges. I set my timer for 10 minutes and tackle a household chore while my children are having a snack or lunch. It’s amazing how much you can accomplish in only 10 minutes when you focus on the task. The 10 minute challenge is a weekly feature on Mommies with Cents. Each week, I will show you one of the things I was able to accomplish in 10 minutes. I encourage you to join me- it really easy amazing what you are able to achieve, even if it’s incremental, if you set your mind (and timer!) to it!

This week I did something I should have done a LONG time ago.  We moved McKinley to a toddler bed a few months ago so that she would be used to it by the time the baby arrived and they baby could have her crib.   She’s done really well except that she likes to get into her dresser drawers and closet when she should be napping and drag ALL of her clothes out.  I had several bags of baby clothes in the closet that I just tossed in the crib since it wasn’t being used so that she couldn’t make a huge mess out of them.  When McKinley was around 7 months old I had a garage sale and had priced all of her old clothes.  I THOUGHT that I had sold all of the newborn/smaller items but guess what I found when I set my timer to go through them?  Yep, a whole slew of newborn baby girl clothes.  Of course just a few days before I had gone shopping and bought a bunch of girl stuff because I THOUGHT I only had a few gender neutral outfits for Parker.  And of COURSE I had already removed the tags and washed them.  Well, Parker can now wear several outfits a day and never wear the same one again before she outgrows them!  Here’s the mess in the crib:After 10 minutes I had separated out a large pile of newborn-3 mo outfits and a garage sale bag for next summer:

Now I have a safe place (out of reach from my other two!) to put the baby to “play”.  Here she is in her crib checking out her new giraffe toy that her brother and sister got her for her birth day.There were still several bags left to go through when the timer went off and since I had the time (my hubby was still off work) I went ahead and hung stuff up, put it away and went through most of the other bags.

I’d love to hear ways you manage your time at home with kids.  Please share your tips with me and our other readers by leaving a comment, then come back next week for another 10 minute challenge!