Mom Hacks Monday: How I Keep Laundry Sorting to a Minimum

There are currently 5 members of our family - soon to be 6.  We use cloth diapers, cloth napkins, cloth wipes, cloth "paper" towels, dish cloths, and hankies.

We do a lot of laundry.

It used to be that I spent hours sorting laundry.  The actual washing and drying aren't so bad, because they are hours largely spent with me doing something else.  But the sorting, sorting, sorting!  The diapers and wipes were fairly easy, because they were always washed together and came out together.  Clothes for 5 people is a totally different story.

This year, I have hit on a lovely system, though!  I got every bedroom its own laundry basket.  Then there is a hamper downstairs.  About 95% of the time that the kids or I change our clothes, it happens in our own rooms.  So, they take off their clothes and put them in the basket.  Daddy keeps his clothes in his office downstairs and he usually changes in the downstairs bathroom, so there is a hamper downstairs for his things and for the clothing that anyone takes off in the bathroom.  Random towels and other laundry also goes in the hamper.

The hamper is the only laundry that I sort, all week.  When it is laundry day, I wash one laundry basket at a time.  When it is done, if it goes in the dryer, it comes right back out and into the basket it came down in.  If I hang the clothes out on the line or drying racks, I keep each basket together on the line and sort them right back into the correct baskets as they dry.  Anything from the hamper that isn't Daddy's gets sorted into the correct basket - which takes very little time.  And the baskets are each delivered back to their bedrooms where they are (hopefully) put away!

And, voila!  I no longer spend hours sorting laundry each week!

Do you use a "laundry system" in your home?  If so, how does it work?

Mom Hacks Monday: Cloth Diaper Abacus

We have a little problem at our house.  It is a problem that I have been told, many a time, I should get over, because most moms would LOVE to have this problem.  However, I don't like to have problems; I like to have solutions!  And so, after running into this problem for several weeks (years?) now, I finally came up with a workable solution to it.  And I found it to be so clever, that I thought I'd share with my lovely readers!  Perhaps some of you have the same problem, after all.

The problem that we run into at our house is that I am lucky enough to have a husband who understands that the house and its contents belong to all of us, and that taking care of it is everyone's responsibility.  So, sometimes, he comes along to help me and does part of a job for me.  But, sometimes, he forgets to let me know where he was in the job when he stopped, and I am surprised later when I find the work partly done.  This happens very often with our diapers.  You see, cloth diapering requires its own special washing instructions.  One very important aspect is that the diapers need to be thoroughly rinsed to get out any soap residue, or any ammonia that is lingering in them.  Everyone who cloth diapers finds their own laundry system, through trial and error, that works with their particular diapers, machine, laundry soap, etc.  For our family, we wash the diapers once with our detergent, then run through two more complete cycles, sans detergent, before drying.  More than once (sometimes in a week), I have come to the washing machine to find a load of diapers in it that has obviously been through at least one cycle, but with no clue as to where in the process they were left.  And, most of the time, this happens when Papa is already at work, and often can't answer his phone or a text to let me know where the diapers were in the routine.  And so, often, I sit on a pile of dirty laundry for quite a while, unable to continue my daily chores, because I'm not sticking my hands in and possibly pulling out a surprise if the diapers were only run once.  I equally abhor using the water to run them through several more loads knowing that there is equal probability that they have been washed completely and are ready to dry.

And this is so aggravating to me!  Usually, if Papa is washing the diapers, he starts them after I have gone to bed for the night, or before I get up in the morning.  Either way, I often don't see him before he leaves for work in the morning, which means that there is no easy way for him to (remember) to tell me where the diapers were at.  What I needed was something that either of us could do to let the other know where the diapers were in the wash routine, even if we didn't see one another in-between.

I came up with the Diaper Abacus!!!

For this project, I used 1 piece of floral wire, 3 wooden spools (although beads would work just as well), 2 small nails, 2 clothes pins, and some paper.  I simply bent the wire into a U shape, with a double coil at either lower end, to hold the paper.  These look like the bottom of a safety pin, and the paper slips between the coils.  Before putting on the second coil, I slipped the spools over the wire. Then I put the two nails in the wall above the washer and wrapped the wire around them.  The paper I labelled "Washed" and "Needs" and I tucked one into each coil, and clothespinned them to be sure they wouldn't fall out.  And, ta-da!  Now, when one of us loads the washer and turns it on, we can slide a spool over to the "Washed" side.  The next person who comes along can tell that the diapers still need 2 more cycles.  If they start a new cycle, they can slide a spool across.  And when I come downstairs in the morning, I can see whether the diapers are just where I left them, or ready for something else.  Magic!

As a side note, I think this would also be a great solution for moms who are just so busy that it is hard to keep track of how many cycles the diapers have been through.

Mom Hacks Monday: Non-Breakable, Non-Plastic Toddler Dishes

When our family made the decision to stop using plastics as much as possible, especially in contact with our food, one of the hardest things to replace was our toddler dishes.  What can you feed a toddler on that won't shatter into a million pieces if it is accidentally dropped on the floor, but isn't plastic?  And where do you find things made out of it for a reasonable price?  What do you do?  You get creative!

We found that wood or metal would be our best options, but not all metal is safe either.  Many are coated with plastics, lined with bpa or contain things like lead that you don't want your child eating.  But wooden dishes are not always easy to come by, either.  And when we made this choice, we were flat broke and couldn't afford to shop at fancy internet retailers where a single wooden baby bowl cost $12 or more.

So, we began scouring our usual venues - thrift stores, garage sales and estate sales.  We found olive forks in the little used section of silverware that we had inherited long ago, and they were just the size for little mouths.  They were simply miniatures of our nice flatware set, so completely plastic free, but with real tines.  We found demitasse spoons, which are tiny little metal spoons.  We found wooden salad bowls.  In fact, at this point, we've managed to buy several different sets of wooden salad bowls for about $1 for a set of 6 or more.

But what about when you just don't want a bowl?  When the toddler needs plenty of space to see his meat, veggies, and sauce?  We found a great idea in the cooking section of our local department store...

A bamboo cutting board that came complete with silicon, grippy edges and a carved in reservoir that catches the juice instead of letting it run off to the table!  And it only cost us a few dollars.  It washes up easily, doesn't scratch or break, and also doesn't have a rim like most plates, so it doesn't go through the occasional tipping problem that plates sometimes have.  Elliott just loves his "pate"...

even when he is too tired to make it through dinner!

And yes, that is a plastic sippy cup he has.  We have pottery plates, bowls and mugs that he will transition to, but he isn't ready for them yet.  In the meantime, we settle for bpa free plastic for regular use, with a stainless steel sippy cup and a Lifefactory Glass Water Bottle that we use for special drinks or away from the house sometimes.

Mom Hacks Monday: How I Make Laundry Detergent

We've all seen the different homemade laundry detergents floating around the internet.  Some people make liquid.  Some people make powder.  Some make a little.  Some make a lot.  We've been making our own laundry detergent for quite a while now - so long, that I don't remember but I know it's been well over a year.  I've looked at various recipes, and liked and disliked things about many of them.  I've tweaked and adjusted here and there and these days I am quite happy with the recipe we use.  So, I thought I'd share my own edition of homemade laundry detergent with all of my readers!

I started off with the basic soap, washing soda and borax recipe.  I found that it worked well, but that it didn't leave the clothes quite as bright and shiny as I would have liked.  Also, it was a pain in the butt for us to make small batches of laundry detergent all of the time.  We are a family of 5, going on 6, with one still in cloth diapers.  Also, we don't use very much in the line of paper products, so we have about a load a week of extra laundry from hankies, cloth napkins, not paper towels, and cleaning cloths.  So when I saw this large batch recipe, I was excited.  It also contained oxygen cleaner, which I was excited about, because I thought it might help to brighten up the laundry.  However, there were some things that I wasn't over the moon about.

For starters, I don't use toiletries or cleaning products that won't tell me what they contain.  No ingredients list?  Not coming in my house.  So, Zote Soap is out for me.  At a minimum, I don't think I've ever seen an ingredient list.  Also, I don't use Ivory, which is the general replacement, because it contains "fragrance" which is basically a nice way to say, "really nasty chemical ingredient that you actually don't want to know what we make it from, but it makes you smell yummy!"  Our choices are also limited by our allergies, as we can't use soap with dairy, soy, corn or gluten in it.  Yes, all of these things are regularly used in toiletries.  Our pick for soap is Kiss My Face brand Olive Oil and Aloe soap.

Another ingredient that bothered me was the fabric softener crystals.  Fabric softener is just nasty stuff all around.  There are many ways to achieve the same results with less toxic materials.  We'll talk about that a different day.  For today, suffice it to say that I didn't want this in my laundry detergent.

So, I used recipe from How Does She? and omitted the fabric softener and used Kiss My Face soap instead of Zote.  So my recipe looks like this:

1 (4 lb 12 oz) box of Borax Laundry Booster
1 (3 lb 7 oz) box of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
1 (3.6 lb) container of Oxygen Cleaner
3 Kiss My Face Pure Olive Oil Bar Soap, 8-Ounce Bars
4 lbs Baking Soda

The first thing I do is to grate my soap.  I use my good old fashioned crank operated food processor.  You can also use a hand grater like one would use to grate cheese, or a food processor.  Our hand crank processor has an attachment that really powders the soap, which makes it dissolve well in the washer.  I grate one bar, add it and one third of each of the other ingredients to a large tin (the type people gift popcorn in at the holidays), and let the kids stir it well.  Then I do this again for the other two bars.  Then I take a turn mixing and make sure it is all mixed well.  Sometimes I add some essential oils to scent the detergent, but usually not in such a big batch.

My fancy popcorn tin to hold it all.

This laundry soap is what we use for everything - including the cloth diapers.  My mom gave me the handy dandy 1 tablespoon scoop from something she purchases, and it is just perfect to store in the tin.  We use 2 scoops for a large load of regular laundry and 4 scoops for the diapers.  We wash the diapers on warm, but pretty much everything else on cold.  The detergent does really well on all of our laundry.  I'm actually surprised sometimes at the things that easily come out of the kids clothes (and the diapers).  The one difference is that she claims that hers lasts a year to 18 months, while ours lasts closer to 2 - 3 months!  But, our family is nearly three times as big as hers and we wash a load of diapers every other day or so.  Either way, we are saving pretty significantly over the commercial brand we used to buy and not using sls or any other ingredients that we don't like.

Do you make your own detergent?  What recipe do you like?

Mom Hacks Monday - An Apron at Meals

One thing that I see lots of moms struggling with is keeping food off of the kids' clothes at meals and snacks. We have found a simple solution that works very well for us.  We get dressed before breakfast every day and wear the same clothes until bedtime, unless there is a special occasion, without too many mishaps.  Our secret to clean clothes?

Look at how cute they were!  I can't believe this was just a year and a half ago!

They each have full aprons that cover their clothes.  They hang on the back of each child's chair and the kids know to pop them on when we are sitting down to eat!  Actually, now that they are a bit older, they only put them on for messy meals, but it used to be for EVERY meal.  The apron gets dirty, and the outfit stays clean.  When we are done eating breakfast, even if we have to dash out the door, we just wipe hands and faces and head out!

So there you have it!  The apron is not just for baking anymore!

Mom Hacks Monday - My Happy Book

I'd love to introduce you to my house organization binder!  This isn't a new concept.  Search Pinterest and you will find several such binders.  I am sharing my incarnation because it is what I have tweaked to work for me and my family, and I've incorporated some easy things into it that make our days much easier.

This is my happy book!

My happy book usually lives on the kitchen counter, opened to one of the following pages.

This is our daily chores page.  We've got the same list of daily chores that we need to go through day after day, and keeping track of what everyone has or hasn't done at any given point in a day can get a little overwhelming sometimes.  So, I wrote down each of our daily chores, side by side, and popped the sheet into a page protector.  Instant daily to-do list!  I can use a dry erase marker or crayon and mark off what has been done, and erase the entire thing in the morning and start over again.  Bonus, the kids love marking off their own chores and I've slipped in a little sight reading for Sofi.

Our weekly page comes next.  Each day has it's own section marked on the page, with a spot for what we are having for dinner, and a blog post idea.  I also wrote down the weekly chores on this page.  I do laundry daily, but I've sorted the type of laundry I do to specific days of the week so that I can stay on top of it and no one runs out of underwear.  The type of laundry to wash each day is written on the page as well.  I slipped that page into a page protector as well, and I can write in my weekly plans in dry erase marker as well.  Some people would have printed this out in all manner of fancy fonts and made a free download of it so that you could have your own.  But I haven't unpacked my printer yet, so I wrote it by hand on this cute paper (that I've been saving for like 8 years now for the perfect project).

Next, a sheet of lined paper slipped into a page protector, to write my random to-dos on.  I can write and erase easily again.  Just think how much paper we are saving here, folks!

Then I added these awesome hand made tabs!  I have sections in my book for a homeschool calendar and time record, notes, homeschool planning, meal planning, hospitality, finances, garden planning, gift and birthday planning, Christmas planning, contacts, a price book, and animal records.

My homeschool record currently looks like this, although I think I may tweak it a bit when I run out of the weeks I have already printed.  In Ohio, we have to cover 900 hours and several core subjects each year.  So, I use this space to simply jot down what we have worked on throughout the day, and how much time we spent on it.  I don't have to detail it, but I can simply jot down different conversations we've had, etc.  At the end of each day, after the kids are in bed, I add up our minutes for the day and write it at the bottom of the column.  We have a goal of 148 minutes per day, and we typically blow that away.  At the end of the week, I add up our daily totals for a weekly total, and jot it in the corner.  I keep track under that of our year to date minutes, so I add this week's to the week before and jot it down.  Easy peasy record keeping, and easily lets me look back over past lessons and activities to see progress etc, as well.

These are the pages I use most.  My notes section simply houses loose leaf notebook paper for lists, quick notes, etc.  Under homeschool planning, I have my copy of the laws for the state of Ohio, along with all of my correspondence with the school district and our letter excusing us from compulsory attendance.  Meal planning houses calendars where I write what I've planned or made for dinner.  I keep the past months for future ideas!  Under hospitality, I keep track of whom we have invited over for dinner, when they came, what foods they may be allergic to, like or dislike, and what we served them.  Finances houses the budget, gardening is my planning space for what the garden will grow in a year, and theoretically a map of what grew where last year.  Gift and birthday planning has records of who I need to buy gifts for, and what I have bought or made for them.  Christmas planning has a list of who I send holiday cards to, plans for crafting or buying gifts, stocking stuffers, what has and hasn't been bought yet.  My contacts are pretty self explanatory.  My price book compares prices on the same product at different stores or co-ops so that I can tell when a sale is a good sale and if it is worth driving across town to get a different price on a product.  Animal records has a separate sheet for each animal in the house (and eventually on the farm) detailing their personal and medical history, where they came from, etc.

And in the front lives my three ring pencil bag with my dry erase markers, pens, sharpies and a highlighter so they are always easy to find.

So, this is how I keep track of what needs to be done in my life, and where I'm at!  I love my happy little book.

Do you have a happy book?  What do you use it for?

Mom Hacks Monday - How to Properly Hang Laundry

Hanging laundry seems like it would be fairly intuitive, and it is!  However, there are some simple tricks to make life easier for the person in charge of the laundry.  Conserving line space and pins is a priority, while minimizing wrinkles is a great bonus.

The first trick is to overlap the edges of clothing slightly so as to use one pin for two garments.  This works best for like garments - two shirts, for example.

Also, you may notice these shirts are hung upside down.  Hanging upside down uses the weight of the clothing to pull any wrinkles straight.  Also, when it comes to shirts, the straight bottom edge hangs more easily than the shaped shoulders.  Which brings us to button front shirts.  They should always be hung by the tail, even when the tail is not straight.  Ensure that the sleeves and collar are smooth and straight.  This saves ironing time later.

Even pants should be hung upside down, by the legs, which decreases wrinkling and makes hanging easier.  However, it is difficult to hang pants overlapping because of their thickness.

Also, longer items, like pants, should be hung at the end of the line, as the center of the line may sag and drag the item in the grass or dirt under the line.  Another trick for particularly long items is to use two lines for them, as I did with this sheet.

Conversely, smaller items can be hung with only one pin.  These are best hung in a row to maximize line space.

These overalls were also hung with one pin.  I used the straps of the overalls to hang and the pin to keep them from sliding.

You may have noticed by now that I have tall clotheslines and short clotheslines.  The kids love to help hang laundry and giving them their own line and stack to hang really boosts their self-confidence.

Mom Hacks Monday - Easy Glass Jugs

I wrote a few weeks ago about our goal to have a 90% plastic free house, and how we accomplished that goal with very little money.  One of our early challenges was our dishes.  We didn't want to use plastic for the things that we ate.  I drink a glass of orange juice every day, and drink decaf tea all day long.  We had a few plastic pitchers that needed quick replacement.  But the price of glass pitchers can be a bit high.  Even at the thrift store, they can be expensive.

And at the same time, we were trying to feed our child and ourselves good foods.  We did our best to buy hormone and antibiotic free milk.  We discovered a few great companies at the grocery store who produced a great natural milk product, and packaged it in glass jars!  Win, win.  We loved the milk, and the fact that they came packaged in glass was a total bonus for us, since it helped us keep the plastic in the house down and kept it away from our food.  When we finished a jug, we took it back to the store and we got about $1 refund for it!  Perfect!

And then we realized that $1 was a pretty inexpensive glass pitcher for our tea and juice!  So, we saved the jugs and reused them.  They came with plastic caps, but that still made the container at least 90% plastic free.  At least, that is, until the lids broke.  Then Papa, in his infinite wisdom and hardware store knowledge came home one day with giant corks from the hardware store!  Ding, ding!  Winner, winner!!  Now, all of our jug that touched the beverage was plastic free!

We've been dairy free for almost 4 years now, and those jugs are STILL the perfect solution for glass beverage containers.  Best of all, they fit right in the pocket of the refrigerator door, even in the camper!

Mom Hacks Mondays - Suction Cup Hook in the Auto

I've really been enjoying Mom Hacks Mondays and sharing some of my ideas for using things in new ways. Today, I walked all around the house thinking of what would be a GREAT Mom Hack for this week and couldn't settle on anything. Then, on the way to the grocery store, I spied the suction cup hook and knew that I just had to share it!

 
I bought two pairs of these suction cup hooks last winter.  At the time, I used them to hang up coats that had to be taken off to get in the carseats safely.  But, now that we are in the coats off season, we've been using them to hold a backpack full of toys, sunglasses, and drawing supplies where the kids can reach them.

It is a simple little thing, but it has been a great tool for the van, especially when we are traveling.

So, what can you hang?

Mom Hacks Monday - Car Seat Cover

One of my favorite Mom Hacks is really a Papa Hack.  Or, at least, it started that way.  You see, Papa noticed that kids can be messy.  They can be especially messy in cars.  But messy cars are not so nice.  So, how to protect the car from some naturally messy littles?  Why, he covered the seats, of course!

But, seat covers can be costly, and don't always fit your seats well.  And they won't always protect your seats from all of the joys of childhood.  But it is easy to repurpose some thrift store (or in our case, freecycle) items into the perfect seat protectors.

I started with a cloth shower curtain, a seam ripper and a pair of sewing scissors.  I took all of the headrests off the back seat, and laid the shower curtain over the bench seat so that the bottom edge of it hung where I would want it to be permanently.  Using my seam ripper and scissors, I cut holes where the headrests would need to go.  Then, I replaced the headrests.  Then, using the same method, I cut holes where the seat belt buckles needed to come through.  I tucked the edges around the seat as neatly as possible and voila!  I had a beautiful rainbow seat cover for the back seat.  This looks super cheery, and it protects the seat.  I wish I had taken pictures as I did it, but this was 2 years ago, and I didn't think ahead to writing a blog about it at the time.

Now, the fabric shower curtain does an excellent job of catching dirt, leaves, crumbs. and drips and keeping them off of my seats.  When the curtain is lifted, my newly detailed van seat is right there looking at me!  But, we all know that children are prone to especially messy and WET times in life.  Every parent who hasn't had puke or pee in your car at least once, please come write a guest post for me on how you avoid them!

So, for extra wetness protection, we have added one felted wool sweater beneath each car seat.  Wool acts as a water barrier, for those of you who don't know.  Water will go through it eventually, but it gives you a significant amount of time to clean it up before it does.  Wool has magical (ok, ok, they are scientific) properties that cause it to wick moisture across it and allow it to quickly evaporate instead of just soaking it up like cotton does.  Also, the interior of the wool fiber allows it to hold the water to keep it from soaking through.  To create your own wool barrier for the base of the car seat, find a sweater that is a high percentage wool fiber.  Again, we got ours from the thrift store or freecycle.  Wash them in the washing machine in hot water, and dry them in the dryer.  Do this with a load of laundry that won't produce a bunch of lint or stick the sweater inside a pillow case and knot it up to keep the sweater from becoming linty.  Washing the sweater by itself will not help, as the sweater will not felt if you do.  When the sweater is done in the dryer, either fold the arms under and place it in the car seat (where the base of the carseat will go), or cut the arms off with a pair of scissors and lay the body of the sweater only in the seat.  Install the carseat right on top of it, according to manufacturer directions.

Now, you are good to go!  Let the messes come!  When the shower curtain or the sweaters get too dirty, simply toss them all in the washing machine together and put them back in the car.

Mom Hacks Monday - DIY Lip Gloss

Natural lip gloss can be pricey, and the unnatural types can be downright scary.  So, what's a conscientious mama on a budget to do?  Why, make your own, of course!  I started with a tin of natural lip balm that I was given at Christmas.

I kept it in my pocket for a while, and got it all melty and gooey.  Then, I added some powdered mineral make up blush.

I just sprinkled a bit of the powder into the clear lip balm.  I swirled it around a bit, just enough to turn some of the top layer the color I wanted.  Voila!  Perfect natural lip gloss without anything scary.

Mom Hacks Monday - A Better Use for a Butterfly Net

We drive a VW Eurovan - the MV - which has the middle row of seats turned backward against the front seats, and a bench across the back.  We have a deep and undying love for our van.  Feel free to ask me all about it!

But, that isn't what I am writing about today.  I am writing about the bench seat across the back of our van, which is a LONG way from the front seats.  Long as in, we once had a full sized washing machine in our van, with room for the kids to ride in their carseats too.

So we often run into an issue where we have a child WAY back in the back who needs something from WAY up in the front.  And then what is a mama or daddy to do?

We bought this fabulous butterfly net at the farmer's market last summer, and it has since lived between the front and middle seats.  When a cherub in the back seat needs a water bottle, or an apple, or whatever else they may need rightthisminute, the item is placed in the net, and the net is reached to the back seat.  The cherub retrieves the item from the net, and the net is stowed again for the next emergency.  No tears required.

****Disclaimer - do not attempt this maneuver while driving a moving vehicle.  Please let the front seat passenger pass the net back, or pull over to allow the driver to pass items back.********

Monday Mom Hacks - Knitting Row Counter Stitch Markers

Several months ago, a dear friend showed me how to make a fantastic new stitch marker.  I am abysmally bad at stopping my knitting to do any type of row counting.  Thus, I am constantly squinting at my rows, measuring, and trying to figure out if I have knitted the prescribed number or not.  Let's just say this isn't the best method for turning out a refined product.  So, when Tracy showed me how to make these stitch markers, I was over the moon.

Exhibit A is the chain stitch marker.  This was so easy to make!  I bought a package of jewelry findings that were simply rings large enough for my larger knitting needles to easily slip in and out of.  I used a simple pair of jewelry pliers and hooked the links together in a chain of 10.  At the end of the chain, there should be some type of a marker, so I slipped on a button.

Now, when I am knitting, I slip my stitch marker on my needles through the first link.  Each row I knit, I slip it to the next link.  No more squinting to count rows!  I just count my easy to see chain links.

But then, I started this shrug, and I only had a chain of 10, but I needed to count 80 rows.  So, how to count how many sets of 10 I've done?  I had an aha moment and slipped on a new stitch marker every time I finished a set of 10.  When I have 8 stitch markers on, I know I've done my 80 rows.  No more squinting!

I'm completely giddy over this new little knitting trick, and also because I smile EVERY SINGLE TIME I get to use my rainbow stitch markers from Ella Bleu Creations.

Do you have any great row counting tricks to share?

Snack Bottles

The kids and I did a few road trips recently. Ok, so maybe a bit more than a few. And all of this driving has really helped us to get a grip on some great travelling snacks! I'll be sharing a good list of these later on this week. But for today, I'm going to share a great travel snack tip that I stumbled upon while driving from Ohio to Missouri last week. Walter wanted raisins for a snack while we were driving, but it really scares me to let him have anything so small in the backseat, since his seat is right next to Elliott's.

Also, I only had a big bag of raisins, and would have to portion them out for him. I fished around for some small container to put them in, but I didn't have any of my usual items with me. There were no baggies, no jars, no bowls. And as I dug and jostled through things, I remembered the ONE container in the entire van; an unused baby bottle that had come in the kit with my breast pump! So, I dug it up and put the raisins in the bottom. Now, I still didn't realize how perfect this solution was at this point. It wasn't until I watched him in the backseat with the raisins that I realized I had hit upon the PERFECT travel container!

The bottle had a lid, so if he decided not to finish, he could cap it back up and not spill in the back seat. The size and shape made it easy to hold - much easier than the canning jars we use much of the time. But the contour of the bottle is what made it the most perfect! Rather than pour the raisins into his had, dropping them all over the carseat, Walter was tipping the bottle up to his mouth as though he were drinking from it! Bingo! NO MESS! It really was a thing of beauty. And the wide bottom on the bottle meant that the raisins all fell right back to the bottom instead of clogging up inside the bottle, and causing frustration.

So, I finally found the perfect use for all of those old baby bottles. And from now on, baby bottles will be our go to container for snacks in the van!