Organization Archives - What's up Fagans?

How to Completely Digitize Photos, Journals, and More So They’re Safe in Disasters

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September 18, 2017 By Katelyn Fagan 8 Comments

I'm a sucker for old photos, old letters, and old journals. I love the tie they are to our past, our personal family history, of eras gone by. It was a very rare occasion that my mother actually opened up our trunk of old family photos and let us rummage around in them, as well as look through our old family film slides. Once or twice my dad got caught up in the nostalgia himself and put together a reel of old film slides, mostly from his early Army and college days. It was hilarious to see pictures of my goofy looking dad (who still had a smidge of hair on top) and amazing to see pictures of my parents once so young (I'm the ...

What Questions to Ask During a Back to School Video Interview with Your Child

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July 20, 2017 By Katelyn Fagan 2 Comments

Awhile ago my husband and I watched this documentary series called Two Brothers and I loved how a father did video interviews over the years and compiled it together into a moving piece of family history! My friend and blogger Jennifer Borget of Cherish365 is great at doing these video interviews with her kids on their birthdays (and is a way better videographer than me!) and it's inspired me to want to do it with my kids too. Plus, all those wonderful and touching video montages and other great things you see on Facebook of parents doing every year with their kids to document their growth over the years, is just so touching and ...

What Foods and Drinks to Pack for a Long Family Road Trip

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July 10, 2017 By Katelyn Fagan Leave a Comment

This post is sponsored by BabbleBoxx.com on behalf of Tree Top. All opinions are my own. At the beginning of June, our family went on a massive family road trip. We drove from Central Texas to Omaha, Nebraska and then from Omaha, Nebraska to Indianapolis, Indiana, and then back home to Central Texas, in a massive 2800 mile road trip with four children over the course of only six days. My oldest niece got married in Omaha and we wanted to go to her wedding. Coincidentally, my husband's grandmother, and our only remaining grandparent between us, would be visiting his parents in Indiana the same week as the ...

Get Ready for Summer with these FREE Summer Printables!

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May 23, 2017 By Katelyn Fagan 4 Comments

The first day of summer is Wednesday, June 21, but the end of school comes even sooner, meaning summer break starts very soon! We have a trip planned in a couple weeks to attend my niece's wedding and then go on to visit my in-laws and then come back home, driving each leg of the trip, for a combined distance of 2700 miles. In a car with four children. In less than a week's time. Yeah, we're probably nuts. It's okay to think that with us. I do know we'll listen to several audio books (Harry Potter among them), have the kids watch movies on our portable DVD players, and pack lots of snacks, drinks, toys, games, and to ...

22 Genius Ways Moms Squeeze in Time to Read

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April 1, 2017 By Katelyn Fagan Leave a Comment

This post is sponsored by Deseret Bookshelf. All opinions are my own. I haven't always loved books. Or reading. Blame it on all the stuff I had to read for school sucking the joy out of reading for me, or a lack of family members who liked to read while growing up. Okay, my mom did read: she read the newspaper and magazines. Only on occasion did I see her with a physical book in her hands that wasn't the scriptures. My father mostly listened to books. Lots of books - on tape and eventually on CD. As an over-the-road truck driver, he had a lot of time on his hands to sit and listen, so he would pick up great new books from ...

The New Way to Reduce Kids Paper Clutter (And Still Keep Their Memories)

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February 20, 2017 By Katelyn Fagan 5 Comments

This post is sponsored by Keepy. All opinions of the Keepy App are my own. I think I broke her heart the day I told her we had to get rid of some of her papers.As I pulled out armful after armful of random papers stashed in the back of the closet, all I saw was the clutter and mess. I asked both of my twin daughters to help me sort through the papers to help me figure out what we should keep and what we should toss. It quickly became apparent that my daughter Lisa thought everything was important and began "secretly" stuffing papers away in a binder and then shoving that into her backpack, stashing them away in her bedroom, ...

Bring the Scriptures to Life for Kids with an Epic Scripture-Themed Carnival

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November 25, 2016 By Katelyn Fagan 1 Comment

This post is sponsored by Mormon.org. All opinions are my own. One year ago I became the Primary President in our local church congregation. This means I've been responsible for overseeing the Sunday School, music, nursery, and sharing time of all children ages 18 months to 11 years old in our church. There are somewhere between 35-50 children in this age bracket. It can be a pretty overwhelming and stressful position to have, especially with a new baby, homeschooling, and a husband gone long hours with a PhD, oh, and working from home. The good thing is that I love children and find joy in this calling. To help motivate ...

How to Stay Stocked on the Essentials During Busy Summers

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June 27, 2016 By Katelyn Fagan Leave a Comment

When Summer hits, your feet hit the ground running too. With swimming lessons, camping trips, sports camps, trips to the library, family reunions, and late nights, finding time to do your regular errands, like grocery shopping and doing laundry, don't always get done like they need to be. Unfortunately, this leads to oops moments when you find yourself needing something you don't have. Like when you discover you're out of diapers or wipes right as your child has a major blowout as you're heading out the door to the library. Or you can't find any swim diapers and friends are waiting for you at the river to go swimming. Or ...

The Ridiculously Easy Way to Fix Broken Mini Blinds

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April 25, 2016 By Katelyn Fagan 25 Comments

You need to know how to fix broken mini blinds if you have kids or a naughty pet that repeatedly love to break and damage them. It's actually way easier, and cheaper than I thought to do your own mini blind repair!We live in an apartment, like a bajillion other people, so every window comes pre-installed with white mini-blinds. The apartment contract and rules state that the mini-blinds need to be free from damages in order to help keep up appearances. Broken mini blinds apparently equal ghetto apartment complex. To keep future residents interested in renting, via the pristine mini-blinds, they periodically replace any broken ones ...

23 Places to Stockpile in an Apartment

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February 22, 2016 By Katelyn Fagan 3 Comments

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Kleenex® & Cottonelle®. All opinions are 100% mine. When you live with a husband and four small children in an apartment, the last thing you think you can do is stockpile in an apartment. When closet space is limited, and garages, basements, pantries, and storage sheds are nonexistent, you look around your small home and think there is no way you could store months' worth of food or toiletries here. But, if there's a will there is a way. If you are like us, apartment living still, the budget is tight, and you and your family would benefit from stockpiling, allowing you ...

Laundry Cheat Sheets – 3 Free Printables for Your Laundry Room

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January 16, 2016 By Katelyn Fagan 1 Comment

Wash. Dry. Fold. Repeat. It's kinda the story of our lives as laundry is one of those thing we have to keep doing until we die. But, not all clothes are made the same, and neither are the stains they accumulate. I did a little work and found out how to remove some common stains, what those symbols on clothes actually mean, and found a quote I absolutely love to help keep it all in perspective. And I'm sharing them with you as a freebie for signing up for my mailing list. If you want to save money on printing them, be sure to check out this post on the HP Instant Ink program! Printable #1 - Ever wonder what ...

The Course that is Removing “Disaster” from Your Disaster Prep

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December 2, 2015 By Katelyn Fagan 1 Comment

I have to admit I thought it was pretty cool to be walking on a sidewalk I walked on thousands of times in my youth, because this time it was flooded. This time I walked this same sidewalk in mid-calf deep water. My parents however didn't think the major Wisconsin flooding in the summer of 2008 was so cool. Their basement flooded with thigh-high water, ruining their washer and dryer, their furnace, their food storage, clothing, furniture, and other things that they stowed in their unfinished cement basement. My hometown was completely flooded. The High School football field was completely underwater. The Main Street was ...