How do you make kids feel special in a large family?

You give them things that are their own - we did this last Christmas. We gave each of the kids their own nice set of towels - each having a different color. We also ordered hand painted and decorated ceramic tiles from Holly at Name Tiles - I found her doing the Great Cloth Diaper Hunt last November. So finally, last week I got this all looking the way I wanted it.

Each child has a 3 prong hook (1 for each towel, washcloth, handtowel, and bath towel), and their name tile mounted on the wall above the hook, with half a travel toothbrush holder mounted to the wall under the name tile for holding their tooth brush (and keeping them out of the reach of toddlers!).

The kids love it, and miracle of miracles, it has stayed nice and everyone is finding it easier to brush their teeth because they know exactly where their toothbrush is (Ok, sometime they forget to put them away, but at least it's not in a drawer with everyone's current toothbrush and all the ones from the last 3 years! LOL!).

Here's picture of all this:



I must give credit for the inspiration to my dear friend Heidi, who is at this moment on her way to Iowa - not for a vacation, but to live - we'll miss her! She had towels made up for her children a couple of years ago - each one had their names embroidered on it with a little stick person that looked like them (matching hair color and holding something that that child liked!).

And if you are the observant type, yes, there are only 8 sets - of course our oldest is not living at home, but is actually in Korea right now, and our oldest son living at home doesn't like to use the "kids" bathroom - but that's OK because the hook racks came with 4 hooks each, so it worked out better that way!

Anyway - thought you might like to see my work of love!