Resources for music appreciation

I love music and I want my girls to appreciate it as well.  We sing songs all day long and they love music in general, but I don't have time to do much with classical music appreciation.  However, I have found some great CD's that my girls love that are helping them become familiar with classical music.  We mainly listen to them in the car and during rest time.

1.  Alfred's Music for Little Mozarts Cd's:  There are 2 CD's in each case: a music lesson with fun characters and a CD of fun songs.  These are my 3 year old's favorites!  She asks to listen to"Beethoven Bear and Mozart Mouse" almost every day at nap time.  The music lesson explores the very basics of music theory at a child's level and the fun CD contains a lot of the great classics as well as some songs just for fun.

2.  Classical Kids CD's:  These CD's usually take a famous composer and tell his story while incorporating his famous works.  They are very interesting.  We have Mr.  Bach Comes To Call and Classical Kids Christmas and are hoping to get more.

3.  Beethoven's Wig Sing-Along Symphonies:  These CD's are hilarious (although occasionally annoying) and my girls love them.  They take a famous classical piece and add silly lyrics that usually contain something close to the composer's name and title to help children's remember them.  My girls find them incredibly funny but my husband finds them a good bit annoying.

A Family Laundry Hamper

I was talking with my awesome sister-in-law over Christmas about home organization... she also has four children so she understands how very difficult it is to keep on top of laundry, dishes, and everything else :)  I mentioned that I feel like I unnecessarily wash a lot of clean clothes because when I tell my girls to clean their rooms, they find it easier to throw everything that is on the floor into their laundry basket rather than putting it where it belongs.  I also have a "wear your pajamas at least 3 times before washing" rule but I'm pretty sure that mostly clean pajamas get thrown in the laundry hamper as well.  Way too much laundry!  (Yes, there is a heart-issue of laziness that we are definitely working on, but in the meantime, I am far too busy to sort through their laundry to guess at clean clothes.)  My sister in law suggested that I remove their hamper and require the girls to take their dirty clothes to the bathroom laundry hamper.  We have done this for over a month now and it has helped so much!  My laundry has diminished since I am no longer washing clean clothes along with the dirty clothes of 6 people and their rooms are cleaner because they used to "miss" the hamper and leave clothes on the ground.  But with no hamper in the room, both issues were resolved!  Such a little change but it made a big difference!

*update -- this is still a great help for my younger children, but my girls ages 6 and older now do their own laundry by themselves so they have their own laundry hamper.