This is a sponsored post in partnership with Carbona. All opinions are my own.

Some parents couldn't be more excited for this time of year, and some parents are crying that the school year is about to start. Regardless of where you fall on this back-to-school debate, there is one thing that this is true for all parents. That whirlwind of a few hours after your kids step in the door has the potential to shake your home to the foundation. Who knew that your house could be destroyed in six minutes by a second grader using nothing more than a granola bar and juice box? However, with a few of the tweaks below you can turn after school frustration into a distant memory.

Create a Backpack Station
Have you ever had your kids walk in the door and leave a trail through the house of well...pretty much everything they own? Oh it happens everyday? Exactly. That's why if you set up a backpack station near the door they will have a place to hang and store their bag right when they walk in. This also creates a consistent place at night to store everything they will need for school the next day which eliminates the morning mad scramble to find homework, permission slips, binders, and more!

3 Ways That Your Kids Can Easily Clean Up Dog Hair Around the House

This is a sponsored post in partnership with Swiffer. All opinions are my own.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you see the photo above? I can tell you for me it's the loving way that my son looks at our dog. After all, we've had Shasta longer than my son has been alive. In fact, we adopted our dog so long ago that even my oldest child wasn't around yet. We figured our new puppy would be fun, loving, and good with kids. What we never thought about was how much he would shed. Call us naive, but it never really crossed our minds. Looking back, when you have a dog that has pretty much half his body weight in fur, then you should probably know that some of that will end up on the floor...and the carpet...and the furniture...and your clothes.

The thing about that is having everything covered in fur doesn't have to become the way that you live. We have tried many things over the years, but these are our best tips for picking up that dog fur. Because this is a blog based around parenting, and #ShedHappens on a daily basis, we also wanted to make sure to give you tips that your kids can also do to help around the house.

Not only that, but I want to save you money as well by giving you a coupon code from Target for Swiffer to help you pick up that dog hair while staying within your budget. You can also use it within the cartwheel app. Just CLICK HERE to save $2 on a Swiffer starter kit and keep reading for the tips!

How to Never Take Your Kids Grocery Shopping Again + A Fun School Lunch Recipe

This is a sponsored post in partnership with Walmart. All opinions are my own.

You know it's that time when you break out in a cold sweat, your blood pressure goes up, and the fight or flight syndrome kicks in. Yep, you've run out of excuses and the cupboards are bare. It's time to go grocery shopping with your kids. I mean, your family can't just keep living on those packets of instant oatmeal right? Or can they. Nope, it really is time to psych yourself up, take some headache medicine, get mentally prepared, and hit that grocery store. But what if you didn't have to?

6 Kinds of School Supplies You Should Always Have on Hand at Your House

This is a sponsored post in partnership with Staples. All opinions are my own. 

It's the time of year where you get to enjoy the smell of new crayons, the excitement of first day of school outfits, and the exhilaration of having all of your back to school shopping done. The problem is that this is the beginning of a long school year and it might be possible that your kids will lose something, break something, or use an entire bottle of something before the year–or the first week–is over. That is why us as parents need to be prepared. School supplies aren't just something useful that you buy at the beginning of the year, they are survival tools that you need on hand at all times. Here are my top choices for the gear you will need to make your parenting life easier.

5 Must See Tips to Get Your Family Ready for Back-to-School + Bonus Ideas

This is a sponsored post in partnership with Staples. All opinions are my own.

It's that time of year when summer is cruising along, you're having a great time, and then you realize that all of a sudden it's August. You look at your list of family goals for the summer and you've crossed out exactly two of them. Those happened the first week when you were extremely motivated. You then scroll to the bottom of the list and you realize that you had committed this year to start planning for back-to-school by the third week of July. This planning included school supply shopping, searching Pinterest for how to build the most efficient homework stations, and also stocking up on creative bento box school lunch recipes.

So that didn't happen. If you are like my family, back to school normally involves scrambling around attempting to piece together a first day of school outfit, trying to make sense of emails from the school district, and going shopping for school lunches—all in the span of about eight hours. However, this year the stars aligned and we were able to get ourselves pretty organized. We found five key tips that have helped tremendously, so I thought I would pass them on to you. Parents have to stick together and if we find something that works let's share it with everyone else, right? Besides the tips below, I also partnered with Staples on the video below to highlight some bonus ideas that we love to put into practice every year. Here's to surviving summer and sending your kids back to their teachers learn new life skills!

1. Get in the habit of prepping food for school lunches at the beginning of the week.