Ah yes, the cups. My "kids" are 14 and 16. Same issue that you have. We have a rule: DS has to use the "kid cups" that we've collected from the restaurants. We (ok, me) tries to remember the character that he started out with in the morning, so that new cups aren't started throughout the day. DD uses a one of the cups from the plastic pool patio set we have -- distinctly different from the kiddy cups. DH and I stick with the coffee cups we started with in the morning. These, too have been collected from different places and companies over the years, I try and remember what I started out with in the morning as well. This assigning the kids different types of cup helps in regards to picking up after themselves. I know who left the cup at the computer, or in the family room, or who didn't drink the milk in the morning and left it to turn to yogurt during the day -- and therefore, which child needs to get their cup and return it to the frig (the assigned place to keep your daily cup when it is not being used.), or putting it in the DW.

Now that we are redoing the kitchen, I was hoping to get rid of the kiddy cups, but I don't see it happening. I see 2 sets of plastic cups of some kind for at least the next 4 years.

When we go to camp, where we don't have a hot water heater, let alone a dishwasher, we have a strict rule...

ONE CUP, PER PERSON, PER DAY.

Woe be to anyone who expects a second cup.

Ha ha! warmfridge, can you describe this woe in detail?

rjr, what you describe reminded me of a friend with (now) 5 kids who assigns each chid his/her own color. (She's going to run out of colors if she keeps having babies.) Crocs, cups, toothbrushes, everything possible is the same color for a given child. That's taking it a little further than I want to, but it works for her.

We have the restaurant cups too but jumbled in with the others so it's random who gets which cup each day. I'd like to have a way to take the monkey off my back and make them responsible so that I don't have to remember who had Red Robin, CPK, solid blue or green, UNC (that's usually DH, not kids).

Putting them in the fridge may be a good option once we get settled into the new kitchen.

Thanks!

I can't help you with photobucket, but can appreciate your pain. Although a great resource, I found it very slow when I went to look at the photos of others. Someone on this forum used google's picasa and I was impressed by the speed and options. Many times on photobucket I just gave up on looking at photos because it was just too slow. However, there are lots of good instructions on how to use it on this website. On the other hand, I found picassa pretty intuitive once I bit the bullet on getting photos up. Here's a link to play.

Here is a link that might be useful: my kitchen

jsweenc - I wish I had the magic to get kids and DH to use only one cup. But DH absolutely refuses to reuse a glass if drinking something different. Even rinsing isn't good enough. On the plus side he is good about putting them in the DW, sometimes scooping mine up along the way! DS is actually better about reusing, and will occasionally put a part full glass in the fridge for later (I think that might be a carry-over from sippy cup days).

Photobucket: I just did that, too, and couldn't remember how I ran across it, because I never knew I could do that before! I searched all over, and I think I found it...There is a 'more options' under the blue box to download photos and you can specify download size there. I can't say for sure that that is where I found it last time, but it's worth a try? :-)

Cups...Oh, how I used to try to figure this out. We did a loose version of the color thing, until I got rid of the colored kiddie cups. They didn't have one color for everything (how boring would that get?), but we did try to do it with cups for awhile. Now a few of them tend to have a 'spot' where they put their cups, and/or have a water bottle or mug they prefer and that they end up using most often. I think a lot of the decrease in headaches over it all is that I just finally bought glasses in enough quantity that we just use them and not fight it any more. ;-)

Under the big blue Upload images and video,click more options

Use CTRL to select multiple files (more options)

Thanks rhome and bmore for that help. That problem is solved! I must have stumbled on that resizing option by accident in the first place.

doraville, thanks for the empathy. Picasa is quite fast. I agree p'bucket is a pain to work through. Maybe after my kitchen is done I'll switch over.

And your new kitchen is quite amazing! Beautiful cabinets, granite, floors, splash, dogs... The LOP probably helped get you through to this point, but I know you are happy to have your new elements finished! Congratulations! I'm guessing with those gorgeous cherry trees you live somewhere in the southeast, or eastern seaboard?

jrueter, so funny about your DH! Now, you don't have any quirks like that, do you? I'm sure I don't! And I always do everything I am constantly telling my kids to do.

rhome, with eight kids, I think there wouldn't be enough colors for that kind of a system anyway! But... sigh... it probably is yet another thing I just need to let go of for now. I always say I am going to deal with one thing at a time and end up trying to fix everything at once. I look forward to getting back to normal... if there is such a thing.

I never did have 8 colors of anything, but think I had such little ones at that time that one was nursing, a couple had sippy cups with lids (so they weren't getting their own), maybe 4 had the colors, and one was old enough for a big-girl glass! :-) I really can't remember, but remember having the problem and not ever having a perfect solution, or a good solution that really lasted...

We each take a glass in the morning and place a rubber band around it. We remember what our rubber band looks like but each of us seems to have found a special 'spot' to keep it too. We're big water drinkers so this works for us.

Or we each take a different size or shape glass since we've collected quite a collection of odds and ends over the years. This is good for when I'm sick of pulling rubber bands off before putting the glasses in the DW.

Our friends use hair pulls around the glasses but don't use those hair pulls in their hair. ;)

You could have photo mugs made, and can even put each person's name on it. That way there is no doubt whose cup it is.

I think the problem is, at least in my house, that there are conscientious family members and those who aren't so much. I can see one of my dds leaving her mug dirty and who knows where, then grabbing someone else's to use. Then there's the 'So and so used my cup and left it there..." "I did not, it wasn't me, it was her..." and so on. I think that's why we never found a perfect answer. Any solution needs the entire group of people to follow through with the plan...or a mom willing to be the highly disciplined cup guard, which I wasn't. Not one of the battles I chose. :-)

The rubber bands and the photo mugs are the kind of ideas I was looking for, but I expect you're right, rhome, not worth fighting. I hate the idea of filling the dishwasher with extra cups, but I hate even more adding that to my list. The kids will be taking over the dishwashing and loading and unloading the DW very very soon.

Had to laugh at myself last night, though I have a good excuse. I had put all the cups in the temporary kitchen sink (the bathtub) and washed most everything, then decided I wanted some milk to go with my cake, so what did I do? That's right, I got another cup. My excuse is that we were cleaning up to get ready for counter install today and it was only after we finished cleaning that I sat down to have dessert.

So I'll let that battle go for now, most likely. Anyone have any good ideas to get kids to flush the toilet? : )

Thanks for the suggestions and the commiseration!