Funny stuff

I loved this article I read today on Baby Center today and I wanted to share it with you!  It really reminded me the benefits of cutting up and being silly with your kids - and how it helps them to cope with difficult things that will come up in their lives.  Some of my fondest memories at my Grandma and Grandpa's house were watching the Laurel and Hardy movies that my Grandpa had taped.  I can still hear my Grandpa laughing so hard at those movies he'd end up in a coughing fit.  I have since sat with my children and watched some Laurel and Hardy movies and some of them have left me crying and falling out of my chair I'm laughing so hard.  It's contagious and so my kids will be doing the same!  My sense of humor is very slap-stick - I just love silliness.  Anyways, hope you enjoy this article and do something fun and silly with your kids! 

Here is the link to the article if you'd like to give it a read:  http://www.babycenter.com/0_big-story-how-to-raise-a-fun-and-funny-child_1739289.bc?scid=bigkid_20110329:2&pe=ZmtsdXhPfDIwMTEwMzI5

A priceless picture of Mitchell and his friend Sera

  This picture was taken at a local Valentine's Day Dance - so cute!  :)

I love decorating cakes!

Well, this year Evelyn LOVES Angelina Ballerina, so I decided to attempt to do an Angelina cake!  The only thing I wish I did different was start sooner - which is always my wish...but the cake was a bit too hot, so it made the icing too warm and smear into the other colors...but here it was - I wasn't that excited about it really and didn't think it was all that great...until Evelyn exclaimed, "I LOVE IT!!!!!"  That just made my day - she absolutely loved it and I was so happy!!! :) :) :)  Here is a picture of it...and below that is my little Evie, so proud of her tinkertoy creation. :)

Free Couples' Money Assessment

Hello everyone!  I wanted to let you know of this free, limited time offer at http://www.crown.org/ called the "The Couples' Challenge."  I haven't taken it yet with my husband, but I plan to!  I think it helps you to determine your spouses' values and how that translates in how he/she spends money.  It sounded very interesting when I heard about it.  Just go to the website and it will scroll by on the flashing items on the front page.  Let me know if you do it and if it helps you! 

Do you often arrive late? It is because of this funny thing...

The funny thing is...we plan to get there ON TIME!  But, that's the PROBLEM!! 
We need to plan to get there 10-15 minutes BEFORE - and if we get there then, then great!  We can sit in our cars, and have a little reading time or whatever.  (But, really, you know that won't really happen because there are ALWAYS those things that will happen and eat up those 10-15 minutes).  Here are some of the reasons I've been late - today being the first:

1)  While going to the car, Evelyn was running around the car playing and bonked her head and just cried and cried.  THEN, literally 1 minute after that, while walking to the car to get in, she falls and skins her knee.  This time, she's SCREAMING and wants a band-aid.  Fumbling through the car, I find the first-aid kit and put a band-aid on her knee.  So, now I am 8 minutes late.

2)  Looking for the car keys - I'm so bad about changing jackets all the time and so I have to look through my jackets...oh, and my bags...love my bags and I have a zillion of them...always changing them, so I have to look through them to see which bag my keys are in!  I'm so weird. :)

3)  Shouting out directives to the kids to do things while I'm getting all my things together and then, I'm standing at the door ready to go, and I look at the kids and they have not listened to any of the directives.  Mitchell is standing there with his hair all crazy, no socks, no shoes and he did not brush his teeth with that toothbrush I left on the sink for him; Evelyn is still in her pajamas because I forgot to put clothes on her. :)  Typical :)

4)  I'm thinking I'm doing SO well with time and wondering why...the kids are fed, I'm dressed, they're dressed and so I even manage to read them a little devotion or something before we go.  We get everything ready to go and Mitchell says, "Where's my lunch Mama?"  Well, shoot.

5)  Can't find ANYTHING some mornings!!!  Ugggh...this happens when I don't do the dishes and tidy up the night before - it's BOUND to make me late the next day...not to mention, just stressed.  Bad idea to forego the clean-up the night before - makes the next day a mess.

What makes you late and have you ever tried this method?  I'm going to try it and will let you know how it goes. 

 

How a challenged homemaker decluttered her home

To preface this post, I want you to know that I am generally a "messy" person (this pains me a bit to admit), which means, I tend to leave a lot of clutter out and about and tend to leave a "trail" of things wherever I go.  Ouch, yes, I said it!  I blame that on my creative side who is very easily distracted and likes to go with the flow.  I don't like to be "forced" into cleaning up after myself in a robotic manner.  It is VERY against my nature!  Also, I'm very detail-oriented.  The first 8 years of my marriage, I really did not know how to clean.  I would pour my energies out for HOURS "cleaning" and my husband would get home and wonder what in the world I've been doing all day.  The house looked FAR from clean, and he would feel stressed out and cluttered himself when he would come home from work.  And of course, I didn't understand why he didn't appreciate how sparkling clean and organized the kitchen drawers were!!  I'm detailed, detailed - and my husband is big picture, big picture.  After many years of angst in this area of our lives, my sweet husband, had to literally TEACH me how to clean, and it has helped me tremendously!  Honestly, I realized that I needed help and wanted my home to look clean, orderly and peaceful.  So, if you are anything like me, read on!  This is what I did:

1)  Most important thing - GET THE CLUTTER OUT!  You are fighting a losing battle if you just plain have too much stuff.  And, we did.  So, I went through each room with bags ("giveaway*", "yard sale", "goes in a different room") and left NO spot unturned.  If it was an area with just a bunch of paper junk, I put it in a big plastic bin to go through later - just get it OUT - and put it in some kind of storage area.  Try to commit to do this as QUICKLY as you can so you can IMMEDIATELY enjoy the benefits of a cleaner and more "lighter" home.  That is such an energy-booster! 
 *"Give-away" can be tricky.  If you are like me and can think you can give this to little Harry, and this to little Sarah, etc., etc. and I'll just put one in this little bag, and another in this little bag - STOP.  Just put it in a yard sale.  You're making it TOO complicated.  Invite all your friends to the yard sale and when they come, you can just give it to them for free. 

2)  Find some good, loud, upbeat cleaning music.  This is important to help keep you on task.  It is especially helpful to use a particular kind of music for just this purpose and only play that CD for cleaning!  This is when I have to give up my love for folksy, melancholy music that only makes me go slow.  This is especially helpful for kids too, which I'll talk about it my next cleaning blog post.
 
3)  Had a HUGE yard sale.  I love making a little bit of money and decided I was going to use the money to buy ORGANIZING things!  (Which I LOVE!)  Also, it is helpful to invite the person in your life to the yard sale that is on a mission to help you get RID of things so you won't overprice things because you secretly don't want it to go or you think you're junk is a little too special (thanks sis)!

4)  Then, I brought organized-type people (thanks again sis!) into the rooms and had them come up with ideas of how to help the room.  This is VERY important if you're someone like me.  It helped me tremendously!  Then, I figured out what organizing item(s) I needed to use there, and if I didn't have anything, I could buy some fun organizing item (this was very motivating for me!  I know - I'm a bit weird).  If you don't have money to buy organizing things, think up ways you can change something around (shelves, etc.) to try to give it a fresh change.
 
5)  I asked my oldest WHY he never played with certain toys he did not want to get rid of.  In our case, my son wasn't playing with these certain toys/games because he couldn't ever get to them (they were up in the top of the closet and he didn't know they were up there-out of sight, out of mind).  So, we put games and things that were stacked up horizontally in the closet VERTICALLY on a big tall shelf so he could get to them.  Months later, if he's still not playing with these toys/games when they are easily accessible, I will have more leverage to encourage him to pass it along to another child.  I also LOVE those cardboard magazine holders - I like to organize "like" things in those such as, "educational games" with flash cards and things like that in one, small "readers" in another, etc. etc. 


6) After you get the clutter out, it is important to clean your floors very well to make them sparkling clean!  You will more likely want to keep them that way after you worked so hard.  If you haven't gotten all or most things off the floor after your organizing, you are not finished.  You need to get bins, shelves or something to collect anything that is sitting on the floor so you can more easily clean the floors next time.  One of my favorite inexpensive organizing items is just those Sterilite drawer bins.  I keep my craft supplies in them, and a ton of my sons toys, science experiment things, legos, etc. 

7)  Have a family meeting.  Talk about how everyone can help keep it clean.  Talk about the peaceful feeling you and everyone else in the family feels when everything is picked up.  Get the kids involved.  Now, I know, this is going to be a PROCESS.  I think this has taken me about a year to finally feel like I've got something working!  I will do a separate blog post on how I'm getting my kids to help!

8)  Once you get the big stuff done, cleaning and decluttering on a daily basis is WAY easier and you will truly have more time to do things you enjoy!  It doesn't take as long, and the kids can help if you have easier places to put things.  


Now take charge of your home and wage WAR on all that stuff!!  You can at worst make some improvements to make everyone's life easier, and at best, truly make a peaceful home most of the time anyways!  If I can make improvements (if you ONLY knew how bad I am)...I KNOW you can too!!!  Please feel free to add any tips to this - I am still learning and can always use other tips!

Learning how to clean and the "illusion of clean"

I feel that it wasn't really until last year that I really learned how to clean my home.  What I mean is, cleaning it to make an IMPACT on the home as a whole.  And I'm not talking about "cleaning" with cleaning supplies necessarily - I'm talking about the "illiusion of clean" as my sister likes to say.  Because, really, you can't really clean-clean until you can create that "illusion of clean" by picking up everything so you really CAN clean.  Here's how I had to learn to clean:

1)  THINK BIG.  Ask yourself, "What big items can I do in about 10-30 minutes that will make the most impact, or 'WOW'"?

2)  Put some upbeat, loud and rockin' music on to get you going and get your clean on.  I like to use the same CD to get myself in the cleaning mode.  This helps my children too to get focused.  If they stop and start playing, I stop the music to get their attention and tell them that we can't play our music if they aren't cleaning.  (They love the music, so they get busy again cleaning when I make that warning).

3)  Move fast.  Try to get it done.

4)  Clean before an activity that everyone wants to do so they will go faster.  For example, we will always clean before a) going somewhere fun b) eating c) watching t.v. or a movie d) going outside to play or e) reading a favorite book. 

5)  Sometimes you just need to throw things in a box to get a kick-start on your cleaning.  I know this drives some detail-oriented people (like ME) CRAZY - but, I've decided that it helps me not to feel so overwhelmed, and it gets FAST results.  For example, all those papers and tiny toys, barettes, earrings, CPR cards you need to file, papers your kids did for school you'd like to keep, progress reports, whatEVER - just throw it in a nice little wicker bin to go through LATER.  Remember, BIG IMPACT FIRST, DETAILS LATER!!!