Day 4: A Place to Put Your Feet Up {31 days to clean}

"Cleaning isn’t just about scrubbing floors, making beds, and clearing out clutter (although those are good things), it’s also about creating an environment that encourages people to feel welcomed, loved." 

I need to think of how I can bless my guests in my home by having a "put your feet up" atmosphere.  This means that it is okay for it to look "lived-in", because "lived-in" is far more comfortable than pristine.  A few other things suggested in today's reading that I liked: 

• Always have coffee or tea made (or ready to be made).  
• Be a listener.  

Mary Challenge:  Invite a friend over.  I hope someone will accept my invitation to come over, otherwise I'll invite the neighbor kids over and treat them to popsicles or something!
Martha Challenge:   Clean the oven and microwave....suppressing my urge to grumble and complain about this right now!  

The microwave obviously needed cleaning; lots of smudges and fingerprints:

 Much better:

 Inside is even worse:

 Ta-da!:

 Okay, this is just disgusting:

 Clean!:

Now for the oven, which unfortunately is not self-cleaning!:

That looks better:

Ugh, yuck! I don't want to admit how long it took me to scrub this:

There's still some work to be done, but it looks much better!

There was a lot of grease and grime on the door:

And now there isn't!

Phew, I'm so glad to be done with that!  I probably shouldn't have stayed up until 1a.m. doing it, though!

Day 3: Giving life to my home (and cleaning the cabinets!)

Day 3: 10 Ways to Give Life to Your Home


Three days in and I'm feeling pretty good about this cleaning challenge.  I hope the enthusiasm can last throughout the whole thing :)


By the way here is the link to buy this ebook on Amazon:

I really liked the list of 10 ways to give life to my home today, and here are my 2 favorite ways (You'll have to buy the e-book to see the rest of them; it's totally worth it!):

• Offer life-giving and grace-filled words to husband and children.
• Make our homes a place of grace where mistakes and sins are not met with anger but with love and hope.

It is hard not to get angry when a child does something that is willfully disobedient.  I mean, it's nearly impossible to react in love when my toddler draws with marker all over the sunporch wall (which he did recently!)  I do know that my children respond much better to discipline when I am calm and gentle, but firm;  not when I react harshly.  Another thing that helps immensely is finding ways to praise the kids for good behavior and any other thing that you are pleased with.  My mom taught me this and it is so cute to see how proud the kids are when I praise them.  


Mary Challenge: I was supposed to ask my family members what I do that makes them feel loved when it comes to caring for the home.  My husband's responses (after I forced him to!  He never complains about anything, so I really had to pry for these) :  

• When I wash the dishes (and do other chores) without grumbling and complaining.  I thought it was cute how he used the phrase "without grumbling and complaining", because that's something I remind the kids of a lot.  I hadn't realized that I often grumble and complain about homemaking tasks, which must be unpleasant for him to hear....better change that!
• Dinner being ready when he comes home from work. Though I've gotten better at this with subscribing to e-mealz and having my meals planned, I still do not have the best time management skills and sometimes start dinner too late.
• Picking up a little so it's not a complete disaster when he gets home from work. I remember doing this when I was little before my dad came home from work, so I know it's a nice way to show love to the head of the home by making it a pleasant place to come home to!
• Davin said that he feels loved when I make yummy food, but not noodles!  (He does not like any pasta dishes, which I cannot understand!)

Martha Challenge:  Dust the top of refrigerator (I did this yesterday, yay!), cabinets, and shelves.  Wash cabinets and drawers.

Here's the top of the fridge I cleared off and cleaned yesterday:

These little shelves sure had some dust bunnies on them!  I like my kitschy little knick knacks :)

The cabinets didn't show they were very dirty, but the water was sure yucky when I dumped it out at the end!  With 28 cabinets and 14 drawers, there were quite a few to wash down. It brought back memories of when I was little and helped wash the cabinets.  This has been pretty fun so far!

Life-Giver and Fridge Cleaner

Day 2: Created to Give Life

"We as women have been blessed with the very nature of life-giving! At its core, life-giving is all about love – loving others with what God has given us."

Mary Challenge:  As I think about ways that I can give life to my home, my children, my husband, and my sphere of influence, here are a few things I can do:

• Use my words wisely, in a positive and life-giving way.  Children have such tender hearts, and they can easily detect annoyance, sarcasm and other negative tones in my voice.  I need to guard my tongue and make sure my words will build them up, not tear them down.  I also need to make sure to affirm and encourage my husband more, and thank him for working so hard to provide for our family!  
•  Declutter my home and only keep what we need or love.  I tend to hang on to things I don't need and clutter does not take long at all to multiply, it seems!  De-cluttering will give life to our home and make it easier to clean and more peaceful.  
• Limit the time our family watches tv or uses other electronic media and entertainment.  There's not a whole lot of life-giving going on while wasting time doing these things! 

“Life-giving is about receiving from God in order to give to others.” Barbara Mouser, Five Aspects of Woman 

Martha Challenge: Kitchen-Clean out and scrub the refrigerator and freezer.  Oh boy, here we go!  I'm also going to clean off the top and outside of the fridge because it's been driving me nuts!

Outside: Before

 Outside: After

Another outside view: Before

 After:

Inside fridge: Before

Inside fridge: After

Fridge door: Before

Fridge door: After

Freezer: Before

Freezer: After

Freezer door: Before

Freezer door: After

And here is the amount of trash from this cleaning project! 

I didn't think my fridge and freezer needed cleaning that badly, but I'm glad I did it!  It wasn't actually too dirty since it's only 1.5 years old, but there was a lot of expired and old food in there.  Now, here's hoping it stays clean for a while ;-)  Have you cleaned your fridge out lately?

My Mission Statement for a Clean Home

Day 1: Why Clean?

Today marked the beginning of the 31 Days to Clean homemaker's challenge.  I was asked to identify reasons why I want to have and maintain a clean home and then develop a mission statement based on these reasons.  Here are some of the main reasons why I want a clean home:

• To create an atmosphere of peace and order:  Having a cluttered, messy home really brings out the worst in me.  I feel frazzled, overwhelmed, and unable to function at my full potential when the house is a mess.  This is all magnified by the fact that we are at home a lot.  Therefore, I have to look at the mess and try and keep up with it all day long.  It is difficult to home school in a messy environment, so it is also important to have peace and order for that reason.  Needless to say, this is majorly important to me! 
• So that I can be more hospitable and not embarrassed to have company over:  I would really like to grow more in the area of hospitality, and not having to worry about a messy house would really free me up to invite more people over.  Also, it is not fun to clean like crazy before company comes and be so worried about the house that I don't enjoy the visit as much as I should.
• To bless my husband:  My dear husband has been very patient with me as I've stumbled along in my journey of keeping the home.  I am happy to say that I have made a lot of progress in the past 7+ years, but I have a long ways to go!  I would like to make our home a haven so that when my husband gets home from work he can relax instead of entering a home of chaos.  
• To model a good example of diligence to my children:  As a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom, I have a large influence on my children and I want to be a GOOD influence.  I do not want to model laziness, a complaining spirit, or disobedience to them.  Little eyes are watching and learning from me all day long, so I need to make the best of my time with them!  My mom was a great example to me and was always busy taking care of the needs of our family with a never-tiring, happy spirit.  I'm very blessed to have learned from her!
• To have more time for things I really enjoy, like playing with my kids and pursuing hobbies:  I'm not sure if this will ever change, but cleaning is not enjoyable to me.  It helps to remind myself that I am blessing my family by taking care of the home, but there are many other things I'd rather be doing!  Also, it would be nice to have a little more time for hobbies I enjoy: sewing, baking, reading, and beginning gardening.  I have also recently added birdwatching to my hobby list....haha, oh my I must be getting old! 

So here is my mission statement:

I purpose to faithfully and diligently maintain a clean home in order to create an atmosphere of peace and order, to encourage hospitality in our home, to bless my husband, to model a good example of diligence to my children, and to free up more time for things I enjoy doing.

I decided to make my mission statement pretty and print it out.  I taped it on the wall in my kitchen so that I can be reminded several times a day and stay motivated!  Here it is:

Inspired by Ambleside

Davin was reading from "Our Island Story" in his room. When he was done, he came out and told me, "Mama, I think I'm going to make a Britain war chariot out of Legos some time.".

If we weren't reading books from the Ambleside Online curriculum, I don't think he would know what a Britain war chariot is and what it looked like....I know that it's something I never learned!

Here's Davin's description: "There's horses at the front and then there's a little space at the back for where the soldiers stand. There's spears at the sides of the wheels. When the horses go forward, the wheels turn and the spears kill anyone that it catches up to."

Sounds pretty brutal!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Climbing Girl

Little Quinnlyn has found a new favorite outdoor activity: trying to climb up the slide on our swing set.  She only gets a foot or two up before coming down, but she sure loves it!  It's so cute watching her try and climb up, then slide down giggling, fall on her bottom on the ground, and get back up and start it all over again!

Our little dolly:

Here she goes; notice the tongue sticking out because she's really concentrating!:

 Trying not to slide down, still concentrating:

Hey Mom, can you believe I'm such a big girl?!

Ahh, this is the best!

Okay, I really think I can get it this time, what do you think, brothers?

Look, I'm doing it!

 See ya later, Mama!

Science Exploration Day: Taking in Water

(Day 120 in MFW, pp. 18-19 in "Science with Water")

First off, here's our happy little girl!  I just can't get enough of that dimply smile :)

Today we learned about "Taking in Water": how some things soak up water while others keep water out.  

Here's Davin seeing if the sponge takes in the water:

Here's Dorian putting water on the sponge.  We talked about why sponges are good for cleaning, since you can soak up spills and other messes with the sponge and squeeze them out into the sink.

 Next we tested the absorbency of 5 materials: wax paper, newspaper, a towel, tissue paper, and plastic:

Dorian testing the wax paper-not absorbant:

Davin testing the newspaper-kind of absorbs the water, but not completely like the sponge:

Dori testing the towel-good absorption:

Now the tissue paper-doesn't take in water well:

Quinnlyn really wants to play with the water, too!:

She spilled the bowl of water right after this picture, and I told the boys to try using the tissue paper and newspaper to clean it up.  They noticed right away that it didn't work well and put the towel to good use to mop it up!:

 Davin examining the towel up close to see if there was a clue to why it was able to take in water so well.  He noticed there were tiny gaps that the water was able to get into, whereas the other materials didn't have this:

 "Quinny, let me so how absorbent your clothes are!":

 The old classic celery with dyed water experiment.  The boys thought this was very cool:

It didn't take long for the water to reach the leaves, turning the a little blue (on the left) and red tinged (on the right).  We looked on the cut ends and cut some slices to see the "tubes" in the celery that the water traveled through, also.

Another day of science fun! I just love that all of the kids get excited to explore and do experiments, even if it is just simple things like this.