Cleaning House Month One {Update}

A few weeks ago I shared how we were using Cleaning House by Kay Wills Wyma to rid our family of a sense of entitlement.  This is going to be a long process and I plan on taking this one month at a time for the next twelve months.  Lets see if I can stick with it!

For the first month we have been working on simply making beds and keeping our bedrooms tidy.  When I say 'we' I am also referring to my husband and myself.  Sad to say it, but our bedroom was also a source of major clutter, it seemed that our bedroom would often become the dumping ground for anything that we just didn't have a place for.

The plan was that our kids would earn a quarter a day for the entire month for making their beds and picking up their rooms.  Each child has their own jar of 30 quarters, and each morning I would walk around and check their bedrooms.  There was no warning, except for the first day when I informed them that this check would take place about 8:15 every morning.

I am so happy to say that at the end of this month (August), there were very few quarters lost!!  Elijah our 10 year old, lost only 2 quarters for the whole month.  Noah, who is 7, also only lost 2 quarters.  Zach, who is a young 4, only lost 5 quarters.

They each got into their routine and would immediately get up, make their beds, get dressed and then make sure their rooms were picked up.  What I love about this method was that each child knew what was expected and didn't get upset about loosing quarters because they understood from the get go what was expected.  I had explained to them there would be no second chances, and no warnings given when the room checks would take place.  This went for Saturday and Sundays as well, not just the weekdays.

I am excited to see the big difference in their rooms and their attitudes towards keeping tidy rooms.  Honestly, I wasn't going to do this with my 4 year old (he just turned 4 in the middle of August), because I didn't think he could handle it.  With only about a week of training he was able to make his bed on his own.  I realize that 'making a bed' could mean different things to different people, so let me clarify what we determine is a 'made bed', for us it means pulling their covers up and straightening any stuffed animals that are on their bed.  Since the 7 and 4 year old share a room and have bunk beds, its a bit more difficult to make the beds.  They each only have a comforter on their beds, I don't have time to mess with flat sheets!  It also allows for a simplified bed making process.

Here are the before and after photos taken of their rooms.

I did not give a warning that I would be taking photos for the after picture.  Not sure you can tell from the picture or not, but Noah's bed is a bit untidy at this moment.  He will be cleaning that up soon.  I do feel a bit bad for him, he's a child that loves his things and doesn't want anyone *ahem* little brother, messing with his stuff.  So he crams all of his worldly possessions into his bed.

This month we will be tackling kitchen patrol.  Each child, not sure yet we will include Zach in this, will be responsible for planning, shopping and preparing a meal.  I'll let you know how this turns out at the end of September!

My Real Life

Sometimes it's easy to get into a funk, and think that everyone else has it all together!  That was me last night as I was struggling with dinner for my family.  I had a pretty hectic day, and forgot to set out some chicken to thaw for our dinner, so at dinner time it was still frozen!  So my next option was popcorn chicken from the freezer along with the last of our french fries and to make it healthy I threw in some apples.  In my mind I'm thinking 'This is the worst dinner ever!' and 'I'm the worst mom ever!!'.  No one was complaining or anything, in fact they actually probably preferred that to what I was going make!

Later in the evening when I got on the computer after the kids were in bed I saw this great Keepin' It Real post from My Joy-Filled Life.  Oh. My. Goodness.  Did that make me feel so much better!!! I am not a great housekeeper, in fact I actually hate to clean!  My house isn't dirty, but it is in a constant state of mess.

Anyway, I immediately felt the need to do my own Keeping' It Real Post!  So here ya go, my REAL life!  This is what my home looks like at this very moment!

The Kitchen/Dining Room:

This is our dining table, it does usually have cups, and
other odds and ends on it.  And if you could look even closer
you would see the cereal pile up under the table.

The ever loaded sink!  At least they are clean dishes!

Living Room/Coat Closet:

The ever messy coat closet!  I can't
wait to get those winter things put
away!

The tub that I used earlier to switch out some clothes
for my middle son.  Yes, that is actually mostly my
mess!  I'm as guilty as the kids in this room.

Master Bedroom:

This is the worst part!  Our dresser, filled
with a bunch of who knows what!  A basket of my
crocheting, our curriculum for next year.  And hidden in
corners of this room you will find boxes that have yet
to be unpacked!  We moved in October!

The bed is "made", not really though,
a basket of clothes that is ready to get
passed along to a friend, and an empty
clothes basket!  What you can't see is the amount
of dust piling up on the side tables.

My Oldest Sons Bedroom:

He's a 10 year old boy, enough said!

The Other Two Boys' Room:

Once again, they are 7 and 3!  As hard as I try it just
always looks like this!

Our Basement Family Room:

  This is why we are doing some major purging!
They have way too many things!

Yes it does always look like this!  I make them clean
it once a week, but it just goes back to looking
like this in a matter of hours!

Our Schoolroom/Storage Room:

My desk!  Always a mess!  I have papers
that need graded, preschool items that are
needing to be cut out, and anything else that
manages to make its way on to it!

This is actually pretty neat right now, they boys
desks were pretty well cleaned off.   Definitely not to my
pre kid standards, but the floor is picked up, so I'm
happy!

Oh, storage room!  How you need a
major overhaul!  When we moved in I just
threw things into it, and didn't organize it very
well.  That is a major summer project just waiting
to happen!

Well that was very cleansing!  That is a pretty clear picture as to how my house looks at most times!  We do a whole house clean up once a week, and that is usually on Fridays.  I hope you feel encouraged to see this real look into what our home is like.  Don't forget to hop on over to My Joy-Filled Life and see other bloggers real homes too!

You can also join in the fun through Instagram!  Just follow along with this challenge in the graphic below!  Don't forget to use the hashtag #KeepinItRealHomeTour so others can find you!

Feel free to add your link to this Blog Hop!  I'd love to see your real homes!

An InLinkz Link-up

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

I've realized lately that I have not been documenting our homeschooling journey very well.  When we started out I was taking pictures all the time, and lately there have been months that have gone by where no pictures were taken!  I also noticed this in our "regular" life as well.  When I think about when and why this began I realize that its because I got a smart phone!  I had a decent digital camera that I used all the time before but once I got my smart phone I never wanted to get the digital camera out.

I also noticed that the picture quality on my phone isn't that great and I prefer the quality of the digital camera, but still I don't get it out!!!  What I am left with is so-so quality smart phone pictures, and I guess I am okay with that.  At least I am taking pictures right??!!

Every year I make a photo calendar through Shutterfly, and I use photos from the year before.  Last year when I went to make my calendar, I realized I had almost no photos to use!  This year I had a bit more but still not very many!

Anyway, all this to say that I have set a goal to photograph my children and our life a bit more!  I read once that our children will be the most photographed but have the fewest printed pictures!  How sad!!  So here are a few pictures to get started!

 

 

Do you struggle to take pictures?  How do you save those digital photographs?  I would love to hear how you all manage in this all digital age!

Sometimes Life Gives You Lemons

Do you ever just feel like you can't catch a break?  That's how I have been feeling lately.  It seems as though we get two steps forward and take 3 steps back.  Let me recap a bit here as to what has been going on in our lives over the past 2 weeks.

It all began about 2 and a half weeks ago.  My husband began saying that his side hurt and he was worried it was a kidney stone.  That went on for a few days and then he said he was feeling better.  After another few days he began to complain more and more about how much pain he was in.  Finally last Tuesday he came home from work after only an hour and decided he needed to get to the doctor.  A visit to the doctor proved what he feared, a kidney stone!  That led to him being in bed for 5 days straight in terrible pain!  He thought the stone passed on Friday night, but he was still having some pain.  He believed it was from the damage that the stone created, but to make sure he called the doctor on Sunday night and they wanted to see him the next day.  So on Monday morning we all went to the doctor with him, bringing some school work to do while we were there.  After about 2 hours the conclusion is that the stone did not pass and it was still there, actually it was still in the same spot!  My poor husband was so frustrated and upset because he is so tired of dealing with this!  Thankfully he isn't experiencing too much pain at this point, and after missing work most of last week he was able to return to work on Tuesday.

 During that time neither one of us was sleeping well, the house was a disaster, school work barely got completed, and the kids were going a little crazy not being able to play with daddy like they are used to.  Needless to say that exhaustion set in pretty bad!

Now lets top off this whole event with poor Elijah waking up at 1:00 in the morning Monday throwing up!  YEAH!!!  This does not happen often in my house, we just do not get that kind of sick. So the poor kid decided to run to the kitchen (still not sure why!), which he threw up all over the floor.  Then I guess he was going to clean that up and went to get a towel and threw up in the towel drawer.  Then I suppose he tried to get to the bathroom and use the toilet, and totally missed the toilet!  It was the bathroom part that my husband and I finally heard him and realized what was going on.  Nothing like getting woken up at 1:00 in the morning to cleaning up throw up all over the house and doing laundry!

Now lets talk about what God showed us during all of this.  A week or two before all of this happened we had made some decisions about where we would like to be within the next year or so.  We had both been praying about where God might lead us and that he would grant us the desires of our hearts.  I can't say definitely right now, but I am pretty sure that we are going to still be in a holding pattern.  We are still praying for some changes to come, and hoping that they might happen soon, but we are learning to be content in our current circumstances and to rejoice in all things!