My Girls & Dinner

While I've been cleaning, my precious girls have been helping and yet having a great time too!  So have I!!

Here are some pictures!! 

Painting with a friend over...

Sarah Faith fixing Hannah Joy up all funny and cute!

Playing so well together!

I'm standing in the middle of the room - this is all an empty area because we do not have formal furniture and such.  So we have a little play area fixed there but the big one is in the upstairs living room.  They enjoy both of them at different times.

Homemade Mexican casserole for dinner...

...and Hannah Joy konked out on the couch sound asleep.  Just how I felt too!!  I love my family so dearly!

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Before & After - I have finished the bedroom!

The rest of my home looks great and now the bedroom does too!

I finished it today.  It was worth every minute.  It took me about an hour or hour and a half to completely get things put away properly and tossed, etc..  Now my entire house is company ready!

All I have to do now is maintain everything.  I've been doing really well with that the last few years so it shouldn't be a problem now.  I just have to keep a close eye on the bedroom because it's easy to get messy in there.  I don't want that.  I want to be able to be proud of the house without shutting the bedroom door!  LOL!

Here are the Before & After pics!

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!

Smiling big!

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Before & After - the Bedroom

I woke up not feeling so well but I prayed and kept moving.

The only place in my house that is messy is my bedroom.  Even the girls have their room neat & clean.  I work on the entire house with the girls help every single day... but as I said before, my bedroom was neglected and quickly got messy.

So today I cleared & cleaned off Hannah's chest of drawers.

*she shares a room with us because we want her close since she has some disabilities in her speach and might need us in the middle of the night*

There are 3 pictures:
Before, After & then Decorated tonight.

The above is the BEFORE obviously!

The After is above.

It's been cleared, put away and then cleaned.

The Decorated!  :)

I like how it looks now a whole lot!

It didn't take long and made a huge difference.

Now the yucky is gone from there!

Just look what you can do when you put your mind to it.

I had decided I wasn't going to let there be a single area in my house that I didn't want company to be able to walk through and see that it's clean.  Not to mention my precious husband and children - I want them to be able to walk through the whole house and feel good about what Mama is doing and how their home is.

A friend asked for a picture of what my fireplace & mantle look like... that or I told her I would send her one.  So I took them today.  I thought I'd share here for those of you who want to see!

It still looks the same as always except today I added the picture on the left of the 3 girls... and for our anniversary or valentine's I got the beautiful Easter Lily plant but I think I've already put pics on here of that.  The pick below is just a narrow view of the fireplace.

BLESSINGS!

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WOW! Before & After

Today, I got so much done!

My dresser had gotten messy, REALLLL messy!

So, I decided to tackle that today after scrubbing the rest of the kitchen floor by hand and making my menu.  Yes, I'm excited at what all I've accomplished!

Here are two pictures:  Before & After!

I'm so pleased to have it finished!

Clean clothes needing hung up & tons of mail!

After!

Now, all that is there is a serving tray with my husband's Bible on it.  

It's so wonderful to have that done!  I have a really messy bedroom right now that I'm working on.  I'll keep posting pictures.  I have worked on the rest of the house daily and ignored my bedroom far too long!

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Fun Tonight! & Baptism!!!!!!

Tonight I am going to eat with a friend of mine, Casey.

She is so much fun and I can't wait until it's time to go!  It's always so nice to get out with a friend and just go eat or do nothing even.  I am thankful to God for sending a friend to me here.  Her children are great also and my girls love for them to come over!

Today I have spent cleaning and doing laundry.  That's every day though.  I'm worn out right now.  I'm sitting to relax a bit to get some energy going!  I got part of the kitchen floor scrubbed down and when I'm rested I'm going to scrub down the rest!  My swiffer mop is great for fresh spills but it just doesn't do it for those heavy cleanings!  I'm using antibacterial wipes by Lysol that have a scrubbing side on them to do it.  My arms are tired.  :whine:  lol

I also have gotten the laundry almost done - the last loads are washing and one in the dryer.  So, I'm almost done for today!

Today I ordered my girls new Bibles and a compact size one for me!  Madi Grace and Sarah Faith are getting BAPTISED on Sunday!  They're excited and so are Mommy & Daddy!!  I ordered the Bibles as a keepsake from when they were baptised.  I ordered me one because mine was stolen and I've not had one.  So I've had to use www.biblegateway.com for all my reading.  I'm excited to have my Bible in hand!  And I absolutely cannot wait for the girls to get theirs.  I got them early reader Bibles!

Blessings!
 

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So thrilled :)

I have gotten so much done today.

It feels great!!

If I could bottle up this feeling and sell it - I'd be rich!  lol

I've gotten so much done around the house and am still maintaining and it's getting so easy that I'm even having more free time.

Someone could knock at my door and I wouldn't even need to do a quick pick up.

I REALLY want to encourage you that if you are in a rut with your home or it's a mess or even if you are just not happy with where you're at in your cleaning your home - to just do your daily work and then work on other things when you are done.

Take your breaks, drink your water & ENJOY YOUR KIDS!

Get them in on it!  They will feel great accomplishment too and you'll be teaching them good work ethic and how to keep their homes one day.  My girls have been helping for about 8 months or so now and it's so much help and they do a great job!

When you are done with a project and need more excitement to keep going - just take a break, have a glass of tea or some water and then go back and look at what you accomplished and how nice it looks.  It will fuel you forward!  Also, look at your house like if you were selling it and wanted to be able to show it.  Look at it like a stranger.  You'll notice things that need to be done or put away that you've looked at so long you've forgotten it was there because you don't notice it anymore.

From Melissa's advice which I think is great -- ask your husband what are the things that matter most to him so you can have those done each time before he comes home!

I feel so blessed!

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Learning..

I am learning so much about how keeping a "company ready" home is not impossible.  Maintaining has been key!  THE KEY.

As I pass by things I straighten them but I'm not scrubbing at the moment, just putting away or tossing.

Then, throughout my day as I maintain, I work on another spot that has built up somewhere or on laundry or like scrubbing a toilet or a floor, etc..  

Melissa, my friend, has been very helpful with so many ideas that I've put into place.  I had not even thought of trying to tidy up before hubby comes home at lunch.  She suggested it and I'm so glad she did.  I had already been trying to make the house pleasing for when he got home at the end of the day.  Another great idea she gave me was to give each room a 10 minute "touch up" right before he gets home.  With the children helping, and they do help, we get it knocked out in no time.

My house has been clean but I was finding myself cleaning all the time and burning out and letting it get messy for a couple days before I got back at it.  I just didn't have a good "way" figured out to keep it all done.  The room in the house that I need to work on is my bedroom.  I think I can have it done in 30 minutes.  I was planning on setting my timer for 15 mins, twice today, and getting it done but I needed a slower paced day.  So, tomorrow that is the plan.

Nothing is ever perfect; no one is ever perfect.  Of course, right?

But you can keep things looking nice and tidy  :)

I'm really proud of how things are going and finding the ease of just maintaining instead of letting it get all messed up and cleaning it once a day.  Those little clean ups here and there throughout the day are simple, and take very little time but they keep the home looking nice and keep things from building up on you.

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Small things that make a Big Difference!

I wrote my friend, Melissa, as I was needing some advice.

She gave me that advice.  (about head coverings)

She had articles that helped so much she had saved!

Then, I had some organizing helps I needed.

One was our shoe pile.

We need easy access to them because when hubby is ready to go - he's ready to go.  (me too if it's somewhere fun, lol)  So, we need the girls to be able to put their shoes on hurriedly.

I didn't have the money to go out and buy a bench or anything so I asked Melissa what she suggested.  She suggested a basket OR to just line them up in order of age to make it look neat.

So, I did just that.  I lined up ONE pair of each child's shoes in age order and it made all the difference and didn't cost me a penny!

(THANKS MELISSA!)

Here are pictures to show before and after:

 See how messy?

 Much better!

.and. it looks even better now as I put the cat food in a home of it's own in a cabinet out of sight.

Sure makes a difference!

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Chores Yesterday :)

We worked together yesterday on our chores.

I helped Sarah Faith get laundry done.

I helped Madi Grace clean the kitchen.

Plus, of course I have my own chores!!

Here is Madi Grace sweeping.

She's moving the chairs so she can get under the table!

She did a great job!!!

 This was a "catch all" that was catching all kinds of artwork and crayons and papers etc...  Plus I had our curriculum sitting up there.

This was my project yesterday and I found a place for the curriculum and cleared out all the art work and then put a few "pretties" up there so it will be easier to keep spotless.

This was the area Madi and I worked on together!

It turned out to look pretty good.

It's our daily thing to have to do.

 Here is Sarah Faith working on her chores - laundry.

She did a nice job of folding and putting away 2 loads!

Then, here we are, listening to Christian music from my computer.  It doesn't play loudly so we all have to sit nearby to listen.  Despite the looks on their faces? we were all loving it and making requests for certain songs.  It added a refreshing touch to our day!

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