I love the whole house clean. And it was do-able with one child but with two? Forget it. There are just not enough hours in the day to clean every room, enjoy some playtime, make and eat 6 meals a day without mom or the kids melting down. So! About 6 months ago I packed up quite a bit of my OCD-ness and settled wrote a game plan.
Monday- Laundry (fold and put away)
Tuesday- Vacuum Living Room/Sweep/Mop
Wednesday- Bathrooms
Thursday- Master Bedroom
Friday- Kids Rooms
Saturday- Kitchen (only sometimes...since it gets cleaned after every meal)
Sunday- Wash All Clothes/Bedding (I only want to do laundry once a week and cloth diapers are usually in the washer during the week)
I know, simple right?? It will be nice when my kids are older and I can divide and conquer but until then I'd rather keep my sanity and the love of my kids. I'm totally a planner so every morning I make myself a list of what I need done and want done. The cleaning of the day is Top Priority! Then I can move to the rest and if they don't all get done it's not a big deal I just move them onto the next day. Everything eventually gets done and I can look at the bathrooms or laundry and take peace in the fact that I won't see them again for 7 days :) And now I feel like I'm planning my day around my little loves instead of working them in my overachiever schedule.
Why did I share this? Maybe you're dealing with this issue too and this will help? More because I want to stay accountable in this area {Grin}
A bit late, I know.
Can I just say I love new beginnings. Being able to look at the past and see how far we've come as a family, as friends, and in our journey with the Lord. Two years ago the Lord spoke to me about relationships...some that I had to cut off, some I had to take a few steps back from, and a couple I had to work on. It was a good training for me and I have to remind myself of that training often. Last year He spoke to me about being different. This training will carry into 2011 as well for we have much to learn in this area. He showed us that our calling as a family is different even paired up next most christian families. This has been hard at times...some days we just want to be the same but of course we want to do what we have been made to do so that feeling quickly passes {Grin}. This year I think My Father will be talking to me about time...
The two weeks before Christmas the kids were driving me crazy. There was disobedience all over the place. Which means I was spending most of my day correcting and re-training...and exhausted by 8pm. After all that I was seeing NO RESULTS! Which is weird for my kids. So I'm talking to the Lord one day and say 'Ok. They are doing this and I'm doing this over and over and over again. I'm getting no where. What's going on?' And as plain as day I hear...'Time. You're not spending time with them.'
So four days of putting them back in their number 2 priority slot (where they should have been that two weeks) and TaDa! My real kids are back.
Moving on...
We have some traditions for Christmas....we:
1. Cruised neighborhoods looking at lights
2. Baked cookies for our neighbors
3. Unwrapped our nativity scene one day at a time (two pieces at a time)
4. Made cupcakes for Jesus' Bday
5. Decorated the tree with only white lights, a home made paper garland, and 4 homemade ornaments (I really wanted to keep it simple this year)
6. Little Astronaut and I made a new star for the top of our tree with some yellow felt and lots of glitter
7. We hung up a stocking for Jesus and wrote him letters and drew him pictures for his bday
8. Bought two main gifts for the kids...one from us and one from Jesus. (and stocking stuffers)
We don't buy a lot of gifts for Christmas because we want to keep it about Jesus. Some people think that's weird but I just tell them that we can (and do) buy our kids stuff anytime of the year but Christmas is really not about them.
Next year I want to:
1. Write letters to our friends to remind them how special they are to us
2. Have our nativity on our dining table and each night move the wise men around the house as they follow the star to baby Jesus
What did you do this year? Anything you want to do next year?
