Mrs Cleaning Machine and Kids!

It’s been one of those really fun, productive days today! It’s much easier to be productive when you’re headache free! (PTL!!)

I am so busy getting ready for Z’s party tomorrow. I baked the cupcakes ahead of time and will put them together in a (hopefully) cute cake tomorrow. And Eliana and I did some laundry (she’s actually a really big helper!!) and did lots of cleaning. Weird cleaning. Aside from normal stuff like cleaning up clutter (not much these days, thanks to our new systems!) and vacuuming, I was doing things like oiling the piano and washing the walls.

I know, weird, right? But when you have small children with dirty hands in the house, you tend to find lots of smudgy little finger prints on the walls! It was looking pretty dingy. I got this really cool little book about cleaning with baking soda, vinegar, lemons and salt; all natural stuff w/o chemicals and it’s amazing what you can do! I mixed up a vinegar solution and wiped down the walls and they look so much brighter! Much less….hand-printy:)

And yes, ok, I’m a little nervous about some parents of Z’s classmates whom I’ve never met coming over and hoping that smudgy walls, toothpaste globs on the bathroom door and 148 school papers from this week can be cleaned up before then so we don’t scare them away!

Miss E has been into wearing her backpack a lot lately. I think it’s a combination of wanting to be like her “brudders” and also loving Dora, who also wear a backpack constantly. Or, “packpack” as E says:)

She put it on today to go pick up the boys from school and everyone thought she was so cute!

I mean, who wouldn’t??

Zakkai made me laugh out loud with one of his newest school projects! And a close up of what he wrote….

“When I am 100 years old, I will be big and fat.” hahaha! Let me tell you, Zakkai is not the kiddo you want to have close-by when suffering from a migraine or trying to do some peaceful yoga, but he is definitely someone you want around if you want a good laugh or someone to chat with!

Samuel got a nice postcard in the mail today from his teacher and student teacher thanking him for being an awesome kid and I quote, “bomb-tastic.” haha. He was pretty happy to get that!

Today the kids celebrated Dr Seuss’ birthday at school. Tonight Samuel asked if he could read for a bit after I tucked them in and I said sure. When I climbed up the ladder to give him hugs and kisses, I found him with a stack of Dr Seuss books:) Then he snuck downstairs (He definitely sneaks) to get some paper and said he wants to write his own Dr Seuss book! So cute.

Well, I’m back to party prep and hoping to have some great pics to share of the birthday boy and his peeps!

Spring Cleaning!

Time for an honest confession here. My house has fallen into a terrible state of disrepair over the last few months. Terrible.  It started after I hurt my foot and got worse after my surgery when everything went chaotic! (When I say chaotic, I mean chaotic.)

Little by little I’ve been reaquainting myself with all the nooks and crannies of our home, trying to organize random piles of things that were stuffed into unlikely places or drawers that used to be neat but now look like a tornado blew through them. I even found a check that went missing 2 months ago!

So our house is slated for our first ever Spring Cleaning!! The idea of spring cleaning has always intrigued me but I’ve never actually hauled everything out and cleaned the place from top to bottom. Unless I’m moving. We just do regularly scheduled “check-ups” and maintenance:) We have a friend having a garage sale soon, who is letting us add stuff to sell so we get to purge and clean all the way around.

Today I started my cleaning binge in the kitchen. I took everything out of all of the upper cabinets, cleaned them and reorganized. It’s kind of amazing when you spread all your stuff out on your counters and see how much you have collected. Random mugs from places, possibly broken ones, dishes you never use, old expired spices, etc. You may not be able to see my handy work yet but I’m pleased just the same! This process is going to take awhile and B has promised to help me this weekend because it’s pretty overwhelming. Heck, we’re even planning on putting the boys to work, too!

That’s right, we’re slave drivers. Can’t start ’em too young, I say! (ask my mom. She has a picture of us doing dishes standing on chairs because we were so young!)

I’m looking forward to having a clean house again, one that’s organized and easier to maintain. Maybe now I don’t have to be embarrassed to have people over!

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(I found Missy a couple of cheap sunhats recently and she refuses to wear them. The only hat that she wants to, no, insists on wearing is the one you see pictured above. She may be the only child you see on the playground this summer with a furry pink bunny hat on:)