Big Spring Clean: Olivia's Room

I have to admit. I'm running out of steam. Right now, I've spent way too much time on the computer, I hear Olivia up in her bed NOT taking a nap, I stayed up way too late last night, and all we have to eat for supper is ketchup. SO, I may not get much done on my list today, and that's o.k. I think it's time to get Olivia up and head to the grocery store.


Little Belle's Room
1.General Pick-up √
2.Dust ceilings and corners √
3.Wash walls with warm, soapy water√
4.Dust ceiling fan
5.Dust “stuff” √
6.wash bedding (inc. pillows and pads)√
7. Vacuum mattress √
8.Vacuum and clean wood floor (inc. baseboards) √
9.Organize closet and organize and pack away clothes that don’t fit/wrong season
10.Reorganize toys and label bins with photos of what goes inside

Big Spring Clean: Dining Room (and toy room)

1.General Pick-up √
2.Dust ceilings and corners √
3.Wash walls with warm, soapy water √
4.Dust everything, inc. table and chairs (replace floor protectors on chairs) √
5.Clean light fixture
6.Wash curtains √
7.Clean windows
8.Clean floor √
9.Clean out Olivia’s high chair (remove from chair and clean underneath it)√
10.Murphy Oil wood trim √
11.Put away old/unused toys
12.Reorganize toys (label the bins using photos of what goes inside)

Big Spring Clean: Living Room (and office)

Day One was a success! I got my list accomplished and a little bit more! To the living room we go...

1. General Pick-up √
2. Dust ceiling and corners of walls √
3. Wash walls with warm, soapy water √
4. Dust everything (behind the t.v. and stuff on walls, take books off the shelf) √
5. Vacuum couch cushions
6. Move couches and vacuum behind them (in the corners, too) and everywhere else √
7. Clean windows and screens (1 part white vinegar; 1 part hot water)
8. Murphy Oil the woodwork √
9. Sweep and scrub office/toy room floor
10. Put away papers √
11. Bring up office supplies from teacher boxes and organize in the desk upstairs √
12. Clean computer

Big Spring Clean: Bathrooms

Here we go! We'll start with the gross places. The bathrooms. We gutted and remodeled our bathroom about a year ago, and the final pieces still needed to be put in place. Today I sanded and painted the ceiling to get ready for the Big Spring Clean this week. Good luck to you!

1. General Pick-up
2. Dust ceiling and corners, vent, and fan
3. Wash walls with warm soapy water
4. Windex windows, and scrub screen with a brush and warm soapy water
5. Wash curtain and clean around the window
6. Scrub the shower, removing all of the things and also clean the top edges
7. Scrub toilet (behind and “under”)
8. Wash inside and out of the medicine cabinet (removing everything first!)
9. Wash sink
10. Clean rugs
11. Clean floor
12. Dust chair rail and wash with soapy water
13. Clean/dust light fixture
14. Throw away expired beauty products and medicine
15. Organize linen closet

Spring Cleaning!

It's SPRING! YAHOOOOO!



Who's comin' with me? It's time for a little spring cleaning around our house. Last year we had kind of just purchased and moved into the house, so spring cleaning didn't really happen. It was more like fall cleaning. Or, let's be honest, I didn't really deep clean much of anything.

So, next week I'm starting on the spring cleaning! A different room each day. Each evening, prior to the cleaning day, I'll post a check-list of what we'll do the next day. If you need a little motivation, follow along and post your progress or cleaning ideas as a comment. I'm giving you a week to find your cleaning clothes, cleaning "stuff", AND mentally prepare!

Monday: Bathrooms
Tuesday: Living Areas
Wednesday: Dining Room and hallways
Thursday: No cleaning; insulators coming
Friday: Catch-Up
Saturday/Sunday: Olivia's room/master bedroom
Monday: Hallways
Thursday: Catch-up
Next nice day: Windows and other outdoors

I'm purposefully leaving off the kitchen and the basement for a couple of weeks. Those will turn into "spring semi-remodeling" projects, and then I'll spring clean when that is done. You might just get to help with the kitchen ideas.

Don't Give Up Project

I think Kipp and I might have been her first "real" photo shoot. In, I think, six (although, I know she started prior to taking our photos) quick years, Erica May has developed into one aMAZing photographer. We are not only thankful for all of the beautiful photos she has taken of us and of Little Belle, but she and her husband, Jeff, have always had a special place in our hearts as friends. Erica and Jeff started dating about the same time Kipp and I did when Erica actually worked for Kipp as a residence assistant at K-State. They're such an awesome couple, and have been able to do such great things with their photographer and videography skills (Jeff started a videography company).

I have never thought that photography could do so much for a person until I started following Erica's blog several years ago. This Don't Give Up Project that she and Jeff are a part of is really wonderful. What a sweet way to remind a couple of the importance of "fighting" for your marriage. Like, "Hey, remember this day? We loved each other a LOT, and we exchanged vows that we meant. Let's do whatever we can to make this work."

Low Hemoglobin? Add meat for breakfast...

 

In talking with a group of gals recently, I learned a new way to think about mothering. The highs are very high and the lows are very low. Now my husband would say that it's so important to live your life down the middle. To keep a level head and not live in the clouds one day and in the pits the next. But, as a mom these moments are hard to avoid. "Little Belle" (as my Grandma calls her) has given me some lows lately. In one week we started an antibiotic, an estrogen cream, and an iron supplement. And of course taking this stuff isn't easy. Twice a day for each, but some with food, some without, some first thing in the a.m. an some last thing at night. Whew... we've finally figured it all out (although one is causing her teeth to turn black...awesome.)

So, the iron supplement is due to low hemoglobin levels which I'm still pretty convinced was due to her eating only her own snot for a month and not really eating much of anything else. Rest assured though, Moms out there, snot has high levels of protein which really does cause them to feel full (thanks, Sarah for that tidbit). Anyway, I was on the hunt to increase iron levels in her diet, so we could stop the supplement that is indeed causing her not-so pearly whites to become "discolored".

I LOVE Our Best Bites and they had this recipe that I have to share. O.k. so Olivia doesn't love them, but the hubs and I do.

Delicious.

Getting Crafty

 

A big part of why I wanted to start a blog was because upon staying home I decided I needed a hobby. My super husband agreed and bought me a shiny new sewing machine. In the past year, I have kind of developed an addiction to crafty blogs. Some of them are linked here on the right side. Just warning you. You might just get addicted once you see how easy some of these things are to do.

I will just tell you straight up that I am SO not a photographer. I need to come clean now or I will spend the rest of my bloggy time apologizing for awful photos. I'll do my best, but no guarantees...at all. And, I'll probably be taking my own pictures because I can pretty much guarantee my husband doing a photoshoot of me modeling the things I make would pretty much never happen (or at least happen with a smile).

Here we go! You can see a shirt I made for myself. I love, love, LOVE J.Crew and Anthropologie. And, I shopped there when I was single and thought I had all the $$ in the world. I now have a conscience. I've seen so many of these types of cute ruffly, textured shirts for $50.00+ AND so many ways to make my own for $5.00 that I had to give it a try. This brown shirt used to be a long-sleeved cotton shirt from Target. I think I got some bleach on the cuff, so I cut off the arms, trimmed up the neckline, and used the extra material to sew on this flowery, textury stuff.

The next pic is a sneak peek into two projects I really need to complete within the next week. So, stop by again for my first mini-tutorial mainly using the tutorials of others. : )