Toys R Us did not throw up in my house

As I cleaned my house today I thought about this blog post. I don't think I've posted about my philosophy of "housekeeping" before. If you come to my house, don't expect it to be perfect. The only time my house looks perfect is when we are hosting a party or overnight guests.

Now note I didn't say don't expect it to be clean. My house is not dirty. My house is not a cluttered mess. Toys R Us did not throw up in my house. But, it is not perfect. There will probably be toys on the floor, bills sitting next to my lap top. Mail piles for Richard, especially if he is traveling. You might find assorted clothes and shoes here and there from time to time too.

I clean the bathrooms, mop and vacuum the floors, do laundry.... lots of laundry, clean the kitchen, do the dishes, feed the 6 of us, and many other house hold chores every day, ok some are every week, but you know what I mean.

I would rather my sons feel comfortable playing, exploring and learning at home than worry that they are going to mess things up. I don't want them to panic if they spill juice or milk. I don't want them to think mommy's going to be mad if I accidentally color on the table. Nope. Life is more important than a perfect house. I do not plan to live in a museum any time soon. But I do live in a house of love, laughter and learning.

So let me see if I can convince the boys to pick up their train track tonight so I can vacuum, if not... there is always tomorrow.

Weeding out toys

I'm getting ready to start weeding out the boys toys again. I try to do it twice a year, usually right around each of their birthdays (which puts it every 6 months so it works out). I was really thinking about it all this last week. There are a few things that I can not get rid of and the rest well I'm not sure they'd be upset if it was gone.

The three big things that I can't get rid of are the Monster Trucks, trains and Matchbox cars. These are the three things that get played with by one if not both boys daily. They love to set up Monster Truck races and freestyle events in every room of the house and in the sandbox. We have 3 different types of train tracks and at least 1 is being used almost daily. Colby is often seen driving the trains around the living room without the tracks too. He is big into trains right now. On Tuesdays and Thursdays he gets to watch a movie so I can shower and it is almost Thomas. He's already talking about having a Thomas birthday party. The Matchbox cars are a staple for both of them. For Colby it's the Cars cars more then the generic ones, but they love to set up the race track and play with the cars. They also drive them around and just love creating stories to go with the cars.

There are other things that I won't get rid of right now because they are used every few weeks and are just great toys, but there is a lot of things that I just think... why would I keep it? If they aren't going to use it, why have it here taking up space? So it's time to go through the toys and decide what to donate to the Y. What to donate to Goodwill and what to toss.

How often do you go through your kids toys? How do you decide what to keep? What do you do with the stuff you don't need anymore?

ramblings

There is a lot on my mind lately which means I have no clue what to blog about... strange how that happens isn't it?

Both boys are fighting head colds. That means lots of snot. At least now they can both blow their own noses so I am just coming in at the end for clean up from time to time. This is good for so many reasons one being I'm not as exposed to the germs. The downfall is they aren't as efficient at blowing their noses as when I keep saying "blow again" until you hear it clear. The other issue is moods! Neither of them eats well when they aren't feeling well, and they both get moody when hungry. Blake gets grumpy and grouchy. Colby gets whiny and more sensitive. Does anyone see an issue with this combination of moods???

I'm doing really good with my calorie counting. I like a challenge so that helps. I find myself looking at labels a lot more. I am in the "more bang for my buck" mode with calories. I'd rather eat a 100 calorie chocolate yogurt for desert and get a protein kick than drink soda. I'd rather eat more salad with a lower calorie salad dressing and be able to put cheese on it than eat a high calorie dressing. Trust me I don't give up flavor. If you follow my blog for any length of time you know that I like flavor! I'm also allowing myself at least one day a week that I am not so anal about my calories.

I'm getting to the gym 5 days a week, the last two weeks I went 6 days since Richard went with us on Saturday. I'm really beginning to see the results and feel myself building up the strength. I also like that 45 or so minutes that I have to myself each day while I work out. That was something that I was really missing as a stay-a-home mom with two children who do not nap. I felt like I was mom 24/7 with no type of break. This gives me a few minutes each day to focus on myself... and if my body looks better because of it... what could be better???

I've started something new with my boys at clean up time. I decided I was tired of cleaning up more than they do at the end of the day. So now, when it's clean up time I set the timer for about 10 minutes (sometimes longer, sometimes shorter depending on the mess). When the timer goes off, clean up time is over. I then go around with my "time out tote" and collect all the items that they did not clean up. This tote goes up and out of reach until the next clean up time. So in essence they loose the right to play with the toy for 24 hours. Don't get me wrong I'm still helping clean up some, but not nearly as much. I usually just move the items closer to where they belong instead of putting them away too. Not sure how long this will work. When they will figure out that they should put away the toys they like first and then get around to the others. But for now, it gets Blake moving faster... Colby well... yeah he could care less.

Ok I think that is more than enough rambling for one post. Hope you have a great day, and those who are begin effected by the many storms out there stay safe!

Yuck

Today I had one of those days where I cleaned things that never get cleaned. I'm not talking about things that you clean weekly, bi-weekly or even monthly. I'm talking about those things you never think of cleaning until you HAVE to clean them.

To give you two examples of things I cleaned today: I cleaned the filter on my vacuum cleaner. YUCK! I knew it needed to be done, but since I couldn't see the actual filter I didn't realize how BAD, how caked, how much stuff was coated on it. I swear it took me more than 5 minutes of just spraying it with water to get it even close to clean. Hmmm wonder if I should go vacuum the floor when it dries to see if it works better and how much I missed vacuuming the floor?

I also cleaned out under the stove. The bottom "drawer" of my stove is an oven so it doesn't come out. I don't used this oven drawer very often as well... I don't need the boys opening the drawer with a hot dish in there or even if it is just heated. Blake was on the floor yesterday and said there was a car under the stove. So today I got out the yardstick to get the car out from under the stove. Well there were 3 cars, a spoon, an apple slice, lots of dust, some pieces of cereal and all kinds of other yuck stuff.

Hmmmm wonder what other things I haven't cleaned in a long time that I should consider plugging away at? What item have you recently cleaned and said "I really should do this more often!"

topic??

(Make sure you take a moment to vote in my poll on the sidebar!)

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Ever have one of those days/nights where you go to type up your blog post and totally forget what you wanted to type about? I'm having one of those right now. I know that more than once today I was thinking... oh I should write about that tonight, but the moment I have time to type up my post... my brain is FRIED.

Now, I could post about the fact that bedtime has been horrible the last few nights. I could post about Colby doing awesome at the Y today. I could post about the fact that not only did I accomplish my goals, but I did more. But, I'm not sure any of those are what I actually wanted to write about tonight.

So what I think I will type about is one of the projects that I did today... I vacuumed, shampooed the rugs and re-arranged BOTH boys rooms today. Yes, I know the next thing you are going to ask... where is the pictures... ummmm I didn't take any?!

One thing I will tell you is it is really GROSS to shampoo carpets, the actual shampooing process isn't gross it is what you see when you do it. I vacuumed their rugs first which resulted in less than a 1/4 of a tank of dust, dog hair and sand... lots of sand everywhere in the house. But let me tell you that the water in the shampooer was brownnnnn. More sand was found in there, yep no shock there, but the amount of dirt that is pulled out makes you cringe. I'm really glad we bought the shampooer so I can do this on a more regular basis now. EEK!

Ok now that I've grossed you and and possibly made you either want to rent a carpet cleaner or even rip out your carpets... I'll go onto my goals (o:

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Today's goals:
- go to the Y... not sure which class I'll go to yet [check went to pilates and then to the parent child class with Colby]
-- laundry... anyone else feel like this is an every day goal? [check... 2 loads done today]
-- go to the grocery store [check, we went right after the gym since I wasn't sweaty and Colby was in a good mood.. this actually worked out well other than feeling strange walking around the grocery store in my workout clothes]
-- post my Tasty Tuesday recipe [check... click here if you missed it and want to see it]
-- make tacos for dinner [check]

Tomorrow's goals:

-- go to the Y with the boys

-- take Blake to speech

-- go to the store to get a size 3 soccer ball and cleats for Blake

-- pack Colby's stuff for an overnight at my parents house (I have an appointment on Thursday and it will be easier for my mom to not have to drive over with Brady, my 4 month old nephew)

-- make ham and rice for dinner (yep not very exciting, but a favorite of the boys)