house cleaning and such

I can't remember how I came across this blog, probably from one of you reading this! If it was you, thank you. :) I just HAD to post this gal's cleaning routine. It is very inspiring and makes me think I need to have more cleaning in my daily routine so things don't pile up on me. If you can't tell, I am enjoying my clean house and don't want it to get all messed up right away. haha So...check this out:

"The day actually begins the night before. At 7:30p when I get Livy ready for bed, one thing that I always do is walk through the house and see if there is anything that belongs in her room. We also pick up her room before laying her down.


Then when it's time for me to head to bed, I will do a quick 5 minute pick up of things that need to be put away. I also like to have Eduardo empty the dishwasher so the next day I can load it after meals which keeps my Super Shiney Sink pretty. I will also replace the hand towel in the bathroom and in the kitchen for the next day. No one likes a stinky dirty towel in the morning!


In the morning after I get Livy up and feed her breakfast, I start with sweeping the floors. I must sweep daily. This includes my living room/dining room, front porch (Yes! I do that daily. It helps keep the dirt from coming into the house), bathroom and kitchen.


Next vacuuming. I vacuum EVERYTHING daily. This means I go over the living room, kitchen, and bathroom. Got to get the dust bunnies that the broom doesn't get. Plus I have three cats and that means FUR! I do all rooms with carpet (and the rug on the porch) and vacuum the couches. Yes! I vacuum the couches daily because of cats. Vacuuming takes me the longest of all the chores which ranges from 15 min to 30 min depending on the distractions.


Then I dust. Yes! I dust daily too! I like to use Murphy Oil soap for floors in the living room and I found that with a microfiber cloth I can use the soap to dust my furniture. Dusting takes me seriously 5 minutes tops. I save dusting the collectables to when I am deep cleaning. Daily dusting is just the wood furniture that collects dust SO easily.


Next I mop the living room/dining room with the prepared Murphy Soap.


Then onto the kitchen where I fill up the sink with a multi purpose cleaner. I wipe down all counters, applicances and cabinet doors if needed. Then I mop.


In the bathroom, same thing. I fill up the sink, wipe down the sink, toilet (scrub toilet) and the outside of the tub. I will spend good time scrubbing the tub once a week. I don't enjoy it enough or have enough time to scrub daily. Then mop.


At this point, the house is clean and I can focus on Livy and the daycare kids. All of this takes me about an hour to complete. During this time, Livy is eating breakfast and then having free play.


I do laundry three times a week....Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. And try to put it away as each batch comes out of the dryer.


Some days during nap time I will work on deep cleaning projects in the house. I have my house broken up into zones (yes, inspired by Flylady but not able to follow her plan. It simply does not work for me). I have a small house so I can fit about two rooms into a zone. Each week I have a "zone" that I work on to deep clean. This includes dusting lights, baseboards, vacuum the inside of couches, dust collectables, picture frames, de-clutter, clean blinds, cupboards, etc. It really doesn't take me much time because it is broken up during the week, no distractions from kids and by staying on top of it.

I RARELY clean on Saturdays and NEVER on Sundays.


The most important thing when creating a cleaning routine is to find one that works for you and your family. When Livy is older, I will expect her to help in different ways. She lives here, makes messes and I want her to learn to be responsible for herself. I feel there is no need for her to have a room that looks like an atomic bomb exploded in it."


Do you have cleaning schedules? What do you do to keep your house nice? Does anyone know if Murphy oil soap is good on laminate flooring?

Quick note

Just popping in with a quick note about our lovely visitors. They are the sweetest, most awesome family!!! The little girl that is having the surgery is ADORABLE. She is gorgeous! I think she's 9. Her brother is 11 and speaks very good English that he has learned at school. The dad is a doctor and the mom is just sweet. They are (as I fully expected) super gracious and grateful for our hospitality. The dad insisted on cooking breakfast this morning. Their kids are so nicely playing with our kids. The dad also speaks some English and wants to speak it as much as possible around me so I always know what is going on. Could you get any nicer?? I don't think so!!
What a blessing for us to get to know these people. I hope they will be able to say the same about us.

Visitors

This will be a busy week, I think. We are hosting a family from Mexico that are coming so their daughter can get cochlear implants. DH's Rotary Club has worked everything out. The medical stuff is all donated, we are providing housing since DH speaks Spanish, and people have brought tons of food and are providing dinner every night this week! Someone even donated coloring books, crayons, and such for this girl. It has been absolutely wonderful to be a part of. They are supposed to arrive sometime this afternoon, so I will try to post throughout the week but I'm not sure how involved this will be for us.

So that's our plans for the week. I should take some pictures of my house to post since we have been working hard over the weekend to clean it in honor of our guests. I think I will! I love having a clean house, but hate stressing over it. When the kids got home from school today, they were amazed at the clean house! I don't think that's necessarily a good sign... :)

Oh--here's a quick craft that is almost too easy and cheesy to be considered a "craft". But I'll show you anyway. I got so sick of this pencil/pen tray being out all the time.


You could never find a pen that worked, it collected other stuff, and when it got knocked over it was a disaster. So I took a clay pot, painted it orange, filled it with beans and stuck Halloween themed pencils and a couple of pens in it. (pens that work!) Now the kids can grab a pencil for homework, and it's a cute decoration instead of nasty eyesore. I also placed the pencil sharpener behind it so it's an all-in-one-pencil-station.

Awwww, shucks!

Yep--ya'll guessed it. We just found out that Whetten baby number SIX is on the way! Apparently, we brought more back from Minnesota than we thought. :)

So here's the story:
I wasn't thinking anything about missing a cycle because I am so irregular anyway. It is "normal" for me to go 2 months, a month and a half, a month, or whatever. Then came the forgetfulness. I am so scatterbrained right now that I was actually hoping I might be pregnant so I would have a good excuse! But, I still just thought it was me. Then came the pulling pains one night as I was turning over in bed. I always get these muscle pains even when I'm very early on in pregnancy. It was enough to make me think, hmmmmm. Then came my sure sign, the Baby Story. I seriously can take it or leave it when I'm not pg, and definitely don't get emotional over it. BUT when I AM pg, I cry over every episode and watch it often. It came on after the other show I was watching and before I could turn it off I got hooked and started tearing up. As soon as I did this I thought, "Oh dear." So the next day I went down to the women's clinic and got a test and sure enough!
Kind of funny! This is our first "surprise" baby. We knew we wanted another one, I was just planning on being in better physical shape first. But we are very happy and excited, just a little in disbelief still.

**Side note about the last post disappearing--I posted and received several comments about being pregnant and whatnot, and then I realized that my friend Nikki would probably look at my blog and discover the news. I didn't want her to find out that way because I had planned a funny way to tell her and her family on Saturday after the Relief Society broadcast. So I deleted the post and hid all comments. Well, probably an hour after I covered my tracks she checked my blog! Then emailed me to ask what happened to all my comments and the post. heeheehee Thank GOODNESS she didn't see. I was able to play my little joke, which didn't exactly go over like I thought it would, but it was still good. Turns out, Nikki had the SAME announcement to make and we have almost the same due date! Super fun! :)

Hmmmmm...

My day and another craft

Here is another craft that I was inspired to make when I went to Domestic Bliss. I saw an adorable wreath and figured I could create a similar one on my own. I got a few supplies from the Dollar Store, and voila! Here is my version of the Halloween/fall wreath I saw. It's pretty cute, and including paint cost me $6 to make. Not too bad!
Here are the supplies:


an evergreen wreath to be spray painted black, a fall leaf garland, a fake white pumpkin, some letters I cut out of cardboard, painted black and glittered to spell "boo", a green berry spray separated into pieces, and some leftover ribbon for a bow.

And you get this:




OK, now for the my day segment of this post. I feel like I need to write some of my accomplishments for the day to assure myself I have some! I did get my kids off to school after a breakfast of cinnamon toast. It was healthy bread, though. And real butter. OK, then I let my almost-two-year-old watch TV all morning so I could finish a book I started yesterday called "These is my words" by Nancy E. Turner. It was a great book, loaned to me by Hotmama. I finally read it after having it for months. It was very good, and I cried my eyes out. Then, I put Dr. Destructo down for a nap after all that TV and finished the book. Oh--I did do one load of laundry and clean one bathroom. There's something! Then Little Miss came home and Dr. D woke up and ate lunch. Then I suddenly remembered early release from school today. Only 20 minutes late. So I got there almost 30 minutes late and picked up the kids. Yep, mine and 2 carpoolers, that thankfully have wonderfully forgiving moms. (I was late once last week too, due to TWO major traffic jams on my way to the school from the store.)
We are now home and all seems well. I'm just waiting to remember yet another thing that I have forgotten to do. Forgetting stuff is the story of my last week. I'm not sure what's wrong with me--I just need a good scrapbook day or something to clear my mind. :)

Halloween crafts

I've been inspired by some awesome blogs lately. I have a super urge to decorate for fall...maybe because it feels like it should be fall and it's still pretty warm here. It really has been much nicer this week, but I can't say "there's a chill in the air" or anything like that. Anyways, I have enjoyed looking at this blog and got inspired to visit the dollar store. I copied two of her super easy and cute crafts. So, again, the credit for these cuties goes to someone who had the talent to create them and the generosity to share with the blog world so someone like me who loves to craft and copy other people's cute stuff can do it ('cuz I can't come up with my own cute stuff). I'm ok with that.
I took these little candle wreaths, orange dollar store candles and a 97 cent can of spray paint from Walmart:



And turned them into these:



Cute, eh?

Then I took these frames from dollar tree, another can of spray pain, a piece of scrapbook paper, some letter stamps with paint:



And created these:



I LOVE using other people's great ideas! It saves me time and the agony of trying to come up with something myself, but gives me the creative outlet I need with the knowledge ahead of time that I'm making something I like that will turn out cute.
I was talking to my best buddy the other day about how I only like to buy things I can picture as a finished product. I have to know where I'm going to put it and what I'm going to do with it. She on the other hand just likes to buy stuff she thinks is great and then create later with what she has on hand. It was interesting to find that out about each other. We were surprised because we are so alike about so many things it was funny to find that difference.
What about you? Do you buy stuff you like without knowing ahead what you will make with it? Or do you have to have a purpose already in mind for what you are buying?

Update on pedicures

Hey all! I just wanted to let everyone know that I have now added French Manicures (well, I mean pedicures) to my list of things I can do. I also have a Halloween design for next month.
So to answer several people who have asked, I AM still offering pedicures, and plan on doing it for a long time. I have found that I really enjoy giving pedicures, and it has been helpful financially to us. Thank you to everyone who has already come for a pedicure! Come again! And if you haven't come yet, what are you waiting for? ;)
So, my art repertoire includes flowers (with a jewel center), French style, polka dots, zebra (super cute), and for October a witch hat with a bow on it. (I'm also working on a jack-o-lantern)
Let's populate the world with cute toes, people!

Homemaker Monday

I am posting a homemaking tip today in honor of Homemaker Monday at my cousin Jen's blog. She has some awesome tips on there, so go check it out.
Anway, my tips today are not my own and I must give credit where credit is due. I got this little handout at Domestic Bliss on Saturday. They were having a little open house type thing, giving out info. on some of their classes and making some free crafts. (which were almost all gone by the time I got there and they had almost 2 hours to go! bummer. I did get to make a cute card, though.) I digress. These tips were given out by Whitney Johnson, who is teaching a class called "Queen Bee". She is very talented musically, and a very creative and sweet person.
All the classes there look so fun, but honestly they are soooo expensive! I took tons of pictures with my cell phone of crafts I want to make that they were charging an arm and a leg for and I could make them better. How's that for humble? heehee I'm really not trying to come across as "all that". I know I'm not, but I do love crafts and can hold my own when I make stuff. (usually)

I'm just going to type out her little hand out exactly as she gave it, and hope it's ok since I gave Whitney the credit for it, and we're friends, and she did give this out to everyone anyway. Here goes:

THE MOM TAXI

Now that school has started, so have the extra activities. You and the kids are probably spending more time in the car driving and sometimes waiting. Here are some tips for keeping the ultimate "Mom Taxi" ready to roll:

*Start every week with a clean car, stocked with hand sanitizer and tissues, surface wipes, first aid kit, bags for trash and unexpected wet items or illness, healthy non-perishable snacks, bottled water, and a small tote with activites for younger kids who have to hang out. For older siblings, have a portable homework box stocked with necessities so they can make the most of their time on the road and enjoy their free time at home. Make sure that kids take their stuff and trash out of the car every day.
*Prepare for kids bouts of absentmindedness or last minute snafus by keeping a morning emergency box in the car. You may want to include: lunch money, a hairbrush, ponytail holders, safety pins, travel tissue pack, breath mints, band-aids, lip balm, and cough drops.

Pumpkins!

OK, I have officially decided (almost officially) that I want to collect pumpkins! After my trip to Hobby Lobby I have fallen head-over-heels for all the cute seasonal pumpkins. I loved them before, don't get me wrong, but now... I feel a NEED for them. Too bad I am broke and won't be buying any. That's ok, our love can go on anyway. Maybe I can sneak in buying one this year to kick off my collection. :)
Actually, I decided to kick it off with some homemade fabric pumpkins copied from this blog. She used some beautiful brocades on hers, but I just used cotton on mine. They are still cute and cost me under $4 to make them all. (I still have a little fabric left, too)
I think my obsession for pumpkins may turn to snowmen in December. I guess I'm just fickle that way. Not that I won't still love pumpkins, but who can resist a cute snowman? Snowmen and snowflakes are my favorite icons of winter/Christmas time. Anyone else feel this way? What are your fall/winter favorites?

Purse-mania

Last Wednesday for Mutual Teeny Bopper made the cutest, easiest purses. Of course, I had to tag along and make one too. :) They were easy enough that my friend who has never sewed in her life was able to make one. She was so proud! Since then, Teeny Bopper has made 2 more purses for two of her friends. She's turning out to be quite the seamstress!


Here are our purses. The light blue one is mine, and the black one is Teeny Bopper's. She just made the pink one for a friend's birthday gift, and she made a black one that matches hers for another friend.


Focus. Concentrate. Oh yeah, I'm good.

New song

I just wanted to point out a new song on my playlist. It's called "Slow me down" by Emmy Rossum. It is so awesome! I think it could easily be the theme song for most of the women I know. Select it. Listen to it. You'll love it.
It is all vocals by Emmy, no instruments. She recorded each of the voice tracks (some insane number like 80 tracks, I think?). It's one of my new favorites. Let me know what you think!

9-11

It's been seven years, I can hardly believe it. I remember it all very clearly. I am going to copy-cat this blog of my good friend, and say that instead of writing my memories of the tragic day in 2001, I am going to enjoy this day for all it's worth. I'm going to listen to beautiful music and let it touch my heart, laugh with my kids and cuddle them as much as I want, enjoy a trip to the craft store just because I can and I love being there. Enjoying all my freedoms and thanking Heavenly Father that I live in this great country. Oh yeah, and feeling sorry for those terrorists who think they are all that and imagining what will be waiting for them when this life is over... It won't be pretty for them!

Love muffins

This recipe is one that I like to whip up for breakfast every now and then. It's out of my Better Homes and Garden cookbook, and they call it "French Breakfast Puffs". We call them Love Muffins, because I always bake love into them to hold the kids over while they are at school. :) They come together really quickly, and they taste just as good made with freshly ground whole wheat flour.

Enjoy!

French Breakfast Puffs aka Love Muffins

Combine1/4 c. sugar and 1/2 tsp. cinnamon and set aside.

Stir together dry ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt

Mix these wet ingredients in a small bowl:
2 beaten eggs
1 cup milk
2/3 cup melted butter

Stir into dry ingredients, JUST until moistened.
**Swirl lots of love to the batter before baking.**

Put into greased muffin tins or use paper liners. Bake at 350 for 20-25 min.
While warm, rub a stick of butter on top of muffins and dip into the cinnamon/sugar mixture.

YUM!! A breakfast or after school snack that is full of love and warm in the tummy. It doesn't get any better than that!

Jersey Boys

One of my favorite things about our trip to MN last week was a performace by the Jersey Boys. They are a group of 4 young men that are FABULOUS!!! They sang a lot of 50's and 60's songs, with a few from the 80's thrown in too. Oh man, they were so good! Straight from Broadway. We heard them at a party hosted by Medtronics, which is a company that makes things like pacemakers and stints. They had a mobile lab display with simulators inside, so I got to insert a pacemaker and save my dummy's life. It was so interesting--definitely one of my favs of the convention. So here is a picture of me and the cute Jersey Boys!

Dear Mr. Obama

THIS IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

GOTTA LOVE A HARLEY GIRL!



I got this in an email. LOVE it!!

We were on TV!!!

Apparently during the Governor of Hawaii's speech tonite, DH and I were shown on TV!! Cool. He doesn't usually get to sit by me, but he came up to my seat in the nosebleed section to visit me and they showed us. I hope someone I know taped it so I can see... :)

WOW. What a great session today!! Sarah Palin was fabulous!! I thought Giuliani and Palin definitely were the best speakers of the night. That Governor of Hawaii was really good, too.

Yesterday we went to the Mall of America. It is HUGE! Pretty much any store you've ever seen or heard of is in there. Along with an amusement park, aquarium, goofy golf course and more. It was fun to walk around. I took some pictures at the aquarium (they have a shark exhibit right now) and the Lego store. This biker dude is really made out of Legos! It was so awesome. They had all kinds of things made of Legos and the whole store was really cool. You can buy legos buy the piece or in all kinds of kits.

We also got to ride on a paddle/river boat today. They welcomed us with a Dixieland band and dancing elephant. It is so beautiful here. Super green and cool. I bet in another month or two it will be amazing with all the leaves turning autumn colors. I wouldn't want to be here in the winter, though. They say it's freezing and I can do without that.

Oh-have I mentioned the security here? At all times there are police, SWAT, and soldiers looking after us. The manholes in the area are all securely welded shut (yes, we have looked at most all the manholes just to check). There have been some nasty protests (mostly by nasty Ron Paul supporters.) An 80 year old guy was attacked yesterday (talk about courageous. Let's pick on the elderly. Puh-leeze!!!). Someone protestors threw some chemical irritant and it got his eyes and stained his clothes. Sad! We have to show our ID's and wear our credentials around our necks all the time. I'm glad they are on the ball. I don't want any accidents either!

Tomorrow is the last day, then Friday it is home for us! Woohoo! It will be fun to get home to the fam. Love you kids!!

Convention fun

Well, a few things have changed here in MN. Hurricane Gustav has majorly affected our speaking agenda and the length of our meetings. I am glad that our leaders are concerned and as John McCain has said, It's time to take off our "Republican" hats and put on our "American" hats. I am still hoping that Laura Bush will be speaking to us today, though. I love her.

Another thing that is aggravating about the storm is the media coverage. You can still here all kinds of things about the Democratic convention, but any news of us Republicans??? Noooooo. All we hear about is the storm. Luckily it has been downgraded to a level 2. I believe it is hitting land as I am writing this. We are hoping for the best for all families that will be affected. I HATE how liberal the media is. I was reading an article about Sarah Palin yesterday. (we are soooooooooo happy about her, btw. She has put us into the enthusiastic McCain supporter group.) Anyway, the newspaper said we need to know more about Palin, information like; Does she believe in evolution? Or something "exotic, like creationism"??? HELLO! Exotic? Yeah, that is a real exotic thing to believe in. grrrrrrrrrr

Well, here is a picture of us at a fun event last night. They had different dioramas to take pictures in front of, shopping for souvenirs, displays and tasty food. DH was so cute when we walked in and he saw this huge historical flag display. He started going, "Ooh! Ooh!" and pulling me in that direction. He couldn't even speak to tell me what we were going to look at. He just said "Can you see that? See that?" As soon as I saw what we were going to look at, I laughed. It was a very impressive display, though.

Here I am in the oval office with the new president. He's cute, huh?

This is us exiting Air Force One. What a great plane. (don't I wish)

Here is DH next to one of the historical flags.

Well, I think I am due for a nap before our meeting this afternoon. More later! :)