Weekly Cleaning

As a stay at home mom (or as a person with a house to take care of), there seems to always be something to clean or straighten or wash or organize or...you get the picture.  To help me stay on top of my cleaning, I am working on a weekly cleaning schedule.  The start of a new year seems like a good time to solidify some good habits (or maybe even start them!).  While I am not the best housekeeper, I do like my house to look nice and put together, so having a schedule helps me to stay on top of the tasks.  I started out using the home management calendar from JustMommies, but found I needed to personalize the tasks based on my preferences and house.

There are things that get done everyday (like doing dishes) and things that happen once a week (like mopping).  I prefer not to do laundry everyday, but when it seems like I have a lot I wash all our clothes in one or two days. Most of my weekday tasks happen while Little Guy is napping (I don't really want him to help clean the bathroom yet).  The exception is vacuuming.  I don't like to vacuum upstairs while he is sleeping, and he actually really enjoys vacuuming! 

So, here is my cleaning plan!

Note: I know that blogging is not cleaning!  I decided to add it onto my list to give myself permission to work on my blog.  I shifted cleaning tasks away from Tuesday so they still get done, without me feeling guilty about the time I spend on the computer!

How do you organize your cleaning?

12 from 2013

Happy New Year!

Here are 12 of my favorite photos from 2013!

January- Snow day from school!

February- Bundled up to play outside!

March- What's in this egg?

April- Dressed up for Auntie L's wedding!

May- Family vacation to Hawaii!

June- Working in the garden!

July- Riding my new bike!

August- Working on Granddaddy A's bike at Speed Week!

September- Checking out the hot air balloons!

October- My first pony ride!

November- Enjoying the first snowfall!

December- Reading with Mommy on Christmas!

Praying for a wonderful 2014!

Tot School- Christmas Activities Week 3

Merry Christmas!  I know this is about a week late, but now it is all ready for next year!  We had a fun time with this last set of Christmas themed tot trays!  This week several of our trays had a nativity theme.  Little Guy is 30 months old.

This first tray was the biggest hit!  Little Guy had to spoon the bells from one bowl to the other using an ice cream scoop.  Simple to set up and so much fun!  He came back to this activity every day, and would do it multiple times in a row.

The bell goes here now.

The next activity was coloring a set of Nativity themed printables from 3 Dinosaurs.  Little Guy did not choose to do this activity.  Oh well, now I have them for next year!

We have not done much with stamps, so the next tray was fun.  I pulled out some Christmas stamps and made some cards out of colored paper.  Little Guy stamped to his little heart's content!  He enjoyed this activity as well!

Make sure to get lots of paint!

The felt numbers came from an idea on Pinterest from The Pleasantest Thing.  We did not play the game, but Little Guy simply had to put the correct number of stickers on each number.

1 sticker.

Practicing counting to 5!

 I found more foam shapes from the dollar section at Target, this time in the shape of ornaments, so of course we made a threading activity.  Little Guy liked them so much that we hung them in one of our windows.

Pulling the shoelace through.

 What set of trays would be complete without some cutting practice?  Little Guy enjoyed gluing them on paper when he finished cutting the pictures apart.  This was cutting practice from the Nativity pack at 3 Dinosaurs.

Is this enough glue?

 Little Guy also practiced more sorting with different sizes of baby Jesus from the Nativity pack at 3 Dinosaurs.

This is a medium baby Jesus.

 For the next tray, I traced some of my small Christmas cookie cutters on white paper and then cut out the shapes.  I glued them onto a piece of red cardstock and Little Guy had to match the cookie cutter to the shape.  He resisted doing this activity for the first couple of days, but when he actually did it he seemed to enjoy it.  Kirstylee did a similar activity for Halloween at Moms Have Questions Too. 

I think this shape matches.

 The final tray was almost always the first one that he chose.  Using an angel from the Nativity pack at 3 Dinosaurs, Little Guy had to put one chocolate chip in each circle to practice one-to-one correspondence.  Of course, when he was done he could eat a few chocolate chips.

One chocolate chip in each circle.

 I hope you had a wonderful Christmas season!

Tot School- Christmas Activities Week 2

This was a fun week of Tot School.  Little Guy is starting to get a little more about Christmas and it is such a fun time!  Little Guy is 29 months old.

This weeks Tot trays begin with a puzzle from Gift of Curiosity.  Little Guy had been getting frustrated with 9 piece puzzles made of paper, but I thought we would give this one a try since it was only 4 pieces.  It was not too bad.  He did not get as frustrated, although I can tell he would prefer to always use "real" puzzles.

This is the last piece.

I pulled out the painted wheels that I had used in fall tot school for Little Guy to make a snake.  In keeping with a Christmas theme, I only got out the red and green wheels.  Little Guy enjoyed this activity again.

Walking his snake.

Next was the shadow match from the reindeer pack at Royal Baloo.  He seemed to enjoy this one, and we had a great time talking about the different objects and people.

Here's Mrs. Claus.

We did another sort this week, from the Christmas pack at Gift of Curiosity.  This sort involved sorting ornaments and presents.  We did not have many presents under our tree yet, so this on involved discussion on that.

This one is an ornament.

Of course, we had some cutting practice!  This was actually 2 tot trays.  One was simply cutting practice from the Christmas pack at Gift of Curiosity and from Christmas themed packs at 3 Dinosaurs.  The other was cutting practice then gluing the pieces into a pattern.  The cutting pages from the reindeer pack at Royal Baloo had all the same items across the strip, which made it great for patterning practice.  At this point in time, Little Guy is not doing patterning on his own, but I am modeling how to do AB patterns with him.

Recognize our wreath materials?  This is another activity that we did in fall tot school, but revised for Christmas.  I put out Christmas ribbons to make a new wreath.  I also added a bell to the wreath once Little Guy was done weaving.

Our beautiful Christmas wreath!

This last activity was by far Little Guy's favorite!  I gave him a Parmesan cheese container that had a lid with one big hole on one half and 3 little holes on the other half.  Little Guy had 5 big pom-poms and 5 little pom-poms (in Christmas colors, of course).  He had to push the pom-poms into the bottle through the hole that matched their size.  He LOVED this!  He chose this activity to do do nearly everyday, and would do it multiple times in a row!

This one goes in this side!

I hope you are enjoying Christmas themed Tot school as much as we are!  Next week will be our last week of Christmas themed activities!