You Know Your Home is Organized When...

• ...the clutter is under control, the stuff is subdued, the kids know where things should go.

• ...a basic weekly schedule is in place for chores, schoolwork, shopping and other family activities.

• ...household routines are predictable so family members know what to expect most of the time.

• ...important household and home-school items can be easily located and are kept in a dedicated storage area.

• ...important information and papers are readily accessible.

• ...incoming information is quickly handled with temporary and permanent files.

• ...meals are on the table in a timely fashion.

• ...children are ready for bed at a reasonable hour.

• ...you are in bed at a not-too-unreasonable hour.

• ...you have 15-30 minutes for tea in the afternoon. :-)

This is from Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay and Sally Clarkson. I thought this list was particularly telling in regards to what one should expect from oneself.

And I highly recommend this book. It's jam packed with encouragement, books, resources, information, ideas, and ideals along with whole hearted support (pun intended). It helps you see where you can do better in your realm of keeper of the home, and challenges you to do better. I can't even begin to list all the benefit I got from this book so do yourself a favor, read it, and see for yourself.

Don't forget...

I often leave myself sticky notes on our door to remind myself of things. When I walked out the door, I saw some additions to the list. Too bad I don't know what it says.

Making Memories

At MOPS on Tuesday, we had a speaker I really liked. Her topic was near and dear to my heart, and I enjoyed her talk, and got some great ideas. Maybe you will too.

Various Ways to Save Memories

Journal--She kept a journal for each of her four children in which she recorded their pregnancies, birth stories and the day to day moments that fill up our lives, but don't stick with us unless you write them down. Maybe you'd like to see my journal?

It's at www.farmfreshiowa.blogspot.com.

Calendar--She recorded the first year of each child's lives on a calendar--I did this too, but I'm most proud of Cadrian's since I made it myself. I started working on it before we had decided on his name--it's weird to look back at that!

Photo books from Shutterfly or other online photo developers

Accordion File Boxes-She suggested you use these to save school work. Just keep the creative and original works.

Video taping

--Get them put on DVD so you can actually watch them. Be sure to tape the every day play, and not just the birthday. We have those little tapes from the camcorder and can only watch them when we hook up the camcorder to the TV. Someone told me if we get a "fire wire" we can transfer them to the 'puter. We're going to try that.

Scrapbooking --I love this!! Here are a few of Cadrian's pages, But I do have many, many others.
Quilt boxes--wrap your baby's clothes in blue tissue paper (this tip is actually from a fellow MOPS mama) and they won't fade

To My Daughter with Love is a fill-in-the-blank memory book for a daughter that would make a gorgeous graduation present.

She had a lot of other suggestions as well:

Supply Companies

Exposures (acid free page fillers, photo boxes)

Light Impressions (acid free boxes)

Devotionals-great for dinnertime

A Faith to Grow On

365 Manners Kids Should Know

Taming a Liger (If you liked Napolean Dynamite, spiritual)

The Intellectual Devotional (subjects broken into days)

Adolescent Books-These are good to each read individually and then discuss

Preparing for Adolescence-Dr. Dobson

Every Young Man's Battle-also has workbooks

Good Read Alouds for the Young-Summer Reading Books Chapter a Day)

Boxcar Children

Farmer Boy-Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Moffats-Estes

I have a lot more to add to this list, but Kevin is waiting to watch a movie with me...

Other ways to make memories with your Kids

For Birthdays offer a birthday party or dinner alone with Dad and Mom

Pray every morning before school

Travel/Vacations-can make great memories, even close trips)

How about you?
How do you make memories? How do you preserve them?
I know you are all so creative, I can't wait to read your suggestions!

My Box

I present to you one of the most helpful tools I've ever used. Of course, like everything you see here, it's an idea I read about somewhere and implemented as my own.

This is an ordinary index card box, for 3x5 cards.
Within, are card dividers, labeled 1-30, the days of the week, and daily. Every morning when I have my quiet time I pull out that date's, that day's and the daily.

Behind each date is a prayer for my husband from Power of a Praying Wife--(one of my goals is to get Power of Praying Parent and put those prayers in here too)--along with a couple of inspirational verses.
Then I go to the day of the week. I read or write the verses I have tucked back there over and over again. I'm working on memorization, but they are ones I already pretty much know, so I don't have to go over them every day; it's kind of like review.

I also have a goal here of putting prayers here as I have heard of some people doing, like prayer for our leaders on Mondays, prayers for family on Tuesdays... This is a work in progress.

Daily is my current passage I'm memorizing, and prayers I want to be sure to do every day.

Just a simple system--I think it may be Tim LaHaye I have to thank for it--but it sure does work well for me.

Name That Photo Contest Winner

90% Adorable
10% Ornery
Machine wash warm with sister.
Tumble dry low.
Do not iron if decorated.
Wear with love.

The winner is Audra! What a lot of terrific entries; you all are so clever. Be sure to go back and read the comments --I especially liked: Wash-n-Where?, Redneck Jacuzzi, When a bath just doesn't cut it, try "Heavy Duty" and an extra rinse!, and of course, Farm Fresh Laundry!

My own was "See what happens when you don't let them watch tv!"




You may have noticed I left my blank daybook up all day. Ahem. Amid the chaos that is the life I love, I didn't even realize!

It's fixed now, although of course it's a bit anti-climatic. Not that my daybook is ever really climatic. But anyway. You can read it now if you want to.

Mama's Daybook

For more daybooks, and to join the fun, click on the image above...

My Daybook ~ 16 February

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Outside My Window ... sunny and bright, warmish for an Iowa February

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I am thinking ... how thankful I am to have had such a productive morning

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I am thankful for ... coupons
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From the learning rooms ... Little House on the Prairie, Twenty and Ten, reading practice
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From the kitchen ... I'm making my menus today, but I made Shipwreck Dinner for lunch and some cinnamon bread

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I am wearing ... jeans, Skechers, and a pink sweatshirt
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I am creating ... Little House on the Prairie dresses (the blue one, only in red calico)
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I am going ... scrapbooking store, fabric store, grocery store
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I am reading ... my Goodreads list

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I am hoping ... my baby has as good a day tomorrow as he's had today!

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I am hearing... Cadrian razzing and my mom laughing at him
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Around the house ... it's clean for now and I'm semi caught up on laundry! We just got a loft bed for the girls, so we need to get that up.

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One of my favorite things ... my sister

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A few plans for the rest of the week ... MOPS, a purity conference and a homeschool group (for the first time)

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Here is a picture thought I am sharing~

My Sweet Baby A

Yesterday she put together a care package for our neighbor, and lifetime family friend, one of the kindest people you'll ever meet. Aviana drew a picture, made a design with sparkly stickers, and put in a Twizzler, two "dwaduation" hearts (conversation hearts) and five lemon drops, " four betuz I wuv her and one just extwra".
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Dada wanted to tell her that classic joke, "What's a henway?"

You know, and then the recipient is supposed to say, "A henway? A henway? I don't know. What's a henway?"

And then the teller says " About two pounds, HAHAHAHA!"

Aviana answered right away, "A hen ways eggs!"
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Kevin was cleaning the corn stove because it was starting to go out. Normally it doesn't have any odor at all, but when it starts to go out, it burns dirty and smells like a fire. Strong on the scent of burn.

Aviana was helping him. Due to her four year old speech, she replaces the "sh" with "s".
Seesells by the seesore. You get the idea.

When he opened the door, she meant to say, "It smells like ASH!" but instead uttered a phrase she has never heard before in her life, "It smells like A$$!"

title goes here

Can you think of a witty caption for this picture?
Prizes may be involved, but don't be thinking you'll get a $600 Amazon gift card! :-)
Contest ends Monday morning 11:00 CST.

Fancy Tea Party

You'd never guess I'd been up since four...Cadrian looks like he's being possessive doesn't he?

My nephew Titus and little friend Sydney

Reading some Valentine stories
Cora enjoying her snacks

Aviana being cooperative with the camera

All the fanciness

Homemade pretzels
London Bridge and dancing
Aviana and Ella counting the booty after the heart hunt

um...Yum?

Last night, Brielle and I made the most delicious cake in the world. It's called Mocha Layer Cake. It's about the only kind of chocolate cake I can honestly say I love. I love chocolate, but generally, I don't like chocolate cake or chocolate ice cream. I know, I'm an odd duck. Anyway.

The cake doesn't turn out so well if you forget to put in flour. Pretty key ingredient that.

In other, completely unrelated news, I'm looking for a tee shirt to buy that reads:
I used to have a mind, but now I have small children.

I did manage to salvage some semblance of the cake however, and oh yes, we've been eating it.

no topic sentence here

The children are occupied re-enacting Annie, and the little one is sleeping in my arms. The girls are scary in their mimicry--especially of Miss Hannigan.

My coffee sucks because I can't make it well like Kevin does.

I could only get to page 365 in the third Twilight book before I got too tired at 10:30 last night.

I stopped in the middle of unloading the dishwasher to come nurse-n-blog; having a nursing baby helps me not feel like I'm wasting time ;-).

I am learning to be ok with having things half done all over my house. It's hard for me--I used to have to get to the end of the chapter before I could put my book down, or completely finish a scrapbook layout and clean up my area. Now I can't even keep my book mark in the right place because of curious little fingers, and I have lots of incomplete layouts in my albums that need journaling or titles or something. And obviously, the house is pretty much in shambles.

I wouldn't trade my children for my previously tidy house though.

We're going to an indoor play gym today; hopefully quiet time will be quiet today. Unlike yesterday. I had to shoo the girls outdoors after quiet time was over to actually get some quiet. And even then I had to go upstairs because I could still hear Aviana screaming.

Her mitten didn't fit right. Her boots were on wrong. It was too windy. The dogs licked her when she sat down in the driveway to commence her fit. She couldn't go play on the swings. She couldn't go play in the playhouse because it isn't a tree house. She didn't want to find the kittens.

I feel like that some days.

I made a new friend! I love finding kindred spirits! We went to story hour yesterday together and then she stopped over for too quick a visit.

Brielle has turned another corner in obedience. I'm so thankful. I was coming very close to running down the driveway barefoot, screaming and flailing my arms. She had been getting disciplined about every twenty minutes, for at least a solid week. I'm not exaggerating. Now she is obeying. Yesterday she even said to me as she obeyed, "The Bible says, 'Honor your father and mother. Obey them right away, all the way and with a joyful heart."

And all this time I thought it was falling on deaf ears. Thank you God!

For more daybooks, and to join the fun, click on the image above...

My Daybook ~ 16 February

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Outside My Window ... sunny and bright, dusting of snow

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I am thinking ... of all the things I need and want to do today...

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I am thankful for ... my ever loving husband
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From the learning rooms ... homesteading, practicing reading
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From the kitchen ... making menus today is one of my "to do" things; I'll have no idea until I make them--although I can guarantee some bread

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I am wearing ... grey pants and a pink sweatshirt
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I am creating ... cards to mail out
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I am going ... crazy--little by little (I read a magnet that said, "I had a mind once, but now I have small children!")
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I am reading ... Educating the Whole Hearted Child, and finishing The Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers
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I am hoping ... we can get rid of our computer virus and I didn't lose all the pictures I was trying to download.
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I am hearing...Aviana's good ideas, Brielle "reading" My Aunt Came Back and Cadrian fussing in my ear
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Around the house ...laundry, menus, dishes, the usual

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One of my favorite things ... having people over
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A few plans for the rest of the week ...a purity conference on Thursday, hubby out of town tomorrow and Wednesday
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Here is a picture thought I am sharing~

somebody had a fancy party

The Magic House..and some other stuff

If you like to see how we've changed in the last year and a half, here is our first trip to The Magic House, when I was just barely pregnant with Cadrian.

We love St. Louis, but we only stayed there one night. We stayed at the Drury Inn and had a marvelous time (despite the gross fat self-tatooed guy in the pool who showed up wearing this tee shirt. How proud his wife must be.) and the brunch was scrumptious.

I wanted to go to H&M to find baby boy some bigger clothes, and so we navigated our way to the mall. Kevin and I nearly got into a fight trying to figure out how to get there--actually, we didn't. A few years ago, we would have. Probably a big one. That would have completely ruined the rest of the day. I'm not even kidding.

Both of us tired. Long trip. Loud kids. Tense with traffic and construction and closed roads and unfamiliarity. Yada yada yada. I'm so in awe of what God has done in both of us.

Wouldn't you know this H&M didn't have children's clothes, but I did find some good deals for our 12 month wearing six month old regardless. Aviana was disappointed there was no play area in the mall, but agreed the gigantic fountain more than compensated for it.

Do you think the way home from vacation always takes longer than the way there? I sure do. It took us about seven years to get from St. Louis to Peoria to stop by my cousins' for too short a visit. Then it took about 12 more years to get home.

But. Now that we've been home for almost a week, I think we are recovered and pretty much back to normal.

At least as normal as things get around here, anyway.

oooh, I just LOVE this baby!

More about our trip

I mentioned we went to the Titanic Museum. Is that not the coolest?

The only thing I was disappointed about was that due to copyrights, no photos were allowed inside the museum.

Aviana was interested in learning more, so of course, I turned to my home away from home, the library. We found a super duper book called
A mom, who survived the sinking with her husband and only son, wrote the story for her son a couple of years after the sinking. She gave it to him for Christmas in1913. Many years later, a relative found the book among the mom's belongings and published it. The book includes both illustrations and photographs.

It's enough to give you goosebumpies. Go out and get it right now! I'd love to hear what you think of it.

We also visited The Butterfly Palace that day; here is a sampling of our morning.

3-D Glasses

Aviana was earnest in her love for this chair in the bathroom. She wanted me to take a picture of her on it, and of it by itself. I am earnest in my love for my daughter.



When this butterfly opens its wings, it looks like this:

In the mirror maze
Notice a butterfly over Kevin's shoulder?

What a cool visit!