July 2016 Update

     This month we celebrated the 4th of July with a family get together with Jeff's brother and their famliy at their home and and evening fireworks watched from our front yard.  The fireworks weren't as fun as sometimes, but we enjoyed spending time together.  The weekend of the 4th Jeff and I tackled a few projects around the house and got Quinn moved upstairs to the boys room before putting up some decor in the nursery and moving Kade into the crib.  Colt (our night owl) still sleeps in the living room or master bedroom, but I hope to transition him to the nursery soon.
     Then Katy and Kaomi went to VBS at our church, followed by a busy week cleaning the bedrooms.  Kent got to take a trip to New Mexico with Grammy and Jeff's sister and brother-in-law.  Then Katy and Kaomi attended Kid's Praise Camp at our church for a week and participated in three productions of "The Kingdom Connection" and they really enjoyed it.
     I've also worked on cleaning my closet and bathroom this month trying to tackle some much neglected cleaning before we start back to school.  I worked on some school plans and have redone our schedule to include most of the kids in several of the classes we have this year.  We'll see how combining grades works for us, but just looking at our tentative schedule is providing a sense of relief for this teacher/mom who was having trouble trying to fit in "everything" for three different levels.  We have plans to start back to school on August 8th, so this next week we will be trying to put any final details on getting ready for school and I am going to work on cleaning my sewing room/guest room.

34 Weeks of Clean - Week 6 - Oven and Other Odds and Ends

This week got me working just a little on my recipes.  I straightened up my recipe cards that were sitting out and put them back in the box where they belong.  I left out my recipe for cornbread on the magnetic recipe holder since I use it a lot.  I also took the green sticky note recipe that I had written for my blog down and wrote the blog post I had planned for Taco Soup.


Over last weekend I worked in my garden, taking out the dirt and putting new weed barrier in the bottom of the garden on the left.  The weed barrier was in better shape than I was expecting, so I may not replace it in the other gardens.  Clark (3) helped me move the dirt from the garden into a bucket.  We still need to clean out the garden on the right, but we are closer to being ready to plant when the time comes.

Monday, while I worked on my kitchen counters Clark and Quinn ran around in their capes pretending to be Batman.  The girls were working on finishing cleaning their room from the weekend and Kent was working on his room, too.

counter during

counter before

 Isn't there some kind of unwritten law that when you want to clean your counters you have to make a bigger mess first?  I chose to work on this counter, there are more that still need work.




 I turned the 20# of tomatoes on the counter into sauce and while the sauce was cooking I shelled the cowpeas that were sitting on the counter, from my garden in the fall.  There was about a pound of them.  Then I cleaned more of the counter.  The tomatoes made almost 7 quarts of sauce, which is now in my pantry.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a picture of my clean counter, before I used the kitchen again, but it is much less cluttered now.

Tomato Sauce

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While working on the tomato sauce, I was also trying to help the girls get some organization to their messy room.  They now have a system of checking a set of toys in to get a different set off of their closet shelf.  So far it seems to be working pretty well.  They have their dolls, dress-up, stuffed animals and a few other small odds and ends that are available all the time.



 Here's the "rules" posted on their closet door.

Later in the week I cleaned the oven and stove top.

Click the button to find out the details for next week's cleaning challenge. 

A Homemaker's Prayer

I came across a poem called A Homemaker's Prayer.  I think it is a wonderful poem about the things that I do in my home.  You can read it on Joanie's blog at Simple Living Mama.

Quote about Patience

I was reading over at The Legacy of Home and this quote caught my attention and I wanted to share it with you.

"One of the greatest things I have learned as a homemaker and mother, is to have incredible patience with life.  One must never act on emotion - never in the moment.  Time is needed to pray, or to consider.  Having simple, quiet days at home, has made this all very clear to me.  Through a trusting patience in the Lord, we have a great contentment. Worries tend not to linger. They fade away as quickly as they came. "

                                                                                           -Mrs. White on Simple Days at Home