March 2009 – Toni Anderson

by admin - March 31, 2009

What to Bring to the Hospital?

By looking at my header you would think I am an expert on what to bring to the hospital when you have a baby. But for some reason, this area has remained a mystery to me over the years. It never fails that once I am admitted I think of a million things I wish I would have packed and after the baby I am contantly sending my husband to the store or back home to bring me items I forgot.

So I decided to use my blog to ask for help. What do you bring to the hospital when you are having a baby? What items can’t you live without? Share your secrets with me so I can have this baby without constantly thinking I am forgetting something.

My bags are halfway packed and sitting in my room just waiting to be filled with all your great ideas!

Thanks for all the great ideas ladies, keep ’em coming! There are so many things you mentioned I would have forgotten or never would have thought to bring at all! I had to laugh at Amy ‘s comment, who reminded me to bring my laptop so I can update everyone! I know the hospital has wi fi, but I am not sure how well it works. I will definitely be updating my blog, but might use twitter for more frequent updates. If you are a “birth story” junkie you can follow me on twitter to hear all about the big day in 140 characters or less!

This post is linking to Works for me Wednesday, backwards edition.

by admin - March 30, 2009

Little Things

I like my room, I like the color of the walls, my new brown quilt, the furniture my in-laws gave us. But truth be told, I am getting a little bored sitting, resting and waiting. I know it is what is best for me and the baby, but the days are long up here in my room.

On Saturday my husband took the kids to Costco for free samples and cheap pizza. They came home with these.

It is amazing how a bouquet of flowers has made my room so much more enjoyable. Even sweeter is the fact that it was my seven year old son’s idea to buy me the flowers. He even had his wallet with him and offered to pay for the bouquet.

The days just got a lot shorter with my new view.

Visit Heavenly Homemakers for more Gratituesday.

by admin - March 30, 2009

Schedules and Kids

I think schedules or at least routine is incredibly important in a child’s life. Over the years I have discovered that my children behave significantly better if they know what is expected of them on a daily basis. I use Manager’s of Their Homes as a framework for creating our schedule. I think this is a great resource, but for those who are completely unscheduled this book can be overwhelming.

Each August I create a master schedule for our family. It usually lasts about a month, and then I start to see areas that need to be modified. This is because my children change and grow each day and the things they need from me change as well.

Now that we have been schooling for eight months our schedule looks more like this.

7-7:30 Kids wake up
7:30-9:00 Showers, breakfast, clean-up
9-10 Little girls play on rug or color at table, mom and 7 yo work on school, 8, 12, 14 yo work on independent work
10-11 Three youngest play, 8 yo school with mom, 12, 14 yo independent work
11-12 Three youngest play, 8 yo finishes school, 12 yo goes over work with mom, 14 yo independent work
12-1 Lunch/ Clean-up
1-1:30 Everyone is getting back into their routine, older kids are usually working on school
1:30-2:15 Science or Social Studies with 8 and 12 yo
2:15-3:00 Meet with 14 yo to go over work, check answers, discuss school
3-3:30 Chores, projects w/ mom
3:30-4:30 Free time

During my school time with my 7 yo, my younger two girls usually sit at the table and work on puzzles, crafts, or other preschool type toys.

My kids have been known to get up really early and work on their school work before everyone else is awake.

On Sunday nights I print out a schedule for each school aged child. The schedule details all the assignments they are to complete for the week. This allows them to work ahead if they want to.

Currently we have our family bible time in the evenings. For a few years we had one in the mornings as well as the evenings, but this year it wasn’t working. Each child has bible time in their curriculum, and we work on it individually rather than as a group.

When the weather is nice sometimes I will work with a child on the front porch so the other children can play outside. When we had a fenced back yard I would let the little children play outside in the back while I watched them through the glass doors.

I will let my 5 and 7 yo play educational computer games for a limited time during the day. I usually don’t like for them to spend more than 1/2 on the computer per day. Joy has a compiled a list of great educational sites for kids on her blog.

During the week we do not allow the children to play on the computer or watch movies. There are exceptions is someone is sick, or I am sick, but we try to limit computer/movie/ Wii time to the weekend, and even then it is limited.

My homeschool curriculum is listed on a separate page on my site.

Currently my two preschoolers are girls, when my preschoolers were boys things were much different. My girls are happy to sit, color and play at the table for long periods of time, while my boys would have considered that torture. Last year I wrote a series of posts on preschoolers, I listed them below.

What to Expect from your Preschooler

Energetic Activities

Great Preschool Books and Toys

Messy Fun

Make it Yourself Preschool Activities

Printables for Preschoolers

Many times my dining room table looks like this.

While I sit at the other end and work with another child on school.

I am a neat, organized person by nature and I start to get headaches, nausea, and the shakes when my house looks like this on a regular basis.

But, I have realized over the years that I don’t want my kids to look back and remember me like this…

While it is important to teach children responsibility and how to pick up after themselves, it is okay to let them create, make messes, and have fun, as long as they clean up when they are finished.

by admin - March 28, 2009

The Key

This is Our Story, or my journey to become The Happy Housewife. I write a new chapter every few weeks, to catch up start at the beginning.

A few years earlier in my life I decided rather foolishly to move out. On the way out the door I attempted to remove the house key from my key ring and return it to my father. He handed it back to me and told me no matter what, I could always come home.

So, I was pregnant, unhappy, and scared. For those of you who have lived on small military bases you are probably familiar with a little thing called gossip. This base excelled at gossip and it wasn’t long after I found out I was pregnant that everyone I met told me a horror story about some lady who just had a baby. It went a little something like this;

Person I hardly knew: Hi UnHappy Housewife, I heard you were pregnant.

Me: Um, yes.

Person I hardly knew: Did you hear about Phil’s wife?

Me: Um, no…

Person I hardly knew: Well she was pregnant too, the doctors let her go four weeks overdue, then when she finally went into labor she got stuck in traffic on the two hour drive to the hospital. When she got to the hospital they told her there was no one there to give her an epidural. She was in labor for 56 hours at the hospital and finally had a c-section, the baby weighed 12 pounds.

After hearing story after story I became petrified to have a baby. Between pregnancy fears and fighting with dh, I was overtaken with depression. I would spend hours on the computer (this was before internet) playing solitaire. When dh would return from work the fighting would begin and only end when he left for his next shift. I felt trapped. I had no friends, my family was an ocean away, I had no where to turn.

Because of the stress, I was losing weight, my doctor didn’t seem concerned. He told me it was normal to lose weight at the beginning of a pregnancy.

I remember sitting in the corner calling my parents, crying hysterically. I begged for them to rescue me. I was miserable, they doctor’s didn’t care about me or the baby, and my marriage to dh was a huge mistake. I wanted to go home. But my parents would remind me I was already home. I had made choices and now I needed to live with them. While I sobbed on the phone, they would calmly remind me that I needed to work things out.

Finally in the heat of an argument with dh I locked myself in the spare room and dialed my parents’ number. I was so hysterical my dad couldn’t understand a word I was saying. I was begging and pleading to move back. My dad started to explain to me why I needed to stay. In my complete hysteria I started screaming over and over, “The key! The key! You told me I could always come home! I still have the key!”

I am sure my parents agonized over their decision. I know they were worried about me and the baby, but they also believed that marriage was a commitment for life. They didn’t want me to run away from my problems, but they didn’t want my situation to get any worse. Finally after much debate and with the agreement of dh we decided it would be best for me to return to the states to have the baby.

108 days after I arrived I boarded a plane to Miami. I was going home, with no intention of ever returning.

Writer’s note: This is the story of how I became The Happy Housewife. I am writing as I have time and try to publish a new chapter every few weeks. If you don’t want to miss the next installment you can subscribe to my blog.

by admin - March 27, 2009

A Day in the Life of The Happy Housewife ~ Schedules and Real Life

In my last post I discussed my daily schedule. While I try to stick close to my schedule there are times when it isn’t going to happen. Those of you who have read my blog for a while and who know me in real life know that a few years ago my husband suffered an injury during a deployment that left him unable to drive. For about 16 months I took him to work, doctor’s appointments, therapy, and anywhere else he had to go. I was also homeschooling my kids, and taking care of my husband because many of the medications he was on left him unable to get out of bed for days at a time.

Needless to say during that time in our lives my schedule looked a lot different. Many times I was unable to plan because we would be waiting to hear from a specialist for a last minute appointment. It was almost impossible to plan for anything. Most people are not dealing with extreme situations, they are dealing with sickness, piano lessons, unexpected company, a new baby, deployments, or a struggling child. Many times these issues are temporary, but they can still take us off course very quickly if we aren’t prepared.

My advice when life happens is to prioritize. Throughout my husband’s ordeal I had two priorities, helping him and the kids. We still homeschooled but we only covered the basics. I stopped using curriculum that was teacher focused and started using books that were easier for the kids to do on their own. I still checked their work and helped them, but I tried to find materials that were easy to do in the car, at the hospital, or without me.

Some areas will have to be sacrificed. Before everything happened with my husband I was doing a great job feeding my family healthy, economical meals. When I began spending much of my week in the car or at appointments I realized that having one or two meals a week that were not so healthy were necessary for me to keep my sanity. We used a lot of paper plates that year and my kids learned to like frozen pizza.

Try to get up at the same time every day. Even though I was tired and emotionally drained I got up early and went to the gym during this time. I would listen to sermons on my iPod and it was a great stress reliever. Getting up early also allowed me to be dressed and ready to go before the rest of the house woke up. I was prepared for the day, no matter what happened.

I relied on technology to help me with the kids. There were days that I would spend four hours in waiting rooms with most of my children. (That did not include the 45 minute drive each way) Four hours is a long time for a 3 or a 5 year old to sit with nothing to do. We would have backpacks with crayons, books and other small toys, but a waiting room is still a waiting room. I finally realized that is was okay to bring the laptop and let them play a game on the computer or watch a dvd. I have never been a big fan of using the television as a baby sitter, but I realized that if your kids don’t watch it, when you do need it, it keeps them spellbound for hours.

Stop focusing on what you are not doing and find the good. Usually when we find ourselves out of routine it is for two reasons, one we are lazy or two we are dealing with outside circumstances. If you are lazy, shape up… but if you are dealing with outside circumstances realize that you cannot do everything. Focus on one thing you would like to accomplish each day. Perhaps it is making one meal from scratch, making sure everyone has clean underwear, reading a book to your preschooler, getting through math with your fourth grader, paying the bills, vacuuming the family room, or making it to all your appointments. Set small goals for each day.

If things are really tough, ask for help. If people offer to bring a meal or help with the kids accept the help! Life is not a contest to see who had it the worst and who handled it the best. By saying no and not accepting help you are preventing people from serving your family in a time of need.

Realize that in most cases the situation is temporary. If it is not temporary you will need to redefine normal, but most of the time a sick child will get better, the deployment will end, the baby will start sleeping, or the company will come and go. I tend to think about it in terms of how will my current situation affect me in five years? Most of the time I realize I will probably laugh about it, or feel thankful that I had the opportunity to learn from the experience. When things seem crazy take a step back from the situation and find perspective.

I realize this post discusses big interruptions in schedules, for little interruptions I would encourage you to keep going with your day. Sometimes we get so worked up with our distractions we forget to just do the next thing. Take each interruption as it happens and then move on with your day.

Coming up next… What my kids do all day.

by admin - March 26, 2009

A Day in the Life of The Happy Housewife Q & A Time

I decided I would try to answer some of the questions that are coming in via the comments before I forgot about them.

From Amy Ellen: Do you mind if I ask how your blogs come out during the school day? Do write them in advance and schedule the posting? I am so curious to know how you fit all that happens on this blog into less than an hour! But what about exercise too? I struggle to get up early enough for exercise and quiet time and shower before my littles wake up. Something has to go… or change. But, back to my question… do you have a time set aside to exercise?

Amy Ellen, WordPress has this really nice feature that allows you to schedule your posts in advance. I try to do the bulk of my writing on the weekend and then one night a week. Occasionally I will write a short post in the morning if there is a deal (like free ice cream or cheap groceries) but I usually try to write in advance. The only exception to this is the Commissary sales because those are not released until the day I write the post. I try to get up a little early on those days in order to write up the sales, but sometimes I fall behind on those days. I do try to limit my time on the blog, which is why I do a really terrible job at answering questions, returning emails, and commenting.

Exercise… hmmm. I must admit I am not a big go to the gym person. There is a gym about 3 minutes from our house, but I have never been. When it is warm we almost always go for a walk or bike ride after dinner. During the summer we are at the pool or playground five or six days a week. During the school year I sometimes take my younger three kids on a walk while the oldest three work on their independent work in the morning, it just depends. My husband and I invested in a very nice jogging stroller as well as a bike trailer several years ago. I realized that having a big family meant I might not always have time to exercise by myself every day. Taking the kids for walks or bike rides is one way I am able to exercise with the kids, they have fun and I am able to stay healthy.

From April: Then what about parks and your kids don’t seem to have much interaction with people outside the family. What about church? Here in the south most people go to church 3 times a week for regularly scheduled services and then sometimes there are extra things for the kids to do. What about getting together with other homeschoolers.

April, we live on a military base with access to 3 playgrounds within a 3 minute walk. My older children are allowed to go to the playground without me, per base regulations. They spend almost all their free time outside. Saturdays and Sundays we usually go somewhere as a family, either to the aquarium, site seeing in the city, or to a large city park.

We get together with other families on a regular basis on weekends and occasionally weeknights. In the summer months we also try to go the park after dinner almost every night. Our church has one service a week, bible study every other week and a parent youth meeting every other week. We attend those events faithfully barring illness.

As for getting together with other homeschoolers, we prefer to get together with other families on the weekends. We have participated in co-ops when our schedule allows, but this year it was not the best for our family. The decision to participate in extra homeschooling activities is made on a case by case basis.

I have found that in a large family my children are never without a playmate and consider their siblings close friends. This is beneficial to us, being a military family and moving every two years, they have built in friendships wherever we go.

From Jenn @ A Beautiful Calling: My oldest just turned 2. She loves to help around the house and obeys (most times) the first time however lately it hasn’t always been with a good attitude. Somewhere along the line she learned to stomp her little feet, or she will cry “no no” but in both cases, she does obey. She doesn’t talk much at this stage. You talk about a good/joyful attitude and I so agree! At what age do you begin to work on attitude and HOW??

Jenn, I don’t want to open a debate about discipline, because I know it can bring a heated discussion. We start working on attitudes from the very beginning. Stomping feet and yelling no, even with outward compliance is still disobedience in my opinion. It is more important that her heart is obedient, actions tend to follow the heart. I highly recommend Shepherding a Child’s Heart and Don’t Make Me Count to Three: a Mom’s Look at Heart-Oriented Discipline because they address your question very specifically.

From Lawanda: I wanna know when you cut your veggies and grind your wheat and bake your bread. Is it a weekly thing or daily or less often or what?!

Lawanda, you are getting ahead of yourself. I haven’t written about the cooking part of my day yet. But since you are such a faithful reader I’ll answer your questions anyway. I grind wheat and bake bread about four times a week. Before I was pregnant, I would do the bulk of my baking on Sunday afternoon or Monday afternoon for the entire week. This worked really well, when I was doing it. I think I stopped when I was having morning sickness and never really got into the habit again. I will definitely start back up in the summer so I am only turning my oven on once a week, and I will probably do it late in the day when the house cools off. I also grind extra flour when I make bread and store it in the freezer for pancakes, waffles, cinnamon rolls and other breakfast foods. Freezing the flour does lessen the nutritional value, but it is still significantly better than white flour. As for cutting up the veggies, I have slacked on that as well. I was cutting up many items at the beginning of the week, but now I just cut as a I go, or cheat and buy pre-cut stuff.

From Rebecca: How old do you start your kids out with chores? I have my 14 mo old help pick up toys when we are done playing, but I don’t consider that a real chore.

If your 14 month old is helping to pick up his(her) toys I think that is great. My 14 month old’s were still trying to eat all their toys! I have always tried to make chores or jobs into fun games. My three year old thinks being able to help clean is a big deal because it makes her feel grown up like her siblings. One thing I did with my toddlers is give them a baby wipe to clean with while I was windexing or dusting. They loved cleaning everything with the baby wipe. It was harmless to them, even if they put it in their mouth and they felt like they were just like mommy. It sounds like you are off to a great start, we usually start allowing our kids to help clean (with water and paper towels or wipes) when they are around two. You know your child best and know what they are capable of doing with your help.

Thank you for all your questions. I will try to answer them in new posts as I have time. Coming up next ~ Schedules and Real Life.

Thank

by admin - March 25, 2009

A Day in the Life of The Happy Housewife ~ My Schedule

Thanks to everyone who has commented on this series. You are all an encouragement to me! This post is what many of you have been waiting for, my schedule or daily routine. In an effort to keep my posts from becoming epic novels today I will discuss my schedule and write about the kids’ schedule later this week.

In a nutshell this is what an average day looks like for me.

Wake-up between 6:30-7 (usually closer to 7).
Read my bible, check emails, and weather.
Take a super fast shower.
Start breakfast between 7:30 and 8.
Breakfast, morning clean-up.
Start school by 9 am.
School with kids from 9-12 with interruptions for laundry, meal prep, and naughty children.
Prepare lunch with help from kids.
Lunch from 12-1. I make lunch and the kids clean up. I use this time to check email, catch up on a few chores, check school work.
1-3:00 School with kids.
3 pm – usually we are finished with school at this time. Three or four days of the week we have a project we work on together, cleaning, organizing, or fixing things around the house.
3:30 – 4:30 pm Free time for everyone. I use this time to work on the blog, pay bills, return phone calls or emails, work on school admin, or work on craft projects.
4:30 pm dinner prep
5:30 – 6:30 pm Dinner /dinner clean-up
6:30 – 8 pm kids ready for bed, devotions, general clean up of the house
8 -10 pm mom and dad time, this varies depending on the day, sometimes we will both be working on the computer, sometimes I bake or sew, sometimes we hang out and chat.
10 pm – In bed, I usually read for about 45 minutes to an hour after I am in bed.

Waking up: I am not a morning person. For many years I tried to get up at 5:45 or 6 but I just don’t operate well at that time no matter what time I go to bed. I also end up getting really tired in the afternoon when I wake up that early. If I sleep until 6:30 I am able to make it through the day without feeling tired.

Breakfast: We usually eat a hot breakfast in the morning. If I make biscuits or muffins I will make them, put them in the oven, and then take my shower to save time. If I make pancakes I will work on laundry or other small tasks in between flipping.

School: My oldest two children do most of their school work on their own. This frees me to spend more time with my little ones.

Lunch: When I am making lunch I will try to work on dinner too. If I am baking bread I will get it in the bread machine, or cut up veggies for dinner or brown the meat. Since I am already in the kitchen it makes sense to get these things done early.

Projects: Working together with my kids shortens the time we all spend cleaning. We are able to accomplish a lot in our half hour of work. My kids are extra motivated because they know that when they are finished their free time begins.

Free Time: I try to make the most of my free time. I usually have list (in my head) of things that need to get done and work in order of priority. Since my kids are having free time too, I rarely have interruptions.

School planning: I usually school plan for the next week on Fridays. Since I already have their books out it works well for me to look over the next weeks lesson’s, write up school schedules, and plan for the week. If I don’t get it all planned on Friday, I finish on Sunday afternoon. As for grading papers and checking work I try to do it as we go, occasionally I get behind and will spend an evening catching up.

Menu planning/ grocery shopping: I plan my meals for 30 days at a time. I was planning weekly menus but that took up too much time. Now I spend about an hour planning 30 meals and creating a shopping list. I spend one (long) evening shopping for all the nonperishable items on my list for the entire month. Then I only need to pick up dairy and produce on a weekly basis, which I can do in less than 45 minutes. If you look at my meals we don’t eat many fancy, or time consuming dishes. I love the crock pot and anything I can prepare in less than 30 minutes. We eat many of the same meals over and over because I know how to make them quickly and the kids will eat it. I also don’t spend time going from store to store trying to match coupons and save money. I shop at the commissary and CVS, both of which are a mile from my house. I don’t have time to hit several stores each week.

I stay at home: I realize this is not possible for many families who take their kids to therapy or other appointments. I do not run errands throughout the week. I go to the grocery store and bible study, that’s it. I am able to accomplish a lot because I am not in and out of the car. We are very selective regarding the extra-curricular activities our kids participate in and evaluate everything based on how it will affect the entire family. I try to plan ahead so that I only need to make one trip to Target for extra supplies each month. This saves me time and money. I reserve my library books online and try to pick them up and return them while running other errands.

I don’t watch television: I haven’t watched tv for about 6 or 7 years. I cannot even imagine how much time I have gained by not watching tv. My husband and I watch a movie every 2 to 3 months, or maybe not even that often. It is not a priority for us, and we would rather spend our time doing other things. I check the news daily to keep updated and we receive a weekly paper, but I don’t usually read it! Having my evenings or mornings free from tv allows me to catch up on reading, or work on other projects after the kids go to bed.

My husband doesn’t stop working when he gets home from work. I don’t write this so that you will nag your husband to do more around the house, I write it because he is one reason I am able to do so much. We function as a team in our house. For as long as I can remember after dinner he bathes the kids and I do the dishes. He tucks the kids in bed almost every night. This was never something we discussed or wrote down it just happened. There were many years when he wasn’t home at night or not home at all, so he enjoys this time with the kids. If I take on a big baking or craft project he usually rounds up the kids and plays with them so I can work uninterrupted.

We clean on Saturdays. Saturday morning we all clean the house. On a good day we can clean the house from top to bottom in under two hours. If we have plans for a family outing on Saturday we clean on Friday night. Everyone has assigned jobs and we all work together. Because we keep the house picked up throughout the week our house is never super dirty, so our weekly cleanings take very little time.

I pull a late nighter about every 10 days. I try to do this on Friday nights but occasionally it happens another night. I seem to get a second wind about 10 pm and can be really productive for a few hours. While I don’t recommend breaking your sleep schedule with late nighters, it is something I do.

Organize, Minimize, Simply: The less stuff I own, the easier it is to maintain it. I am constantly de-cluttering my home. I pay bills online so I have less mail to deal with. We have no debt so we have fewer bills. Fewer nic-nacs mean less things to dust. Less furniture makes it easier to vacuum. If a toy is not played with frequently it takes a trip to Goodwill. If we have somewhere to go in the morning, clothes are laid out the night before. The diaper bag is always packed and ready to go. Library books are stored in one spot. Creating systems like these allow everyone to help out and make it easy for me to stay organized.

As I said before, I am not an expert, these ideas work for our family, they might not work for yours. My schedule doesn’t always go according to plan, my kids get sick, I am on bed rest, my dh deploys…. I’ll address these topics in my next post.

by admin - March 24, 2009

A Day in the Life of The Happy Housewife ~ Be an Example

In my last post I discussed the importance of training your children, not only to be obedient, but to work. Having children that are willing to be part of our family team is one way I am able to accomplish many of the things I do each day. I realize it takes more time and effort on your part to train your children, but consider it an investment in everyone’s future.

One of the first verses our children learn is Philippians 2:14 “Do everything without complaining or arguing.” Not only is it important that your children obey, it is important that they do it cheerfully. In our house complaining about doing a job is the same as not doing it at all. We believe the bible teaches us to do all things joyfully, not grudgingly or with resentment. While I realize this is an impossible goal, it is something we work towards every day.

The funny thing about doing things joyfully is that it starts with us as moms. If we constantly complain about housework, chores, dirty diapers, or poor behavior we cannot possible expect our children to operate with a cheerful and joyful attitude when they are confronted with situations they are unhappy about.

When my children are dealing with bad attitudes I remind them of 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 which says, “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” We discuss the fact that the bible does not tell us to be joyful only when we are getting our own way, but rather to be joyful always, regardless of our circumstances. Not only is this a great verse for kids, it works for moms as well.

So, be a joyful mom, even when things stink… and I know they stink a lot.

Next, work with your kids. I don’t train my kids so that I can lay on the couch all day and read magazines while they keep my house squeaky clean. I work with them because I want them to value work, and value serving others. By picking up the downstairs before dad comes home we are serving their father. By keeping the stairs free of toys, we are serving everyone who walks up and down the stairs. By learning how to follow a recipe they are serving our family and others by having the ability to take a plate of cookies to a new neighbor or sick friend. By learning how to obey they are serving the rest of the family by minimizing interruptions due to discipline issues.

Lead your children by example and don’t expect from them things you don’t exemplify yourself. Don’t expect your four year old to have the same skills you do. Keep your expectations low, and your praises high. Let your children know how much you appreciate their hard work. Make work enjoyable by leading with a positive attitude.

Now on to the practical.

To keep cleaning fun (sort of) we have 5 minute pick ups throughout the day. With seven people at home all day our house gets messy really quick! After breakfast, before lunch, and before dinner I will set the timer for 5 minutes. Everybody works as hard and fast as they can to pick up the mess. I usually have a bigger kid work along side a younger one to help them put things away correctly. The kids, especially the boys, love the idea of “racing” through the house to get it clean.

Make it easy to clean up. I love systems, charts, labels, and everything Type A like that…. but if my systems are too elaborate my little kids cannot be involved. Unloading the dishwasher is easy for my little kids because many of our dishes are kept where they can reach them. Picking up is easy because toys are stored in baskets and bins. I have kid friendly cleaning tools to enable even the toddlers to work with us. A little child might not be able to sweep, but they can use the dust pan. Find ways to involve your children at the earliest age.

Silly is okay. When my older two were little they would sing the Barney “Clean-up” song when they had to pick up their toys. It drove me nuts! But I realized that as long as they were singing they would clean…. so I endured the pain. Now my little kids like pretend to be Wonder Pets while they clean. They have only seen the show a few times, but the song stuck. My children, the Wonder Pets, save the day by cleaning and picking up their toys, all the while singing the theme song. Annoying yes, but it works.

Accept the fact that your home is not going to look like a Better Homes and Garden’s cover. If your kids are home with you all day, or you have lots of little kids your house is going to get messy. I want my children to behave and take care of our things, but I also want them to be able to play. It is their house too. I don’t like for them to go from room to room making and leaving messes (we are still working on this one), but they are allowed to get out and play with their toys. Perhaps you can create a space for them to play during the day. We have a small area rug in our living room. While I am doing school with the older children at our dining room table the younger children are allowed to get out a bin of toys and play with them on the rug. If they tire of those toys, they need to put them back in the bin before a new bin comes out. This method has worked well for our family.

Clean up as you go. I do not like to walk out of a messy room, and I don’t like my children to either. I have found that tackling a job right away is almost always easier and quicker than putting it off until later. This is one area we are really working on in our house. For example, one of the kids sweeps the kitchen floor after lunch. If they forget, the crumbs from the kitchen are tracked through other parts of the house. When this happens not only do they have to sweep, they have to vacuum and their work has just doubled.

Today my five year old helped me put the inserts into the diapers.

While it took twice as long as doing it myself, I couldn’t help but think that in a few months she will be able to do this job on her own.

We had a great time talking about diapers and the new baby and I made sure she knew how much I appreciated her help.

Please know that I write these things as a reminder to myself. I am not always joyful, and I struggle with allowing my children to do things that I know I can do better and faster. My kids don’t always obey and they have been known to complain a time or two. We are a work in progress! It is my hope that these posts will help us all to grow as moms.

Coming up next… Our Schedule

by admin - March 22, 2009

A Day in the Life of The Happy Housewife

I have been struggling with my recent prescription for bed rest. I am a busy person by nature and have trouble “sitting” let alone staying in bed all day long. I want to make the most of this time and not have regrets, at the same time I want to do what is best for me and the baby… and for now that means hanging out in bed.

I also wasn’t sure what I was going to blog about (Yes, I know you want me to write more of Our Story… I will). Most of my blog is practical not philosophical. It is made up of my daily life, things I do every day and when my day is spent sitting in bed there is little to blog about. Thankfully my answer to what to write about over the next few weeks came via email today.

A reader wrote:

I am a mother of 3 kids, ages 7, 4, and 6m. I am in my 2nd year of home-schooling, but am quickly realizing that my giftedness is NOT in organization (of time, or house, or clutter, etc.) You are able to accomplish SO much with your time, would you mind sharing your schedule?? For example, what does a typical day look like for you (before bedrest, of course!!) What time did you get up? When do you have your prayer time?? When do you start school?? How many hours do you school in each day?? Is there a separate room for school?? When do you lesson plan, meal plan, grocery shop, fix meals?? When do you get to read YOUR books? When do you clean, sort through papers, file papers (DO you file papers???) Do you have certain chores that get done EACH day, if so, WHEN do you do those?? Any specific information would help me a great deal…

I was so happy to receive this email because it has given me something to write about. Over the next few weeks (or until I have the baby) I hope to publish a series of posts titled, A Day in the Life of The Happy Housewife. Hopefully these posts will shed some light on how I manage our day to day living and accomplish the things that I blog about.

I am going to start this series talking about my kids. I realize I don’t blog much about them specifically, but truly they are the key to how I manage to get as much done as possible. My kids are old. There is a big difference between having 3 children who are 7, 4, 6m and having kids ages 3, 5, 7, 8, 12 and 14.

Many years ago when I had two children ages 2 and 4 my house was never as clean as it is today, I was not as organized, we lived on chicken nuggets and Lucky Charms, and I bought all our birthday cakes at Publix. They also went to preschool a few times a week. It was only when our younger children were born that I realized the need to be more organized, neater, healthier and thriftier. It was out of necessity that my way of thinking changed. I realized I needed to do a better job of training my children, not only to be more obedient but training them to be adults.

Training kids is hard, and almost always interrupts something. Many times it seems easier to let things slide regarding discipline or to do it ourselves regarding work. Do we really want to get off the phone, computer, stop school work, put down a book, or finish up in quickly the bathroom because we need to deal with an “issue?” Usually we don’t want to be interrupted, however missing these training opportunities will cost you in the long run. A disobedient 3 year old can be cute (or not) but a disobedient 13 year old who is taller than you is dangerous. It is easier to clean the sinks yourself, and probably you do a better job than your five year old but, if you keep cleaning the sink you will end up with a 10, 15 or 20 year old that doesn’t know how to clean a bathroom.

My advice to moms of littles (and I am one myself) is to make training your children a priority. First time obedience is key and teaching them how to help around the house is very important. My kids have all provided me with different opportunities to grow as a mom. I have had some that were more compliant and helpful than others. A few were just plain difficult. None of them are perfect and we still work on cheerfulness, joy, kindness, and self control every day.

When my two oldest were about 6 and 8 I realized the need to have helpers in my house. Dh worked 70+ hours a week and I was at home with a newborn, toddler and my older two. I could not possibly get everything done each day. I realized that training them to take over certain age appropriate jobs would make everyone’s lives easier. From there it snowballed, today my now 12 and 14 year old are capable of running our house. From cooking meals to cleaning, to babysitting they can do it all, and at times they do.

This does not mean they aren’t kids, they are. Because the workload is split between so many people in our home there is plenty of free time for everyone, including me, which is why I am able to write this blog.

Enough of the philosophical and on to the practical.

Training tools I recommend:

These books have really helped me grow in my parenting.

These tools have helped me get organized and have given me some great ideas on child training.

Now (although not really now because of bed rest) I use Motivated Moms to assign chores and keep our house clean. I print out the weekly chore list and assign everyone their jobs for the week. When someone finishes a job (and it had been inspected if necessary) we check the box marking that job completed. Before Motivated Moms I would print out a weekly chore list and post it on the fridge.

This is a sample of chores our children are assigned each week.

3 yo: dusting (with help), collect laundry, unload dishwasher, pick up toys, put away laundry, set table

5 yo: windex, collect laundry, unload dishwasher, pick up toys, put away laundry, match socks, dust pan, vacuum (with the little vacuum), set table, help with meal prep

7 yo: dust, windex, collect laundry, unload dishwasher, pick up toys, put away laundry, sweep, wipe counters, vacuum, set table, clear table, help with meal prep

8 yo: dust, windex, unload dishwasher, pick up toys, put away laundry, sweep, vacuum, wipe counters, wet jet, clean sinks, set table, clear table, help with meal prep

12 yo: assist younger siblings with chores, dust, windex, unload dishwasher, pick up toys, put away laundry, sweep, vacuum, wipe counters, wet jet, clean sinks, clean toilets, mop floors, set table, clear table, make meals, clean car, sweep porches, fix things around the house, assist with big projects

14 yo: assist younger siblings with chores, dust, windex, unload dishwasher, pick up toys, laundry, sweep, vacuum, wipe counters, clean sinks, clean toilets, mop floors, set table, clear table, meal plan, make meals, assist with big projects

Many of the organizing projects I write about on this site are done with the help of most if not all of my kids. I rarely work alone. I think working along side your children is a great way to build relationships and teach by example. More on that in the next post.

Other posts related to kids and chores:

Little Kids and Chores

Laundry

by admin - March 19, 2009

Ultimate Blog Party ~ Welcome to The Happy House

Welcome to all my Ultimate Blog Party Hoppers! I know you are all busy jumping from blog to blog finding all sorts of new and wonderful bloggers. To keep it short and sweet I’ll introduce myself and then tell you the rest of the story with pictures to keep you moving right along.

I am The Happy Housewife. I have been blogging on this site for over a year. I feel like my site can be summed up by my tagline, “thriving on one income in a two income world.” I am always looking for ways to save money and reuse items in order to live thriftier and “greener.” This year our challenge is to live on half my husband’s income in order to save for a house. I am also a military wife and mom of 6 (soon to be 7 kiddos) so I write about military life, kids, and homeschooling. The newest project on my site is writing Our Story, or the story of how my husband and I met, got married a few weeks later and well, it isn’t finished yet so I don’t want to give away the ending.

Now on with the photos….

This is me, the picture is actually a bit deceiving because we don’t live on a farm… we live in the suburbs of D.C.

This is the rest of the fam…

Yes, I am married to Mr. Incredible. You can read all about him here.

We have a big family, sometimes people ask if we are trying to field a baseball team, I tell them we prefer soccer.

We love parties so much around here we celebrate 8 of them every year… but that wasn’t enough so this year we are adding another!

We especially love making and eating cake, would you care to join us for some ice cream cake?

Trifle?

Castle Cake?

Star Wars Cake?

or perhaps a Barbie Cake?

I almost always make the cakes myself, because I am frugal…. and I have lots of help in the kitchen.

I love to cook and share many of our family recipes too.

Okay, I don’t really make meals like that, they look more like this…

Every other week I write about Commissary deals to help military families stretch their grocery budget.

I also run a program that donates expired coupons to our military families overseas.

Occasionally I will post super great bargains, like how to get free ice cream just by going out in your pajamas.

We love to have fun and learn ways to make things cheaper and better ourselves.

I love to sew and find new ways to use old things.

Shirt

Dress

Thanks for stopping by, I promise I won’t keep you any longer.

For lots of frugal ideas, “green” living tips, homeschooling adventures, great recipes, organizing tips, military deals, and fun crafty projects subscribe to The Happy Housewife and have each post delivered straight to your inbox or reader.

You can also follow me on Twitter for daily musings, deals, and updates.

If you have a moment you can hop over to my giveaway and enter to win a copy of Melissa’s Great Book of Produce.

There are some great prizes up for grabs at the Ulitmate Blog Party this year. I hope I win some cute hair bows from Chesapeake Ribbons, for my soon to be 3 girls. Or maybe a Made by Michelle diaper bag for the new baby. A gift card to the Heavenly Homemakers gift shop would be great too!