Cleaning Archives - Page 8 of 14

What Does “Hospitality” {REALLY} Look Like?

June 13, 2012 by Jules Leave a Comment

Hospitality is so important to the Christian life. But so many Christians struggle with it...or so they think. When you hear the word "Hospitality" what is the 1st thing you think?

I have to fix a 'proper' meal
Do I own a tableclothes
My plates don't match
How are you supposed to set a 'proper' place setting
When am I going to find time to make my house shiny clean
What in the world will be talk about
There's no 'good' time to have ____ over

Read the rest of this post over at the Homemaker's Challenge!

Filed Under: Baking and Cooking, Cleaning, Organizing, Parties, The Ones about Homemaker's Challenge, The ones about the Rothacher Home

5 Ways to Organize The Toy Monster

May 8, 2012 by Jules 3 Comments

When my hubs and I started talking about having babies one of the things we discusses was TOYS. Matt mentioned that he would like if our house didn't look like a toys store and would love if the living room wasn't overtaken by toys. I agreed and thought that was a reasonable request. Thus, the "centers" began.

With just Maggie, our 2 bedroom 1 bathroom house was easy to keep clear of too many toys. Over the past 3 years we've double the size of our house and family. Here are a few key things we've set in place to organize and minimize the TOY craziness of life with kids. These tips are to know what toys to keep, which to share, how to maintain a pick-up home quickly while allowing your child to help in the process as well as instilling in them some independence.

We purposely keep very few toys. We purge so often that it's often the 'talk' among relatives if their toy will make the cut {sorry guys!}. We want to keep it simple. Here is the criteria for keeping a toy: educational either physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. There are so many kids in this world that have nothing, we don't need to hoard crazy amounts of toys. Why not share!?
We attempt to be purposeful about toys we have. We generally don't do Happy Meal toys, stuffed things, or small pieces. We enjoy basic things that can be used in a variety of play arenas {ie blocks- used from staking, pretend furniture, to detailed cities layouts; dolls- comfort, pretend friend, to parenting}. I will be sharing more about skill building through centers next week. We don't buy toys. Well, let me explain that one. Relatives and friends will more than likely always provide plenty of toys for our children and we do get our children 1 toy for holidays {mainly Christmas/Birthday...usually}.
We have chosen not to have toys in our children's rooms so they know bedrooms are just for sleeping. Providing your child with a restful environment that is peaceful, dark, quiet, and almost boring is the best way to encourage good sleeping.
We have had many ways to organize the toys. We used to have "adult colored" baskets of toys in the living room but they were easily slipped under the coffee table or off to the corner. When we moved into our current home and had the HUGE blessing of a playroom we still stuck with baskets but they are now there are more of them {as are there more children} and they divided more specifically.
We rotate toys so our children stay interested in what they have and so there aren't too many scattered around the house. We never put all new toys out after a holiday. A couple are places among the other toys, a few older toys as well as the rest of the new toys are put into a closet and rotated out later. Some times our children have been know to be "grounded" from a specific toys for being selfish with it, or for mismanagement such as not it cleaning up when ask or playing with it rough or inappropriately.

Hope these are some practical hints to help you manage the Toy Monster that eeks into everyone's house the moment you find out your pregnant ;o) If you have any awesome ideas, we'd LOVE to hear them.

NOTE: We are about to transition to a new {smaller} home so we'll see what kind of organization comes with that and keep ya update!

Return for 5 Days of Organizing & Cleaning TOYS into centers!!!

Filed Under: Cleaning, Homemaker, Homeschool, Organizing, Parenting, The ones about the Rothacher Home Tagged With: clean, how to, organization, toys

“We love snow! We love snow!”

April 3, 2012 by Jules 5 Comments

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Those kids are too quiet...what are they in to?"

My hubs and I were finally at home with our entire family! Not traveling. Everyone wake {a rarity with 3 kids different nap schedules}. Resting {hear the sarcasm?}.

Jamin, our 1-year-old was playing in the playroom and the girls, our 2 and 3-year-old were playing "house" in the kitchen pantry. We could hear them giggling and singing. Singing Loudly! This was the song they were singing:

{well, singing as well as a 2 and 3-year-old can}

Jamin attempted to join the party a few times but was turned away. Guess his name wasn't on the list. The little tikes car however was invited and shoved right inside our walk-in pantry. Giggles and singing continued until we heard Jamin screeching with disappointment for being rejected yet again. Matt headed in there to make sure he hadn't got his fingers smashed by the eager double duo. Not, no fingers smashed!

Matt yelled from across the house in a frantic yet snarky voice, "Julie! Come see this..." To which I of course replied, "...I don't want to..." as I slowly rose from my chair with hesitance to go "see". Matt replied, "Yeah ya do! ...bring your camera!" I literally snorted as I quickly turned around to grab my camera behind me. This was gonna be good. Matt knows I LOVE tracking my kids childhood via photos {who am I kidding...I take pictures of Everything}.

THIS is what I found:

~~~ "We love snow. We love snow!" ~~~

{note the toddler "Vanna White"ing their project/game/discovery/mess}

They were still dancing in it and showing us how they were playing.
Matt and I hadn't really made it clear that this had been a "bad choice", we were too busing trying not to laugh.

Gross! It was head/hair to toe, LITERALLY!

It was at least 1/4 inch thick.

What is that, you ask?

I'm sure you've figured it out by now: Sugar. Substitute sugar to be exact.

An entire canister of off brand Splenda was a good 15 min or more of Awesome summer fun indoors. Pretending it was snow was genius! Light fluffy snow. Joyfully enjoying childhood in a tiny 4x5 pantry with a canister of sugar and your sister. What bliss! Great science experiment! Good sensory lesson! Wish I'd been invited to the party...maybe Next time! I saved the nasty sugar to use again- for play!

I'm thinking in a more controlled environment I would at least be prepared to spend my Entire morning cleaning it up. Their poor sweaty feet made the entire pantry floor sticky, as well as any where they tracked it before we began the quarantine.

The pantry has no quarter round around the baseboard. Guess where the excess sugar remains?

Matt did bath duty while I swept, swept some more, shook things out, swept pantry, swept the kitchen, swept the dinning room, picked everything off the floors and mopped. Although, if you ever find yourself in this exact situation, don't mop right away!

Remember the photo with the dirty specks on the lens? Yeah, the air was filled with a sweet aroma! Matt mentioned his nose burning when I 1st came into the kitchen but he can't smell {for real} so I didn't think much of it.

I closed the door during my 1st round of sweeping to try to keep Jamin out of the fluffy mess. I soon realized that there was a cloud arising from the pile. THIS is what was disturbing Matt's nose. I quickly found myself unconsciously licking my lips like it was some sort of twitch. Each lick was yummy! My face was covered in sugar dust. My nose was so stopped up from the thick cloud I began to sniff and swallow. Again, tasty! Oddly sweet.

This is why I suggest letting that dust settle before giving it a fresh wet surface to plant it's stickiness down upon.

I love my children and their creativity. They are how ever not allowed to enter the pantry again without permission from a parent ;O)

What amazing shenanigans have your kids gotten into? Please Share!!!

"Every time we teach a child something, we keep him from inventing it for himself" -J. Piaget, 1962

Filed Under: Cleaning, Homemaker, Parenting, The ones about the Rothacher Home Tagged With: mess, moping, sweeping

Clean Home in 2012

December 29, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

We've had a massive amount of sickness floating through the Rothacher family the past few weeks.
Yep, stomach bug 2011 began Christmas Eve and is still showing it's presence in after effects.

I know all to well the importance of not only having a clean and sanitary home but also a tidy one so you can find all the necessities to break out the swat team when a family of 5 goes all "Carriers" on you {gross movie...weird- don't really advise}.

How do you optain a sanitary and well kept home you ask? I have a few ideas but a tool that helped me try and decide what was the most important was "31 days to clean". You can click around at the bottom of this post to see my journey through this book back in May. I plan to do some of this again in January but I'll also be focusing another series {I'll tell you about soon}.
What a better way to begin a new year than with a clean home. If you want to start this in January I do recommend purchasing it before Dec ends so you can flip through it quickly to make sure you have all necessary supplies ;o) You can use the button above to find and purchase the book or use the one on the side bar.

Did I mention it's SUPER CHEAP!!!! I'm a huge fan!

If you've gone through this book, what are some of you favorite days? If you haven't, what are some of your questions?

*Discloser: I do receive a portion of the sales on pdf versions of "31 days to clean" if you purchase it by using the button on my side bar. I do want you to know that I wouldn't recommend something I wouldn't/haven't used and I would LOVE you to refer people buy this book 'through' my blog or purchase it as a gift for someone.

Entire Cleaning Series
Starting a New Challenge Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10
Day 11 & 12 Day 13 Day 14 Day 15 & 16 Day 17 & 18 Days 19-21 Days 22-26 Days 27-31

Filed Under: Cleaning, The ones about the Rothacher Home

Advent {Day 12}: eBook for ANY Woman

December 12, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

I've been raving about this book called "31 Days to Clean" for months now! Some know what I'm talking about and some are about to!

Let me tell you a little bit about the e-book:

“Life-giving is about receiving from God in order to give to others.” Barbara Mouser, Five Aspects of Woman
31 Days to Clean is about loving others well.
It’s about the “why” and the vision and the heart for taking care of our domains (Mary) with some spring cleaning thrown in (Martha).
The heart of our homes is not in the ability to keep it perfect at all costs; the heart of a home is love. We live in a thing, a non-eternal structure that needs to be maintained. The thing is worthless without the life we bring to it and through it. This book is about bringing life to the mundane in order to love well.

-Sarah Mae {click here to learn more about the book, author, see the table of content, and read a sample “day”

The book walks you through 31 days of encouragement and challenges both for the heart and taskful cleaning. She now has an easier more routine version for helping set a cleaning routine for yourself. This is so practical!

This is an affordable and thoughtful gift idea for almost any women in your life. It speaks to the heart of the woman! PLUS, did I mention it's only $4.99!!! Perfect!

To see more about how I've done this book, check out "The Ones about Cleaning" on the side bar!