What can I say I like to clean

Call me crazy, but I really don't mind cleaning the house. I like the workout and what the house looks like after. I can get a little crazy sometimes (usually like at 10:00 pm) and get in a cleaning mood and there is no stopping me then.

For me, I like the popular cleaning products pine-sol for my floors, soft scrub and scrubbing bubbles for my bathrooms, and windex for the windows, but what I love to do is experiment. Whenever I see a cleaning product on sale chances are I try it. I like everything with bleach. I do like to mix things up too because I hope that what one cleaner might miss the other one will get. If you looked in my cupboards you would see that I have a million different cleaning products, so when Vashti wants to know what I use I guess I would say everything!

For a quick wipe down of the bathrooms I like lysol's anti-bacterial wipes and the kids can use these easily too. I did just teach Lexi how to do a scrub down of the bathrooms and she was so excited to learn until she saw what I had to do "now make sure you clean here really well because most boys miss the toilet and this is where it goes" Gross mom!

I really like windex's antibacterial spray for my kitchen countertops, obviously for the cleaning part, but it also shines up my granite pretty nice. For a real buff for my granite I use marble and granite magic (they also make a cleaner for stainless steel that makes my refrigerator look brand new)

Mopping I love the look and the smell, but it seriously breaks my back. The best job is on my hands and knees, but I don't mind my mop that you can take the cloth off and rinse whenever it needs it (at target). I do not like using dirty mopping water over and over so I just rinse a little pine-sol directly on the rag or cover and do this over and over until I'm done. My steam mop is great, but for like once a month use.

I am working on decluttering right now (when aren't I), so I am going through every room and detailing it. I call this perfecting every room. I go through every nook and cranny and get rid of, straighten, and clean it. After just moving my brother in law, there is extra motivation to do this :)

There you go Vashti, hope this helps. Happy cleaning everyone!

Happy Father's Day!

I am so blessed to have such a good father for my children. We sure do love him. I am so lucky that I had a good dad growing up. Hope everyone has a great day.

Happy Friday!!!

My friend told me about this Calvin and Hobbes cartoon and it made me laugh, so I thought I'd share. It shows Calvin yelling at his mom from the front door and then his mom yells back, "stop yelling at me if you want to talk to me come to the living room where I am at." Then it shows Calvin by her side asking, "where's the hose I just stepped in dog poop."

Kids in the house with dog poop is seriously my worst nightmare. That is one of the biggest reasons we will never have a dog. It is usually Hunter who comes in with it on his shoes, it has happened twice. Then I go into psycho mode and scrub the carpets with cleaner for the rest of the day. Good times.

Fishing Derby

Saturday was the fishing derby in Lynden. My brother in law usually goes and we've gone before with him in the past, but he had to work Saturday, so it was just my sister and me. She knows a little more than me and I know very little about fishing. I only took the two older kids and we had a really good time. Hunter and my niece did not catch anything although we tried really hard and even moved three different times (my dad was there hence the moving). We finally found a good spot and Lexi caught her limit of two right away, so we put Hunter back on a pole even though it wasn't his age group because he was so disappointed that he didn't catch one. I kind of enjoyed fishing...I think it teaches kids patience and calmness. I could see myself doing a fishing trip sometime in the future as long as someone is there to bait the line and get the fish off the hook.

Feeling Older

Isn't it crazy how time seems to fly by. Sometimes I notice how fast when I see how quickly babies around me get older (LQ) and I'll be like he's how many months now? When it seems like yesterday he was a newborn. Sometimes it's when my niece calls me aunt Jayme when introducing me to her friends in Safeway and she is too old to be my niece, so I decide that I should only be introduced as her cousin :) Don't even get me started about putting a great in front of the aunt title. Sometimes it's when a girl I use to babysit gets married and seems totally all grown up now when it was just yesterday I was watching her and her brother. When it comes to the ages of my children it is Karlee that always floors me. I cannot believe she will be in kindergarten and turn six on her next birthday. I don't know why I am always so surprised with her maybe it is because she is right in the middle and was the smallest baby who knows. When I was in school I remember thinking man this week was so long or March took forever, but you would never hear me say that now. Weeks fly by and I am always like I can't believe May is over and here we are a third of the way done with June. I guess there is something to cherish every moment because time is not standing still, it is racing by us and I hope that I don't regret not living it up.

ok maybe it was too soon...

How do you know when your kids are ready for the "big talks"? I don't think that there is any correct answer for this question. I have heard a lot of stories and advice from other moms and I think I will know when my kids will be ready by just waiting for the right time. For instance, Lexi and I were driving around one Saturday for her Jazz pictures getting shoes and stuff and we were talking about her friends and school. She brought up that one of her friends was mean sometimes. It led me to a story about bucket filler of the year award and from there we covered some "girly stuff". She won't probably need this information for a couple of years, but it was the perfect opportunity (she might not agree as she was very embarrassed and kept asking if I was done). I felt so good about it though.

There are several embarrassing and uncomfortable topics that us parents have to cover with our children or else someone else will. I of course want it to be me so that I can explain it correctly. On the way home from church, somehow we got on the topic of nursing babies and Hunter started asking some questions. He has seen me nurse 3 babies (at first I would try to be modest, but let's face it after a while I was like oh forget it), so I thought he understood everything. Well he didn't and as I started explaining how it worked even using the N word with him, which is one of my least favorite words, he started laughing and laughing, which made me laugh a little seeing how amused he was and then he just couldn't stop talking about it and he couldn't stop cracking up and then he got a little grossed out. It was a crazy drive home. I don't know if he was mature enough to hear about nursing now, but I am quite certain that he will need about 20 years before he will be ready to handle the "big talk".

Proud to Say

That my eyebrows have officially grown back in and are now matching the left side ones again. Long story short the kids were in bed and Wynden was at a meeting, which means no distractions, I was cleaning up my eyebrows and I guess I got a little carried away. I did a double take and thought now that looks ridiculous! I had to stop and think about my options: do I even them out and make it match the other side or just hope nobody notices. I decided to wait it out. One eyebrow normal the other half its size. I decided not to point it out because lets face it for 2 months I'm pretty sure that is all everyone would have looked at while talking to me because it looked so funny kind of like having a huge zit on your face. I couldn't even raise my eyebrows up like I do with a zit on my forehead hoping it will get lost in a crease because it was my eyebrows that were the problem. I guess it could have been worse like Jenni M who was waxing her eyebrows and pulled them all off :) Always remember that ice will take off hot wax if you place it in the wrong places.