6:02 pm

At 6:02 PM out girls all at once, became mini-mes.

Two of the girls, became mini-Karls and one became mini-Christy. It is as if they must act like the parent they favor in looks. It is as if, looks are connected to personality. Well, I guess they are somewhat, but I am talking genetics here. It is as if I can only genetically claim one of my three children. It is as if I am lucky enough to have three amazing, yet different children.

At exactly 6:02 PM last night, this is what the three girls were doing.

Brady asked, no begged, for us to put on one of our cardio exercise DVDs for her..."I want the one with weights!"

 Reese got crafty. "I am going to glue a bunch of stuff to one piece of paper, it is going to look awesome!"

 Elli cleaned the dinner dishes from the table, without prompting; including the water glasses which she emptied into the sink and loaded in the dishwasher (correctly). "I did it, Mommy, I cleaned up."

I am glad I married an awesome man, because his mini-mes are healthy and helpful. I am also glad I have my own mini-me to get crafty and messy with....hey, maybe the previous mini-mes will clean up after us ;)

6:02PM was one of many minutes that was perfect in so many ways!

A Little Diddy About Brady

I was just saying to one of my friends...

"I don't have a favorite child, but I am sure my blog audience thinks I do. I blog in an uneven amount about each child. The one year old hits milestones so those naturally pop up on here. The five year says and does the darnedest things, so those make appearances. But, that six year old, she is such a rule follower that her awesomeness doesn't usually translate into good blog material."

I guess I spoke too soon...

Tonight was Reese's turn to pick out the good night story. Reese is one of those kids that gains confidence in hearing repeated stories; so, naturally her older sister has to HATE hearing the same story one hundred times in a week. So when Reese picked out a story from the Usborne Fairy Tale book, Brady rolled the not again eyes. I told her to read quietly to herself if she doesn't want to listen.

Brady trots right out of the room without speaking a word. Daddy says 'I think she went downstairs.'

I give her a few and then go to investigate. I speak while walking down the stairs. You know that rule I always tell my kids. You must be looking at my before you speak. Someone ought to practice what they preach!

"Brady, I understand you may not want to hear this story, but you still need to spend this special time with the family."

Brady walks to meet me at the bottom of the stairs... holding a cleaning cloth and spray in her hands.

Yep, people, she didn't want to listen to the goodnight story, so she went and cleaned the dishwasher and fridge, oh, and swept. So rude! ;)

Oh, and while I am typing this, she left her room (suppose to be going to sleep) and states "Reese and I think we don't need all this stuff! We want to get rid of lots of STUFF in our room." Now instead of going to bed she is decluttering her room...THE NERVE! :)

I love the individuality of my three girls. They are all very different yet all very awesome. LIFE. IS. GOOD.

Mommy's Little (Intivative) Helper

In preparation for Reese's birthday party this weekend, I am doing some 'nooks and crannies' cleaning. You know; base boards, behind the trash can, cabinet doors, etc. I was doing this all while Elli was awake. No biggie really, one year olds LOVE to watch cleaning and always want to help out. So like always, I hand Elli a cleaning rag just like I was using. I even share the spray bottle since it just has vinegar and water.

The applesauce dried on the wall was being extra stubborn. So, I go wet my rag in the kitchen sink and continue my work. Apparently I had an admirer that needed her rag wet too. And in her kindness to not interupt momma hard at work, Elli decided there was an easy solution...

Elli  proudly walked over to the dog bowl, dipped in the water bowl and then continued her work scrubbing the wall!

Pulling her weight

She has been walking for a good solid month now... Time to start helping out around here.

She loves carrying the dinner dishes to the sink! Yes, that is a bowl of soup she is carrying








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My little Helper

Have I told you yet this girl likes to clean up?

This is the series of actions I get when I say "elli, clean up" after a meal!

Or she steals a rag out of my hand so she can do it instead!

She may not walk but she carries her load!

Someone pull the plug, please

As most of you are aware, my situation at home is temporarily different (message me if you are confused). This temporary change has left me feeling like I am drowning. I have not struggled with similar changes in the past quite like this time, and this time the change is in short increments. I will say to myself, I am drowning and I need to pull the plug. One night when I had a long list of things to do after the girls bedtime it hit me. I struggle most after they are in bed and I still need to eat dinner, do dishes, pack lunches, fold laundry, pick up toys etc etc etc. So to 'pull the plug' I need the girls to help me with some of this. In the past I when just ask them to help out when they could, but I never had a regular chore list for them.

Things are different now, I explained to them during this time of change I need their help more then ever. Brady and Reese were very receptive to this. Actually, they were down right excited about it. Lots of people have posted lately about how they organize chores in their home, so here is my new system!

 I believe in choose for the kids. Children build confidence when they are able to make chooses about the direction their life goes, even are 4 and 5. Now, I am not talking careers people, just what they are going to do the next five or ten minutes. So I decided to let them have chooses with chores too. They must do as many chores as years old they are, but they get to choose which chores to do. I wrote the age appropriate chores on a clothespin. When they complete that chore they get to move the pin over to their pipe cleaner letter so they can keep track of what is completed.

If they do more chores then their age, they will then get to choose a prize from the prize bucket (mostly hello kitty $1 or less items) or they can ask for $1. Interestingly enough, at this age money doesn't motivate them, so the prize bucket is always sought after. Brady, almost always chooses to do way more then 5, and Reese always does one more then 4 to take a trip to the prize bucket. I have done this for about 8-9 days now and only once did they choose to just do their age, and that was because they wanted to work on making valentine's instead.

People, for now, they are excited about chores. One day Brady forgot to ask to be excused from the table because she was so eager to do her chores.

So, my girls have pulled the plug, the water has drained and I am breathing again! And top of it all, my kitchen is now swept daily and my dishwasher has never looked so shiny!

Extrinsic Motivation

Occasional extrinsic motivation never hurt a soul.

Last week, Karl was fighting a head cold and I was battling back/hip pain that left me in the recliner by dinner time. The result was a MESSY MESSY house. While we normally have the girls help me clean up throughout the day and at night, we were lacking the energy to motivate them. So by day three it looked as though a tornado hit the inside of our house.

Right after dinner on that third night, I went straight the recliner and Karl hit the sofa. We were talking about the mess and hopefully we could feel well enough tomorrow to get to it. Then, I decided bribing my girls can't hurt that much right? So I told them if they worked together to clean their two bedrooms in thirty minutes I would give them candy. They were pumped (and so was I). Without any direction at all from us, this was the result.

While the bookshelves are obviously stacked by 3 and 4 year olds, blankets draped over bed rails etc. I was thoroughly pleased with their teamwork and efficiency. Can you see the pride in their sweet faces in the second to last picture? They certainly earned the candy I promised!

So this is yet another time that I was glad I limit the amount of candy/sugar I give them (they ask for it several times a day). Two reasons: one, they really enjoy it when they do get it and two, I can use it to my advantage ;)

Mounds of clothes...

Up until now, I have been saving EVERY single piece of clothing my girls have ever worn. Which calculates to about 15 buckets (totes) of clothes. Well, now that I know that we will have another lovely lady to enjoy all these clothes and I am getting rid of them...hahaha seems backwards right? Well, I was waiting for the sex of Elli Dew so that I could know whether to downsize completely or just somewhat. I will obviously be saving the hand-me-downs, but I can't feasibly save the three and half years of clothes that will be between Reese is Elliot. I brought down some of the buckets last night and Brady decided she would help me go through them...by matching up outfits. This is her handiwork.

I love this outfit that includes panties, skirt, socks, shoes, shirt and hat. 

So I sorted through what to keep, give away, and what needed some serious stain removing TLC. Brady helped me sort my GIANT mound of keep clothes into sizes.  She loved climbing onto the bed to get clothes from the top of the pile.

Then would either toss the clothes at me or climb down and bring them to me and tell me the size. I was proud of my big helper and of myself for downsizing my load by two buckets. Hopefully I have it down to where I will be storing only six buckets of clothes at a time. 

Paper-Free Kitchen

Yep, you read that right, for about a week now the Orthner kitchen has no paper products.

I read about a friend doing this on Facebook and at first I thought it was crazy and not worth it. But the more I thought about it the more I like the notion. I took all my saved up coupons to Bed Bath and Beyond and  created an easy system for all my family to follow.

Black=napkins
White=floor messes or super messy table messes...aka spilled yogurt like we had this morning
Colorful=hand towel/dish towel

I currently have the basket on the counter top so that we get used to grabbing for these clothes like we did paper towels  Hopefully I can move it one day into a cabinet!

Why did I choose the categories above?

Napkins are obvious, we need a small hand size cloth to clean our hands while we eat. But I needed to differentiate between hand/dish towel and floor messes. I want to know when I pick up a colorful cloth to dry my dishes that it has not cleaned up the floor.

So my family knows, the black napkins go straight to the washing machine after a meal, the white floor clothes go directly to the washing machine after use and the colorful dish towel gets changed every other day.

I just throw the clothes on the bottom of my washing machine and they sit there until a load of wash is done. A few clothes doesn't effect the size of your load, so I will just have a few to fold with each load, so there isn't much extra work with the laundry.

It feels good to do my part to save money in the long run while helping the environment. You may think there is no way your family can do this, but really if we can, so can you!

Tuesday Tidbits: Helpers and Mickey

I was loading up the fridge with my soda the other day and Brady ran over to help me. She wanted me to hand them to her and then she placed them in the spot. Reese quickly came in and took over my job. I love my helpers that are always there to volunteer!

For mom’s with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse watchers, all I need to say is Hot Dog dance! But for the rest of  you, MMCH show has a song that plays at the end of every show. All six of the characters dance and each one has a different set of moves. So Karl likes to try and imitate the characters. Well over time, we all have our specific character we try to dance like. The girls love having daddy dance with them!

Speaking of Mickey…you like Reese’s mickey pancake and Brady’s Minnie pancake complete with bow? The girls were pretty thrilled about it!

Thankful for my Little Helpers

I know I know,  I am late on posting about Thanksgiving, but I have been busy prepping for Reese’s 2nd birthday party that is happening this weekend. But I wanted to share how awesome it was to have such helpful little cookers on Turkey Day.

 

Prepping the Oreo Cake and then giving Daddy a sample! What kid doesn’t love smash Oreos!

Getting recipe items from pantry and fridge. The girls both really enjoyed this task.

Cleaning and shucking the veggies. Then tossing all the scraps.

 

This is the resulting spread…Doesn’t it make you want to go back a week and do it all again?

I am thankful for my little helpers. But I am also thankful that on this year, my first thanksgiving spent away from my parents and siblings, that I was able to have great friends visiting from VA. Thanks for visiting us Melisa, Rob, Colton and Reagan. I missed my family dearly, but really enjoyed have friends I love dearly by my side.

 

Lastly, here is a piece of artwork Brady made at preschool. I love that she put she is thankful for ‘butterflies’.