Making my home a haven: A peek into our Monday
I had high hopes of getting up around 5 am this morning since I'm really trying to get back into the swing of getting up early again. But alas, the alarm clock went off and I got up to nurse Kaitlynn and promptly went back to sleep as soon as I was finished and didn't wake up until 7 am. Instead of feeling frustrated, I just decided to get up and get with it!I turned on some music jumped on the elliptical--our new and very first piece of exercise equipment secured for a great deal off of Craigslist--and tried to outdo my time and calories burned from yesterday. I've found that the first 10 minutes are the hardest and after that, it's a lot easier. (As an aside, Jesse and I have been having a blast trying to beat the other person each day in time and calories burned. It's a fun little competition we have going and it's very motivational!)
After exercising, I felt quite energized and ready to begin the day--even if I was two hours behind! The girls were still sleeping so I spent a leisurely time reading a devotional book and finishing up the last four chapters of Job and the first chapter of Psalms. I'm so excited to have finally made it to Psalms this year in my plan to read through the Bible in a year! Yay!
I spent some time meditating on Psalms 1:2, "But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in His law doth he meditate day and night." This verse has been going through my mind today at random intervals and I've been contemplating whether I'm truly delighting in God's Word. That is my heart's desire but so often I can get distracted by the cares of this world.
I hopped up from my time of refreshment in God's Word to make Jesse's lunch and get him out the door. The girls were still sleeping, so once Jesse had left for work, I flipped on my computer and checked my email, moderated blog comments, and wrote up a few blog posts for my other blog, MoneySavingMom.
Kathrynne finally sauntered downstairs after an hour or so and I turned the computer off until naptime. (I've been trying really hard to keep the "black box" in it's proper place in our home so for me, that means it's only on in the early morning or during naptime. This makes such a major difference in our home!)
We woke Kaitlynn up and went downstairs to make strawberry/banana/flaxseed smoothies and English muffins for breakfast. While the girls ate, I read the Bible to them, introduced our new verse for the week, read from Teach Them To Your Children, reviewed the ABC memory verses, and read two library books to them. Kathrynne has been begging me to read, read, read to her and since I figure lots of great books will certainly not hurt her (!), I've been trying to fit in as much reading as possible.
After breakfast, we were supposed to do baths and clean-up, but my highly-side-tracked self instead got motivated to clean out the dressers and closets, thanks to the inspiration from Handprints on the Wall. We try to keep things very simple and uncluttered here, and I routinely go through the whole house to get rid of excess stuff. I'm always amazed, however, at how much we can accumulate even with me being pretty ruthless!
The girls' Summer/Fall closet--after the pruning. (I shoot for 2-3 Sunday dresses and a few play dresses per season. They also have around 3-4 tops and bottoms that are mix and match for everyday wear.)I put away a bunch of clothes that no longer fit the girls, put a number of items that were stained or we just didn't like or use in the garage sale box, and organized what was left. Wow! I can't describe how much better it feels to have pruned things back down to the basics or almost-basics again.
My Summer closet--after the pruning. As you can see, I keep it really simple and definitely fit the title of "minimalist" when it comes to clothing. :) (Half the closet is my business attire that I keep handy for wearing to political/legal events. The other half is my Sunday and everyday stuff. I have 2 Sunday/nicer tops that I mix and match with skirts. I usually buy 2-3 new tops per season, plus some nice T-shirts for everyday wear and maybe one or two new skirts per year.)After the closet-cleaning-out was finished, I cleaned up the kitchen, tackled the mountain of laundry on my bed, and did some picking up and dusting. While doing this, I talked with Jesse on the phone and found out he was coming home early so we could go pick up the van from the repair shop (again!). We had a quick lunch and I put the girls down for their rest time/naptime. (Kathrynne doesn't really nap anymore, she just usually lies down for awhile and watches Mr. Fixit or reads stories in her bed.)
While the girls were resting, I finished up some of the morning chores and got dinner ready and the kitchen cleaned up (we kept it simple and used a lasagna from the freezer along with green beans and grapefruit for dinner).
When the girls got up, I gave the quick baths and got them dressed in their matching outfits to go out with Daddy. They just looked so cute that I had to take pictures...
There's nothing Jesse loves more than to come home to a relatively clean home, a cheerful wife, and his girlies all dressed up cute. I think it makes it a very welcoming haven for him!Labels: Making Your Home a Haven
posted by Crystal Paine at 3:09 PM
24 Comments:
What adorable girlies! Thanks for sharing:)
Trixie
that's beautiful! I have always thought that "day diaries" are helpful!!! --thanks.
I need to become more simplistic.... I have so many arts/crafts started and so much memorabilia..... ahk.
Sounds like a great day! I miss seeing those cute faces! Hope that van is operational. ;)
YOU got your closets done! That was supposed to be my job. Alas, I finally got the laundry room cleaned up. Better than nuthin'.
crystal,
your little girls are growing up so beauiful, they seem to get cuter with every photo :)
i love reading your blog, btw. i think youre amazing.
-Genevieve
Wow, your closets are so... minimal! How wonderful!! WAY better than mine! I'm so glad that we inspired you; we're having lots of fun hearing from everyone. Thanks for joining in! I love the feeling of an orderly closet! Next week we'll tackle another part of the home...
Your girls are gorgeous! Thankyou for sharing them with us!
BTW what exactly is an elliptical?
Claire
Darling little ladies! It was fun reading about your day - I wish you could come over here and help me with our little clothes! Goodness, this is an area I struggle with keeping pared down.
Have a great day!
Monica
What a lovely post. Thank you for sharing. I needed the encouragement and the reminder. I've been struggling with my computer time as well. I really appreciate your advice on turning it off early in the morning until naptime! I'm going to try that starting today!
Melissa
You ARE ruthless! Wow, am I impressed! I thought I was doing good because my husband and I are sharing one closet, even though my side of it is jammed full. Good for you! My daughter has been given so much in the way of clothing and if I had kept it all, her clothes would overrun our closets! As it is, she has a lot of clothing. For right now I'm kind of glad for that because it means less laundry. I wash her clothes once a week and wouldn't be able to do that if she didn't have as much as she does.
This is inspiring to cut down even more of what I have. How many shirts and pants and cardigans do I need, anyway? :)
Your girls are adorable! I love cutie matching outfits like that. I'm sure your husband was very proud and pleased. :) Mine always is when he's greeted with such sweetness and a cheerful wife!
I still can't get over the fact that your girls will still asleep at 7am!! Mine all wake up before 6.
If Kathrynne doesn't look like her Aunt Gretchen, then I don't know what!
Aaron's become the same way - he knows I strive to have the house cleaned up when he gets home from work for the day. It may be chaos when he comes home at lunch, but it is clean at supper! Makes me feel better too, I can spend the night crocheting (I'm working on a lapghan), playing with the baby, reading books, and generally bumming around. Aaron's certainly not controlling, but he likes me to sit and relax with him at night. We had a huge fight about this (yep, a BIG ONE) a while back, and he finally said to me - "Honey, I know you work just as hard as me all day, and your job doesn't end like mine does, because you're always caring for the baby. I'll help you out with him when I need to, but really, I want you to sit and relax with me. Take it easy, just play, and have a good night at home."
Made me stop and think, that's for sure. :)
Oh, Crystal, they're adorable! I loved hearing about your day. When I wake up late, it's so easy for me to get off track just because things didn't happen as I had planned! :)
The pictures are adorable of your daughters! Reminds me of when mine were that age!
Carla
Mum-me: The trade off is that they usually go to bed when we do or thereabouts. So, gulp, it's often like 10 p.m. or sometimes even later.
Jesse often doesn't get home until after 7 p.m. at night so we've adjusted our schedule accordingly. We're hoping to eventually have them go to bed closer to 9 p.m., but since we do enjoy having lots of family time in the evening, we struggle to accomplish this. And I often fight guilt that I'm not getting them to bed at a decent hour... And then I fight guilt that we're not having enough family time... yeah, I'm working on the guilt thing as I know it's not healthy or right.
Anyway, just thought I would encourage you that we don't have a perfect thing going here, it's just what is somewhat-working for us at this season of our lives. :)
Crystal:
It was so nice visiting your blog today and seeing your beautiful little girls! They are getting so big since the last picture I saw on your blog.
Great job on your closets! I do find that less is best with our family of six. I do like the girls in dresses the most as in Summer they are so easy to get on and off and it is just one piece of clothing not two. We have taken the children camping and it really helps with space issues for clothing in our second home as we call it.
I hopefully will be able to take pictures more often of all my cleaning and organizing projects.Right now my focus is taking a 5 cent notebook from Walmart and putting every room in the house on a page. I will then go through each room throughly to put things that we need, and need to fix. That way when I am at the Salvation Army I can look for those things.
Have a nice day Crystal.
Renee B.
Mama to four~ 14,5,4,and 2 yrs.
Crystal,
I think I've shared before how crazy my husband's schedule has been. I know what it's like to have a husband who gets home late! No need for guilt--just thank God that you have girls that adjust their little internal clocks to Jesse's hours so well. My girls ALWAYS wake up at the same time no matter what time they went to bed! Sometimes they will sleep in an extra half hour if they went to bed REALLY late, but they never sleep past 7 am! Thankfully, my husband is now working a regular work week, so that has made things more structured around our house...
GOOD JOB ON THE CLOSETS!! I just go through going through ours. We've lately been given a HUGE amount of cute, almost new clothes for our middle daughter. Way too many for her to wear in one season.
I got rid of some of them, but-- keeping in mind how very hard on clothes my tom-boy middle girl is-- I put some of them in boxes in the crawlspace for the youngest (only 18 mos younger) to wear next year. That way, poor youngest daughter will have something pretty to wear instead of tomboy middle daughter's threadbare and stained hand-me-downs... Just an idea for when # 3 comes along--and if Kaitlynn turns out to be a beautiful, fun, mud-playing, earth-worm-digging, tree-climbing kind of girl!! :)
Phebe
Hi Crystal...I can relate I am trying to wake up before my girls but I haven't been able to. Your girls are adorable. Thank you for sharing. Have a blessed day.nxmk
We do the same thing at bedtime. A lot of my friends' kids go to bed at 8 PM. I just don't know how they do it. We aren't even done dinner until 7:30 sometimes. Plus it's so light out in the summer that it is hard for them to sleep. I like that they get to spend more time with daddy at nights and then I get some alone time in the morning to get things done. Don't feel guilty, you have to do what works for you.
Michele
Wow, good job with the clothes. I try to do this every three months!It really does help. Now if only we could keep the dressers as neat!! any ideas on that, I have a few that share dresser(due to lack of space and about three children to a room) I'd love to hear any tips you all have!!!ALSO how do you store the clothes you are not using (like winter clothes during summer) we use totes, but is so much work to pull them out every season and get 9 childrens clothes out!!
I'm amazed at your minimalistic closets! Way to go! I need to go through mine now. I've recently gone through my kids' and gotten rid of a lot and sorted a lot.
I have to say that I could NOT get by on so little though! My little boy loves to play in dirt and mud and wet through diapers still at 20 months no matter if they are cloth or the name-brand disposables. He often goes through 3-4 outfits a day and so I find that having at least 15 outfits on hand for him is great. They all come to us free as new, or like-new hand-me-downs or for pennies at the thrift store so I don't have to spend much of anything to keep that many outfits on hand.
My daughter tends to wear her favorites over and over but I still like to have plenty on hand for her due to spills or accidents. Then there are all the occasions: play clothes, paint clothes, camping clothes, church clothes, swimsuits, snowsuits, winter wear, summer wear, Easter dress, Christmas dress, etc.
I find myself struggling to limit my clothes too because I have many different "occasion" clothes that I have on hand for nursing, maternity (and not just maternity but the 3 or 4 different stages of maternal growth), summer, fall, winter, spring, etc. Then there are pjs and nighties and undergarments in a variety of sizes due to the changes pregnancy brings. I was wondering if you have seasonal clothes tucked away that you rotate 4 times a year?
Mrs. Jo: Yes, I definitely have some "fat clothes" as I call them (you know, the ones where you don't fit into maternity clothes but don't fit into regular clothes either?!) and quite a few maternity clothes (I'm not as minimalistic when I'm pregnant and also have to have a variety of sizes and shapes for my expanding figure!). And then, I also have Fall/Winter clothes--I still need to go through those again and purge them as I have more than I love and wear. And I also have one dresser with every day clothes/nightwear, etc.--I don't hang up t-shirts, capris, etc.)
So what you see in the picture is mostly my staple Summer wardrobe. In the Fall/Winter, it will be changed out with different clothes. Same with the girls.
I used to keep all seasons of clothes in the same place, but it was just getting to be too much, so I decided to change things to seasonal to keep it more simplistic.
Oh and when Kaitlynn was younger and was spitting up all.the.time. we had more like 15 outfits for her because otherwise I couldn't keep up! I imagine if I have boys someday, I'll have to have more clothes for them since I've heard they tend to be a bit messier!
I think I must have the most adorable and cutest nieces on the face of the earth! Kaitlynn made me laugh - she's too sweet!
Auntie Gretchen
Oh, those are great pictures of the girls! I love the matching outfits! Maybe I'll get to have another girl next time and do the matchy matchy thing with my kids (it just doesn't work with a boy and a girl) :)
You're not kidding your closet is minimalist! In some ways, though, I desire that. I feel that I have too many clothes a lot of the time, and many that I don't even really like to wear or use very rarely. Same thing with the kids clothes. I am so eager to go through their stuff and really pare it down a lot.
We are planning a garage sale soon, so I have motivation to be brutal and really sift through the house. I'm hoping to declutter a lot!
Wow, Kaitlynn is getting so big, I can't believe how time flies!!
Jes (the graphic designer)
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