Spring Cleaning and Painting

I've been busy lots of spring cleaning, garage sale and getting Little Misses room ready.

Monday I painted her room Princess Pink a Valspar Signature color. It's the perfect soft shade of pink.

This weekend we will start putting her room together. Right now all her toys are on the floor along with her toddler mattress. She's loving it.But it's making me crazy not having a room put together and decorated the way I want.

Hope to have some more progress next week with her beautiful bed and a special mural I am painting. Speaking of spring cleaning. Does this photo need any words? Maybe an explanation. I decided to get down all of Madeline's clothes since birth and organize them.

I got all of this.....

Into this! Gotta love shrinky bags.
Today I am mopping the floors and cleaning all the baseboards downstairs.
So much for taking it easy!

Spring Cleaning Challenge - Toys

Welcome into my son's room.

This is how it looks almost everyday. Um, clutter and too many toys. I won't even show you under the bed. It's a parking garage for all his large cars and trucks.
I know you are expecting a clean room photo.... still waiting on that.

We have moved out the little red table it was too small for him. I have a goal of limited the number of toys to ONLY those that fit in his bins and just a few cars for under the bed.

This is going surprisingly well. Will was such a big boy and donated 3 large trucks to the church nursery on Sunday. He was so proud and they made a big deal out of it.

We are on operation garage sale. The guest room/playroom/junk room would be a candidate for the TV show Hoarders. We are putting all the stuff we are selling in that room. It is full to the brim which is a good sign of our spring cleaning.

I will continue to thin out all areas of the house. Simplifying and downsizing sounds so wonderful right now.

How is your spring cleaning going?

Pregnancy update: I am 18 weeks and all is well. The little peanut is kicking up a storm. My guess is boy. We find out in 4 weeks!

Spring Cleaning - Day 2 Step Outside

Remember this photo from last year. I added some additional green stuff to the yard. Anyone know what happens to Oleander? I think I killed it. It's all brown and dead.

Hoping in a month it will all look like this again.

I had all intentions of doing the teenagers closet but with her busy activity schedule it's going to have to wait.

So I took a step outside and pulled the weeds in the flower beds. It was very overdue. We've had a lot of rain lately and the weeds are growing so fast. I was embarrassed each day when I drove up thinking what an eyesore my yard was. Hubby still needs to mow. Gotta love these Texas weeds!

The kids kept me company on our sunny and beautiful 65 degree day. Our driveway is scatter with precious chalk art. We had a great afternoon pulling weeds and enjoying the beautiful day.

Spring Cleaning Challenge (SCC) Day 1

Day One: Let there be light!

We've got many ceiling fans and light fixtures. My light bulbs all seem to go out at once. I've put off changing the light bulbs well, for months. It drives my husband and I both crazy but neither one of us seem to do anything about it.



So I pulled out my trusty ladder and changed all the bulbs that needed to be changed. It took about 15 minutes.



As I was in the hallway upstairs next to the air return I realized it's also time to change the air filter. So I am sending hubby out after work for new air filters.



If you are joining me these are easy fixes but essential. Change your light bulbs and air filters. You can't do much cleaning if you don't have the proper lighting.



Tomorrow we tackle the teenagers closet... I am seriously scared to show those pictures!

Spring Cleaning Family Challenge! Wanna Join?

These two photos have nothing to do with my post I just had to share. My son Will had his first t-ball game on Saturday. I just have to brag.

Here he is about to make his first run! He's got his own little jersey with his name.... so cute!!!
Our Saturdays morning are now filled with the joy of baseball games. Love it!!

OK on to my post....

As you can tell I adore my children, every one of them. Let me tell you as a mom of 3 almost 4 that it is very easy to spoil them with too many toys.

We never miss a kids meal because we've got to get that cheap toy. Just to see the joy on the kids face. You know I love garage sales so do my kids. They get toys every trip too.

So what's the problem??? Well, the toys have taken over our house and our children's mind.

My children now think anywhere we go they are entitled to a toy and we have some major fits when they don't purchase something. (Excluding Kate she's grown out of this, she just has her teenage drama)

I am finding myself getting upset with the kids because they cannot pick up their rooms and the playroom correctly. I have toys hidden everywhere. I almost fell down the stairs the other day because a toy was on a step.

At the peak of my frustration I went to my moms group yesterday and thank you God our speaker was on homemaking. She talked about this very thing!! Really she did! Just when I was about to loose it.

So we are on declutter and toy thinning at our house. We aren't going to be mean and just throw things out or donate all to Goodwill we are going to use this as a learning experience for the kids.

Let me share our plan. Phase 1 Giving to those in need.

1. The first phase is each of the children picking out 5 nice working and clean toys.
2. We will donate these "special" toys to the local children's hospital. Each floor has a playroom for the sick kids. They get their toys by donation only.
3. We will visit the hospital (my mother in law is a nurse at). We will get a special tour and drop off the toys. The kids will see first hand children with cancer and other conditions.
4. We are cleaning out the kids clothes and taking out clothes that don't fit and bagging them up for our friends.
5. We've been very lucky to get nice hand me downs so we will not sell the clothes we will pass them along to our littler friends.

My hope is this will be a positive experience and help my kids let go of some of the greed for material possessions. I struggle with this as an adult I hope to help them in their journey early.

Phase 2: Money is a Motivator.

1. Huge garage sale in April.
2. We will lead my example and also declutter items in the house. Ex: extra tv's, kitchen gadgets, clothes, purses, etc.
3. My hope is the children will pick out the toys that mean the most to them to keep. That way they can really enjoy the toys.
4. We will discuss as a family what we will use the money from the garage sale for. Maybe a special summer trip or visit to Six Flags.
   

I will be blogging about our journey toward Less is More. I will be showing real photos mess and all. Anyone else want to join along?

Are you ready?
(Deep Sigh)
So am I.