cleaning: part one, my kitchen or how I use an old easter basket

I've had lots of people ask me how I go about cleaning, here's my kitchen "arsenal":

It's not a lot of silver and shine but it's been working for us for about a year now.  Here's a breakdown:

orange spray bottle (travel section, target): vinegar, undiluted
white spray bottle (this is a rubbermaid 32 oz, target): all purpose cleaner...see below
clear bottle (old method floor cleaner bottle): DIY floor cleaner
sponge
rag
yellow bucket (here's where the old easter basket comes in)
shaker (clearance bin, michaels): baking soda

Here's how I use it...

floor cleaner
mix up this recipe:

1 gallon water
1/4 C castile soap
1/8 C vinegar

I pour into this clear bottle and store the rest in a leftover vinegar container (I buy the largest one they sell at Target)...I like the ease of spray from this bottle, rather than a bucket/mop combo.

Mop (not pictured): I use a wet/drop mop with a reusable mop pad...it's a glorified swiffer without the refill cost...picked it up at Target but they no longer carry the model.

all purpose cleaner
2 C Water
1/2 C Vinegar
3/4 C Hydrogen Peroxide
1 tsp castile soap
10 drops of tea tree oil
5 drops of lavender oil
grapefruit oil to smell.

I use this cleaner for my granite counter tops, glass stove top and my cabinets...basically all surfaces in my kitchen, including to wipe down my chairs and cleaning the inside of my refrigerator.

This little guy is my best friend, I use this shaker of baking soda, a sponge and some water to clean:

Oven: remove racks, then sprinkle inside of oven surface with baking soda, let it sit and then wipe down with a sponge.  Repeat, rinsing sponge in yellow bucket.

Sink: at the end of each evening, I shake some baking soda around the sides then spray down with sink sprayer...to deep clean the sink, I use this method...so easy.

Deep cleaning with baking soda:

I have no methods of my own, I steal all from Pinterest

Garbage disposal she takes the idea of drain cleaning and applies to the disposal, brilliant.
Stove Top
Dishwasher

Random shout of to Epicurean...I love their cutting boards, they aren't plastic but an engineered, dishwasher safe wood...I use these exclusively for my cutting boards and they still look new after several years.

That's it, time to dirty up my clean kitchen with some yummy baking:)

snow days

I wish that we had good photos from christmas, but we really don't...and it's already february, so these snow photos will have to do:

Snow fell, the kids were ecstatic and we suited up to head outside...shockingly, it only took about 10 minutes to get them all bundled, and they actually waited for me to bundle and then obliged me with a few photos before I dropped the camera in the snow:)

Robert appears to be an old pro in the snow, while Joshua, despite this being his first real encounter, did amazingly well with the cold hands and wet clothes that come with falling in the snow.

enjoy:)

not sure exactly where that snow ball was going, I'm going to tell myself he wasn't going to throw it directly at his brother...

Tis the Season

For cute and special moments with my kids.

like this one, today at Robert's Christmas Pageant...could he BE any cuter

(please remind me that I say this when he is pretending to be a fireman and yelling about everyone getting out of our home for the "fire"...which will happen later today...guaranteed)

Merry Christmas:)

fall + leaves = some pretty cute photo ops

I often forget that all kids really need is to be outside, with their mom (and her camera)...add a leaf pile and a dog and you have some pretty great fall memories...

gotta rake it up for brother...

Joshua was a bit more unsure...

and I don't even know what's going on here...

Eventually Sabre will learn that Robert is an asset rather than an annoyance:)

Happy end of Fall:)

my two firemen

Halloween isn't a huge holiday in our house, but we do love a good chance to dress up..especially Robert, so trick-or-treating we went.  Robert chose to be a fireman, and Joshua chose to be a fireman at the last second when Daddy decided that he needed a costume also (Mommy was content for him to just stroller-it, but apparently that wasn't fun enough:)

In typical psycho fashion, I chose to start Joshua's costume at 9pm the night before, sewing him some orange pants to go with his orange raincoat to complete the matching fireman look...adding some yellow duct tape and a fireman logo on his "future wahoo" baseball cap...

If that weren't enough, obviously my boys needed fire extinguishers to carry around...spray painted pepsi bottle and black hosing=fire extinguisher:)

Enjoy the photos, I think that they are pretty darn cute.

Joshua was a bit unsure of what to do with his prop and his candy bucket:

He preferred to walk around with Robert's fireman hat on, unable to see,  because it's brothers and he wanted it:

Sadly, I only got one shot with them in the same frame...speaks volumes to our lives around here...i take what I can get:)

I'm busy making my way through Robert's Halloween candy, trying not to make the rapidly depleting stash too apparent.

school days

The first day of school for us is usually meant with much trepidation, despite the "meet the teacher" time and massive conversation, my sweet Robert has such a hard time with separating from me...until now.  As I prepared for the worst, we were meeting a new preschool teacher AND sunday school teacher is the same week..my big man passed with flying colors.  Although this was a sign of his growing up, instead of crying over how big he is, I cried tears of joy that he did so well at drop off...just thinking about it now makes me well up.

Here he is, allowing mom a few photos:

first, the play nice option:

to be immediately followed by, this is my real personality...

and my personal favorite:

This year, Robert is going three days a week...but the big news is that JOSHUA is also going once a week...mommy's morning out never looked so good!  He's in a class with only a few other kids, and has already warmed to the workers...

here's our sweet boy:

Do you think little brother idolizes his big brother?

Joshua rewarded mommy for sending him away by coming down with strep and roseola at the same time...awesome...we are on the mend and trying to enjoy the weather before fall really sets in:)

can we go back?

I gave up the blog for the summer, sorry family and friends, but my finger just made it too hard to put forth the effort...now that we are all healed, here's our trip to the beach...

we really had such a lovely time, Robert got to test out a bit of surfing:

and pulling his cousin around on the board...

Joshua got his first taste of the water, and loved it...big surprise:

riding cousin Braden's truck...both little guys LOVED this:

Robert got to dig with the big boys, he took his job seriously and loved spending time with his wonderfully patient uncles.

The four cousins are all so close in age, we are often asked if they're twins...I can't imagine why:)

AND we managed to get a whole family pic...where all the kids were looking at the camera, and all adults were smiling...a miracle if you ask me...

I would love to be back there right now, especially considering it's 70 and raining right now...plus, I stinkin' love the beach, my husband DIDN'T WORK all week and we got some great time with our own kids plus it's such a blessing for me to watch my boys play with their cousins..such a special time for all.