Hello there and welcome to Week 2 of the Farmhouse654 Christmas Countdown!

Last week, we focused on getting organized before we begin our journey to a peaceful holiday season with our families! 

We divided our home into eight zones and worked all week through the deep-cleaning process for Zone 1. 

At the farmhouse, this was my Living Room & Entryway.

I started the week by decluttering any shelves and drawers in the living room...I went through our DVDs and purged anything we don't watch, cleaned out a few drawers that had acquired some junk, and minimized a few decorations on the flat surfaces.

After a crazy week of parent-teacher conferences and the first slumber party in the farmhouse, I used my Friday off school to finish up Zone 1 by deep-cleaning from floor to ceiling...dusting, cleaning the windows, and making the floors shine.

If you didn't get to join us for the Week 1 challenge, just try to squeeze both of the first two weeks in this week!

Our week 2 challenge is to think about our giving.

You can print my Week 2 Planning Printable here.  

This week, we are focusing on the friends and family members we would like to give gifts to this year.

We want to be intentional with our giving!

This year for the girls, we are going to do four main gifts...

1. Something they want,
2. Something they need,
3. Something to wear, and 
4. Something to read.

We're also going to buy a few "family experiences"...zoo passes, a Royals game, and gift cards to some of our favorite restaurants.

Thanks to this list, coupled with the fact that we had a Christmas sinking fund (using CapitalOne 360 that I talked about in my blog post a few weeks ago), I am almost finished Christmas shopping.

This week, make a list of who you need to buy for, any gifts you might have already, and ideas of what you would like to purchase or make over the next several weeks.

The second part of our challenge this week is about how we can give to others during this season.  

Mr. Farmhouse and I do this in a few different ways that I've outlined on the Week 2 Challenge printable.   

Start thinking about how you can give back!

Finally, we are starting work in Zone 2 this week!

My Zone 2 is my Kitchen & Mud Room!  These two rooms will be a bit more challenging than the Living Room was!  I still haven't felt "settled" in the Mud Room since we moved into the farmhouse three months ago.  I'm hoping to change that feeling over the next week by breaking the process up into manageable tasks and tackle those two rooms!

I hope and pray that you are already feeling a little more peaceful about the upcoming holiday season! 

Let's not get bogged down with the hustle and bustle of the holiday season!

Let's take a moment and enjoy the process of getting us to this special time of year!

Happy New Week, friends! 

Much love to you and yours from the farmhouse!

​❤️🏡❤️

If you're just catching up with the Farmhouse654 Christmas Countdown, feel free to join the Facebook group HERE and print out the Planning Calendar and Week 1 Checklist HERE. ​

Christmas Countdown Blog Posts
Week 1

Well, here we are.

I have been in school for 3 days now and the girls start this Tuesday.

Things are about to get crazy.

The last few years, we have figured out that it works really well for the girls to have a morning, afternoon, and bedtime routine.

They don't always stick to the evening routines, 100%, depending on what activities we have going on after school...practices, piano lessons, games.

However, the morning routine has really become a natural way of life during the school year for us.

And as long as the girls get out of bed when they're asked to (that's a whole other situation), it really helps our mornings to run smoothly.

The two older girls switch back and forth between putting clean dishes away each morning and sweeping the kitchen & dining room (a new chore with all hardwood floors in the farmhouse!).

I've laminated these lists and the girls use a dry-erase marker to mark them every morning.  They like the satisfaction of checking off items in a list, just like their mama.  

​We have done a list like this for every day of the week, including Saturdays.  Saturdays also includes what we call a "quick clean" list that we all work on together for an hour or so to get the house spiffied up for a new week.

Sunday has become our "stop day" here at the farmhouse.  

I am trying really hard to just have our family enjoy each other through the whole day and just take an hour or so in the evenings to prepare for the next week.

In our world of busy, busy, busy...it's nice to just breathe, breathe, breathe every once in a while.

Just a few years ago, I was trying to squeeze in photography sessions every extra minute I had (including Sunday afternoons) to help pay off debt and to make sure I wasn't disappointing people.  

I've learned that no matter how many sessions I squeeze into whatever extra time I have left, people will still be disappointed when I run out of sessions.  

And they will still love me.  

So it's really okay!

When I finished this (completely simple and totally amateur) project, I decided to try something a little more complicated.

I found a purple cup in the cabinet that I've been wanting to buy some sort of vinyl decal for and I decided to try it myself to start.  

​I decided I could always peel it off if it didn't work out.

That way, we'll be free to enjoy each other in the evenings and on the weekends...crafting, and playing outside, and making slime.

Just kidding.  
We tried that once.  
I am not the "slime-making" kind of mom.

I've realized that I spent too many years in the old house trying to manage the home, keep up with my small business, and being a teacher...without spending enough of my time and energy making memories with my babies.

It's time.  

Happy Weekend, friends!  Make it a good one!  ❤️?❤️

Let's be honest.

It's not always a big fun event to get the kids to do chores or help out around the house.

However, I really feel like it's necessary.  I can't always get everything done that needs to be done without help.

Mr. Farmhouse is a great help-mate and helps inside and outside of the house, but sometimes (during hay season...or calving season...or bean-planting season...or...), we need to have a big marathon cleaning day and I need help from the girls.

Over the years, I've realized that the more fun we can make this process, the quicker it gets done and the less likely I am to scream like a crazy person by the end of the day.

A few winters ago, over Christmas break, when I was trying to get the house back in order to get ready for third quarter at school, I had a breakthrough.

I started to make cleaning a game...for all of us.  

I started to think about ways we could make our mundane housekeeping tasks a competition, a team event, a game.

Over the last few years, I've come up with several of these "cleaning games".

I usually let the girls decide which one we do for the day.

I thought today I would share them with you so maybe those cleaning days can be a little more enjoyable for everyone involved!

The Disappearing Post-it Notes is one that the girls really like because you can watch the amount of post-it notes dwindle down to those last few tasks and then BOOM...the fridge is empty!

The rule is that the right side of notes has to be empty before they start on the left door.

The left door includes what I call "finishing" tasks.  They are all somehow dependent on the ones on the other door.  For example, on the right door is "clean out refrigerator" and "load dirty dishes from sink".  So on the left door is "run dishwasher".  In other words, they need to gather up all the dirty dishes from anywhere in the house before we run the dishwasher.  Other "finishing" tasks would include dusting the flat surfaces in the house, sweeping the floors, putting all the clean clothes away that they have folded on some of the other post-it notes.

2. Note Card Flip

Another task-oriented game that we play sometimes is what I have called "Note Card Flip".

Again, I put all of the tasks on note cards.  I have a whole set of these that I created a few summers ago that include basically every task that it would take to do a quick deep-clean of the house.  

I add anything that needs to be done that day specifically and then I make some bonus "fun" cards.

3. 30/30

There is an iPad and iPhone app called 30/30 created by Binary Hammer.

I cannot believe how much it helps our productivity level by keeping us on task and focused when we need to get some serious work done.

​I use it in my classroom, when I am working on photography edits, and the girls and I use it when we clean.

When the five minutes is up, the app starts the timer for the next task.

We take our list of things we have to get done and add them to the app.  

After every 30-40 minutes, we add a 10-minute break right into the app.

So our whole cleaning spree is timed there.

Sometimes, to keep us on task, we add our "lunch break" and anything else that we know will be taking our time that day.

4. Task Competition

The last one we use at our house is one I've never really named until just now.  

And "Task Competition" is probably a boring name...you can rename it at your house if you so desire!

I make a list of tasks in black pen.  

There is always an uneven number of tasks.

Beside each task, I draw a box.

Each of the older girls picks her own color of marker and I say "go".

They work until the list is completely done.  

Every task they get finished with gets the task's box colored in using their individual color.

When all the boxes get colored, the girl with the most boxes colored gets some silly little prize.  

Maybe a popsicle, a piece of candy, or a medium drink instead of a small at Sonic (I told you...I have a problem).

These are all ideas of how we try to make cleaning fun at the Newkirk house.

I hope you've gotten some ideas to use in your own homes!

I'd love to hear any other ideas you have for getting kids involved in the home management process!  

Feel free to comment below so others can learn from your knowledge!

Thanks for reading, friends!  Happy Friday! ❤️