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! ❤️?❤️
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"Dear Third Grade Parent" is the way I start numerous letters through the school year. Field trip notes, notes about grade cards and school events, and notes including class announcements. Before the school year begins though, there are different types of things coming to mind when I think about writing a letter to my future students' parents.
We are a team. Please, please, PLEASE hear me on this. I am on your side. I am on your child's side. Every school year, at some point, a difficult conversation will come up. Your child will say or do something that is not appropriate. He will neglect to do his homework. She will make an unkind remark to another student at recess. He will rush through his work without putting forth his best effort. It will happen. Children make mistakes. Teachers make mistakes. Parents make mistakes. We all make mistakes. We have to work together so your students knows that we are fighting for him or her. We expect that he will try hard and be kind and treat others the way he wants to be treated. We expect that she will be responsible and persistent and loving towards others. You know your child better than anyone. You know what makes him tick and what makes her shut down. You are your child's number 1 cheerleader and biggest advocate. Let's team up and help your child to stretch and grow this year. When we expect this TOGETHER, our kids WILL rise up to meet our expectations. Please back me up at home and I promise that I will back you up in the classroom.
There is power in the words and actions of a child in a public school setting. Your child has the ability to change the world with his words. He can encourage and inspire his classmates. She can motivate and include her peers. By being an example of acceptance and humility, your child has the power to be a difference-maker in his school...even at age 8 or 9. Please talk with your child about showing mercy and kindness. I will work hard to build a community of friendship and inclusion in our classroom through the day, but please build on this culture in your home...around the dinner table, in your vehicle, and after ballgames. Remind them that some of their friends might be hurting because of situations at home. They might be feeling left out on the playground, even if nobody is excluding them on purpose. Let's strive to raise kids who are kind and compassionate and who invite other children into their circle. I am human. Yes, I am a teacher. I have been doing this a long time. I have a degree that says I know how to do this job, but I am human. I mess up. I have a bad day every once in a while. I work hard to meet the needs of every individual student and I still miss the mark sometimes. I forget to do things. I am married and a mother myself. Sometimes, if we're being honest, our mornings do not run as smoothly as I wish they would. Every once in a while, I might still be thinking about something that happened at home when I greet my students in the morning. I should be able to separate my personal life from my school life, but I am human. However, I can promise you this. I will love your child as if he or she were my own. I will worry about him and fret about her. I will see things at WalMart that remind me of my students and make impulse purchases on my grocery trip just to see them smile the next morning. I will have sleepless nights this school year, thinking about whether some of my students are being fed or given appropriate shelter. I will buy book after book on Amazon until I can crack the code of what makes your child love reading. Sometimes, I will find something out about a student and I will contemplate inviting that child to come be a part of our family. Third Grade Parent, we have about 36 weeks together this year. Let's work together and make this the best year that we can for your student. You support me and I will support you, as we support your sweet boy or girl. Let's give her our very best every single day. And let's encourage him to give his best every single day, too. We can do this. Love, Mrs. Newkirk
We picked clothes first, added shoes & accessories, and then thought about any evening activities.
After our piles were made, we would transfer them to the closet and the girls would bring them out and put them into our hallway landing spot each night to prepare for the next day. One thing I liked about doing it this way is that we had the big "discussion" about specific outfits that either I didn't really agree with or they didn't really agree with on Sunday night. We compromised. And eventually, we had five full days worth of outfits and items needed ready for the week. It's awesome to have this discussion on Sunday evening, instead of throughout the week, each morning, in a panic! The system has always worked pretty well. In fact, I was kind of sad to see it go when we moved, as the farmhouse is just set up differently. And let's be honest...the girls are older now. They can handle getting up in the morning and getting dressed and ready for school in their bedrooms without much intervention from me.
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.
I always end with a "last card" that is something fun. Almost always, it involves a slush or shake Sonic. Basically for me. Because Sonic's unsweetened raspberry tea is my favorite beverage EVER. 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! ❤️
One thing that we try to really impress upon our girls' hearts is that it is always important to be kind.
Harlee and my niece Riley are at basketball church camp this week. When we dropped them off, I made sure to have my teacher-y moment with them about how to treat other people. "Girls, you're very lucky to have each other here, but not everyone will have a friend. Include those people. Invite them into your group. Be kind to them."
Kids just want to be seen.
Adults just want to be seen. People just want to be seen. And heard. And loved. Friends, we have a great opportunity to "be the good" in this broken and scary world. I've really tried to minimize belongings in our home over the last few years by using specific areas in the house for dual purposes. An example in the old house would have been our kitchen island. It had the dishwasher on one side and cabinets on two of the other sides. The top had a rustic-style organizer where bills, event invitations, and important papers landed. I had mason jars with pens and scissors in them. It was sort of the hub of the house. The problem is that it also became the "catch-all" a lot of the time. One of my goals for the farmhouse was to have locations in the house that would serve dual purposes, while making sure that these places didn't attract clutter. This is where I got the idea for a coffee bar charging station. As our girls have gotten older, they have started to spend more and more time engaged in electronics...mostly their iPads. We have rules for these and to be quite frank, they often end up on the refrigerator for a week at a time because the iPad is a privilege and when little girls make poor choices, privileges are revoked. I know that as they continue to grow, we will be dealing with other types of technology...cell phones, computers, and who knows what else. I knew I needed a central charging hub and I knew that this little space in the kitchen could be the perfect location if I would work it out right. I ended up finding a really well-made console table at a friend's garage sale in mid-June. I knew it would be perfect SOMEwhere in the farmhouse, so I bought it. We had several options for using the console table in this little nook by the basement stairs in the kitchen...a mail drop-off location, more counter-space for use in cooking, or just a decorative table. I knew that any of those three options could turn into clutter-central. That's when my sister-in-law mentioned putting our Keurig there. That really got the wheels-a-turning. I decided that having a coffee bar on top of the charging station would be perfect. And I decided to be very intentional about what I put there. In the old house, I always tried to hide the K-Cups.
Now, there is an outlet right behind where the wire basket sits.
Of course, there aren't enough plugs to service a charging station for the whole family...so I mounted a power strip on the wall behind the console table. Nothing fancy...I literally used thumbtacks to hang it (the farmhouse has plaster walls...have I mentioned that???). The girls picked out their own washi tape to identify their chargers and we fed them up through the drawer on the right. I plugged in my iPad and FitBit Blaze into the left drawer and we were done! A functional charging station inside and a beautiful coffee bar outside. I fell asleep around 1:00 a.m. In a cabin full of 6, 7, and 8 year old girls...after telling them numerous times that it was time to go to sleep. I woke up at 6:00 a.m. and tip-toed around getting ready for the day so as not to wake the sleeping children. This is at least my 24th year at Kamp Keirsey. I came as a camper. Then as a junior counselor. And then a counselor. Even a director for a year or two. And now, as a mom. There is something about taking a break from the reality of day-to-day business at home and spending time enjoying the great outdoors, camp food, sleeping in a cabin, and having fellowship with other believers. There's something about spending one-on-one time with one of your kids. There's something about not having to rush to anything for 48 hours...except for the dining hall when the supper whistle blows. I will admit that I have thought about the farmhouse the last few days. I have thought about what I could be getting done...what I SHOULD be getting done. I am trying to focus solely on this special time with Claire and the joy of experiencing God with her at the same church camp that I came to as a child. I am trying to hear what God has to teach me. It's not always easy for me to take a break. But on mornings like this, where I'm the only one awake on campus and I walk outside to spend some time with Jesus and see a sunrise like THIS...that makes it a little easier to turn off the thoughts of what needs to be done at the farmhouse.
It makes it easier to bask in His creation. This has been a breath of fresh air. A much-needed "pause". A "reset," if you will. I will be refreshed and excited to get home tonight and continue work at the farmhouse...to see Matthew & the other two girls. But until then, I'll enjoy this time...because it's just what I needed. Sometimes I struggle. I struggle to keep it all together. Running a household. Shaping the minds of third graders. Keeping up with a photography business. Serving at church and in the community. I forget things. I lose things. I fly off the deep end in conversation with my husband and children. There are days that I struggle. I struggle to feel like what I'm doing is good enough. I have said "yes" to so many activities and projects and clients that sometimes I haven't been able to say "yes" to my kids. I have had so many commitments in one week that sometimes I have not been able to give the 110% to each activity. I have made such a long (and often unrealistic) "to do list" for myself on a given day that sometimes I get overwhelmed and am hardly able to complete even one task on there. And then, in the midst of what feels like chaos. In the midst of just trying to get one more thing done before bed. In the midst of the daily struggle. I get a glimpse of what life could be. I find joy in the simplicity of a ride down the lane to the barn with my three girls. We stop and admire the new babies born this spring. We photograph the mamas. We admire the sunset. We play with the barn kitties. And for a few moments, I find contentment in doing nothing. I realize that my most important work is for these three little girls...for their daddy, who works so hard for us. It's time for a reset. Time to shift my priorities. It's time to realize that moments like these...they are good enough. Even if I sometimes say "I'm sorry...I'm not able to work on that today" or "You'll have to find someone else this time"...I am still good enough. This simple life is good enough. And sometimes, good enough can be wonderful. Ten years old. This one has been a big one for us. It seems like just yesterday we were living in a little two-bedroom house in town and I was revealing to Matthew that we were expecting a baby. That was June of 2006. Fast-forward a few months to September. We purchased our current house and started to make it work for what was to become our family of three. And on December 30, 2006, a little girl came into our lives. Harlee Kathleen. Our oldest daughter.
This isn't what I want them to remember.
And I think that's one of the reasons that the farmhouse is so exciting to me. It's a reset. We can start over. We can be very picky about what we take into the new house. About what we choose to give our time to. Because our time raising these sweet babies is precious and limited. Less stuff, more life. |
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