New Things we are Doing to Create Order and Peace

Okay I said I would post about some of the new things we are trying in order to bring more "order" and peace to our home...


We are trying "quiet time" with Joseph (and will start Isabelle soon as well). During this time Joseph sits on his "mat" (a folded blanket) with books or another quiet toy (right now it is mostly puzzle books, which he absolutely loves!) and has to stay on the "mat" and be quiet! We started with 5 minutes and have worked our way up to 15 minutes (and him asking for more time!!!). This has been a wonderful thing for when I am getting Isabelle down for a nap and starting school with Katherine.


We have just started using Chore Packs (from http://www.titus2.com/). We just started this week and it seems like it will be a good solution for us - once we get the kinks worked out... Joseph does not want anything "clipped" to him so I got some lanyards (just came today) and Katherine has lost her holder and morning cards. Luckily the cards are all "stored" so if I need I can reprint them. I started this after I kept hearing about them for several different places and it looks like it will be a great way for the kids to learn to do the chores by themselves and for me to be able to quickly redirect what they "should" be doing!

I am also reading, and doing, 31 Days to Clean - Having a Martha House in a Mary Way (by Sarah Mae). There are now two different versions and you get the second free with the first version. The first is a "spring cleaning" type (both physically and spirituality) and the second is to help set up routines.We started the first and got kinda stuck so started the second version and have gotten a lot of things more organized and de-cluttered, although still working on it. We will start the "spring cleaning" again later and start doing deep cleans of the house regularly.