Having twelve people living in our home it is important for everyone to pitch in and help with everyday tasks.  This allows us to serve others, do fun activities, projects and trips.  I wrote about the importance of chores, how we train our children to work and what types of chores we give at what ages in my post Daily Chores.

We rarely switch chores around.  We generally do it only as little ones and middle ones get old enough to take on more responsibility and during those times of “restructuring” we try to rotate the children so that they get experience with different tasks.

Our idea is that we would rather have them doing the same chore each day, week, month, so that they are good at doing it and we know that they know how to do it, so our standards can be pretty high. Whenever we switch chores it takes a while for everyone to learn their new duties and takes training to teach them, so for us it is just easier to keep things the same

We have 3 separate chore assignments during the day: Before Breakfast Chores, Regular Chores and Table Chores. Before breakfast chores happen before breakfast, duh. Regular chores are done  immediately after breakfast and table chores after dinner each evening.  (For table chores see our chore assignments from last year.)

You can see how these chore times fit into our daily schedule and also get a glimpse of what our schedule was like with 4 kids 3 years and younger.

Before Breakfast

Scheduled for 30 minutes each morning. During that time each child  makes their bed, cleans their room, gets dressed, brushes teeth and hair and then:

Amber (13) – Makes breakfast
Kaitlin (12) -Cleans downstairs bathroom
Matthew (11) – Empties top and bottom rack of dishwasher
Alyssa (9) – Feeds dog and fish and tidies front porch and back deck
Carter (8) – Vacuums two upstairs area rugs (in family and living rooms)
Sadie (6) – Sets table and helps with breakfast
Savannah (5) – Makes mom and dad’s bed
Colby (3) – Empties silverware rack of dishwasher
Nicholas (2) – Empties trash cans from bathrooms
Isabella (3 weeks) – Prevents mommy from getting a shower

Regular Chores

(30 minutes immediately after breakfast)  Most children have an area for which they are responsible.  They tidy and do basic cleaning tasks everyday, in addition they have a specific deeper cleaning task each day.  The goal is that everyone is able to complete all of their tasks within thirty minutes.

Amber (13) – Clean kitchen
Kaitlin (12) – Clean master bathroom AND Monday – wash windows, Tuesday – sweep and clear cobwebs off front porch and back deck, Wednesday – clear and dust rain gutter bookshelves, Thursday – clean out fridge, Friday – wash sliding glass doors.
Matthew (11) – Downstairs – tidy, dust and sweep
Alyssa (9) – Family room – tidy, dust and sweep
Carter (8) – Monday, Wednesday and Friday – vacuum downstairs.  Tuesday and Thursday – vacuum and sweep in kid’s bedrooms and vacuum stairs.
Sadie (6) – Dining room – clear and wipe table, tidy, dust, vacuum and sweep
Savannah (5) - Kid’s bathroom – wipe down mirror, sinks, tub, and toilet, shake rugs outside and sweep floor
Colby (3) – Living room, entryway and hall – tidy, dust and sweep (using the dust pan and brush)
Nicholas (2) – help mommy
Isabella (3 weeks) – Wreak havoc with our plans and keep mommy from getting bored.

Interested in what our chore assignments were a year ago or what table chore assignments are?  Questions?

Froggy hunt details:

Raising Olives is participating in a fun scavenger hunt giveaway along with 7 other blogs.  You are competing for 8 prizes ($40 gift card to Amazon.com, $25 Alice gift card, a lovely handmade tote and one of Smockity Frocks famous oilcloth aprons plus more)  and you have 8 opportunities to enter.

You’ll want to start your hunt here to read the complete entry rules and see all the prizes, then you’ll want to come back here and find the froggy.

There are 7 other blogs who are hiding a froggy:

~Hoosier Homemade
~iGoBoGo
~It’s A Blog Party
~Our Homeschool Home
~She Saved
~Smockity Frocks
~Tatertots and Jello

In one of my recent posts here on Raising Olives is a picture of a frog, you need to find that post, leave a comment there and then hop over to my BlogFrog community and leave a comment there telling me which post you found froggy on.  Repeat for each of the above blogs.  (Remember comment on the post with the froggy AND in the BlogFrog community of each blog.)

If you find froggy on each blog you’ll gain a total of 8 entries.

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Related posts:

1. You Asked For It: Our Chore List
2. Daily Chores
3. Reasons We Have a Large Family – Post
4. Large, Homeschooling Family: Want to Know More?
5. You Know You Are a Large Family When…

Our secret  for having nice, neat bedrooms before breakfast each morning is our competition system.  I check each bedroom before we sit down to eat.   The room that is the cleanest gets bragging rights and a “trophy” to display in their room for the day.  (This can be something as simple as a “Cleanest room” sign to hang on the door.)  We use a plant.

There is also the possibility that both rooms are lovely.  In that case we declare a tie and the trophy/plant is displayed in the living area of our house where we all get to enjoy it.

At the end of the week the room with the most “wins” gets to choose our family fun night activity.

Here is the BEST part of our system.  If the rooms end the week in a tie,  our whole family celebrates with something special for family fun night.  Either a special treat like ice cream or a new game, just something extra fun for our family time to celebrate that everyone did a great job keeping their rooms tidy during the week.

This system has not only helped the bedrooms to stay nicer, it has also helped the children work together toward a common goal.  It’s not unusual for the girls to go help the boys finish tidying their bedroom or vice versa so that they can tie for the day.

Clean, tidy bedrooms, more teamwork and special treats for family fun night, it works for me!

I have a lot more WFMW’s or for even greater variety head over to We Are THAT Family.

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1. Daily Chores
2. 7 Ways to Enjoy Waiting with Kids
3. Updated Chore List for Our Large Family
4. Be a Yes Mom
5. Simple, Frugal and Special Birthdays for Kids

Amberlyn asked, “Did you always want to have more children than the average family, or is it something that you felt the Lord led you to?”

The answer is both.  When I was very young I desired to have 12 children, my mother is the youngest of 10 and my parents would have loved to have had more, but God over ruled when my mother was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 35, so the concept was not foreign to me.  Mark also wanted to have a large family.  Then when we were engaged the pastor who did our pre-marital counseling introduced us to the idea of allowing God to plan our family and we were convinced.

Edited to add:  As I read over this I wanted to clarify that although we both wanted to have several children, I think the point is not that we wanted a “larger than average family”, but that ultimately we wanted to believe God and accept His blessing of children.   I hope and pray that we would have been content even if He had not given us any children.  It is not so much about the number of children, each child is an amazing gift and  God calls some to be the parents of 1 and some to be parents of 18.  We must be willing to accept God’s plan for our life and to embrace His gift of children if He deigns to give it.  So whether we have no children or 9  we should be content and happy with what He has given and be willing to accept the gifts that He sends.

It has not always been easy, when our first 3 children came in 2 1/2 years we “knew” we needed a break, but God showed us that He really does know best (read about our fourth child Alyssa ) and gave us our sunshine child just 14 months later, so we ended up with 4 children, 3 years old and younger and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Rebecca read our chore list and wondered, “Do you rotate who does which chores (age appropriate, of course) once a month or anything, just to give the children exposure to doing different tasks?”

No.   We switch chores around as little ones and middle ones get old enough to take on more responsibility and during those times of “restructuring” we try to rotate the children so that they get experience with different tasks.

Our idea is that we would rather have them doing the same chore each day, week, month, so that they are good at doing it and we know that they know how to do it, so our standards can be pretty high. Whenever we switch chores it takes a while for everyone to learn their new duties and takes training to teach them, so for us it is just easier to keep things the same

Helen said, “I’d like to know…if you’re up at 5 am, what time are you in bed?”

I really like to be in bed by 9:30, but that often doesn’t happen.

Tristan had a few questions about our schedule:

“What age children are woken up at 6AM?”

When our children are old enough to start memorizing the catechism (around age 2), they get up at 6 with everyone else.  We do not purposely wake the babies.  However, since our children share two bedrooms, the little ones often wake up when the big kids do.  I posted about our early bedtimes and explained that we rarely need to wake the children, most of them wake naturally at 6 when we have been consistent about getting to bed on time.

“Do you have any children who are not naturally morning people/early risers?”

Some of our children are not naturally early risers.  However, in our home it’s not an option.  Most employment and even school requires semi-early rising, so we look at this as good training in self-discipline.  We do not think that children must get up early to be taught self-discipline.  Wake up time is a decision for individual families to make.  In our house wake up time is 6.

Here are some things that we do to help our children get enough sleep.

• Early bedtime
• Nap – If our children are slow to get up in the morning, we allow them to take a nap during the day.  The baby (15 months) still takes 2 long naps each day and our 4 and 2 year old still nap daily, while the 5 and 7 year old will usually nap once or twice a week.

Our goal is that our children wake up on their own at 6 and the majority of the time that happens.

Tristan also wondered about slowness and lack of cheerfulness in the morning.

Their first 30 minutes of being awake is spent either, snuggled up on the couch reading their Bible OR snuggled up with Daddy going over their catechism questions, so slowness is not much of an issue.  Cheerfulness in the morning is a matter of self-control.  We do not expect them to be bouncing off of the walls, but we do expect them to be pleasant.  On the other hand,  for our early birds, we ask that they give their siblings space if they desire it.  (Proverbs 27:14)

“What would you do differently if your husband was not home in the mornings?”

I would have the big kids get out of bed quietly to read their Bibles and allow the little ones to sleep until 6:30.  If the little ones get up before or during my shower the big kids are old enough to manage until I’m finished or the little ones just come and play in my bedroom until I’m done.

JenT had this collection of queries:  “I was wondering some more about character training. How do you do it? Is there set times or just when something comes up that you feel needs attention? Do you have some posts already written about that?”

I spoke a little bit about character training in my first Q & A post.  Here is another example of some of character training in action with pictures.  As far as scheduling character training, it is our primary goal and so (ideally) whatever we are doing and whenever we are doing it character issues get addressed.  Sometimes that means that we don’t get everything accomplished that we had hoped, but we try to make the decision to deal with each issue, everytime that they present.

There are times when we need to stop school completely and have a few days focused on hard work and character training and there are times when we get to go do extra, fun things because everyone has been cheerfully obedient and helpful, even above what we ask of them.

Feel free to ask more about this if I didn’t get to the heart of the matter.

Amber wondered, “Do you get enough alone time?”

My short answer is, yes.  I have time in the morning before the children get up, I have an hour, give or take, in the afternoon, when things are quiet, and the children usually go to bed around 7 or 8.   There have been times that I had a lot less alone time, but my bottom line answer is that since we believe that God has called us to homeschool, I know that He will provide everything that I need as I strive to be faithful to Him.

I am often reminded of this verse in Luke 17.

Whosoever shall seek to gain his life shall lose it: but whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.

Many would say that having 9 children requires more than they are willing to give, many would say that homeschooling can cause you to lose yourself and many think that if you stay home with your children you need to regularly get out and have some “me time”.  I’ve found that in accepting the 9 children that God has graciously sent I have been given much more than has been required of me, I have found fulfillment in being with and learning from my children everyday, and by staying home with the children I have received a gift much more beautiful, lovely and wonderful than some “me time” at the park or mall.  When I attempt to explain the blessing and joy of my life to those who do not understand I’m reminded that “God chooses the weak and foolish things of this world” and that is what I am, completely incapable of expressing what I wish to express.

I am not trying to say that I have learned how to lay down my life.  I haven’t and I struggle with selfishness daily.  If you could be a fly on the wall in our house you would be appalled at times by how unkind or impatient I can be.  I am saying that God has blessed our little tiny bit of very imperfect obedience abundantly more than we could ever have asked or thought.

And two of my sweet real-life friends from back home commented on this post wondering if my exhaustion was an indication that their was another Olive on the way.

Now first let me say, that they have reason to wonder.  We’ve never had a baby turn 1 without another blessing scheduled to arrive, and they have both known us long enough to know that an “announcement” when our baby is around 9 months is considered a nice, long space between children.   I also want to mention that even though I left them hanging for more than a week, they both have my mother’s phone number so they weren’t really left completely in the dark.

In God’s good providence the answer is no, it’s just plain old, staying-up-to-late-and-still-getting-up-early tiredness.  That is a bit anti-climactic, isn’t it?

More questions?  Feel free to ask by leaving a comment or using my contact page.  If you would prefer that I not publish your name, please just let me know!

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1. You Asked: Cloth Diapers, Potty Training and Cross Country
2. You Asked: Pregnancy, Homebirth and Blogging
3. You Asked for It: Discipline, Nature Journals, and Books
4. Potty Training: Live Blogging, Day 1
5. You Asked For It: Our Chore List

All right. We have 3 separate chore assignments during the day: Before Breakfast Chores, Regular Chores and Table Chores. Before breakfast chores happen before breakfast, duh. Regular chores are done  immediately after breakfast and table chores after dinner each evening.

Before breakfast chores:

Scheduled for 30 minutes each morning. During that time each child  makes their bed, cleans their room, gets dressed, brushes teeth and hair and then:

Amber (12) empties the top rack of the dishwasher and helps make breakfast
Kaitlin (11) makes breakfast
Matthew (9) cares for the animals and then helps Savannah set the table (if necessary).
Alyssa (8) vacuums the family room rug
Carter (7) empties the bottom rack of the dishwasher
Sadie (5) empties the silverware
Savannah (4) empties the bathroom trash cans and sets the table
Colby (2) helps me dress Nicholas and start laundry
Nicholas (1) gives lots of kisses and snuggles

Regular Chores:

(30-45 minutes)

Amber – Plans and prepares all lunch and snack foods, makes bread, granola, granola bars, yogurt, buttermilk, etc. She also plans breakfasts, but Kaitlin is now in charge of preparing that.  Amber has set up her own schedule as far as what to do on which day.
Kaitlin - Monday – Cleans the laundry and art closets and moves the furniture and sweeps in the family room.
Tuesday – Cleans and vacuums car
Wednesday – Cleans downstairs bathroom & vacuums stairs
Thursday – Cleans out fridge & wipes cabinet fronts
Friday – Helps mom sweep, vacuum and dust in bedrooms
Matthew – Cleans two upstairs bathrooms. Everyday he wipes counters, sinks, faucets, tubs, toilets, shakes mats, and sweeps floors. Once a week he mops each floor, scrubs each tub, cleans out under the sinks and cleans the mirrors.
Alyssa – Cleans family room, tidies, dusts, and sweeps.
Carter – Cleans the kitchen after breakfast.
Sadie – Cleans the dining room, clears and wipes the table and then tidies, dusts and sweeps.
Savannah – Cleans the living room, tidies, dusts and sweeps.
Colby - Helps me with my chores and picks up toys.
Nicholas is a bum and can usually be found in the Ergo during chore time.

Table chores:

When a child is done with their assignment they help whomever still needs help and all work together until the job is finished (10-15 minutes).

Amber – puts away food and clears and wipes two counters
Kaitlin – loads silverware and plates into the dishwasher, vacuums and sweeps the dining room floor
Matthew – cleans stove and one counter, sweeps kitchen floor
Alyssa – hand washes dishes and cleans the sink
Carter – clears and wipes one counter, cleans cabinet fronts and empties trash
Sadie – clears and wipes the table and moves chairs for vacuuming and sweeping
Savannah – clears table and cleans the chairs, high chair and tray
Colby -gathers our napkins and puts them in to the laundry
Nicholas - eats whatever he can find on the floor and recently discovered that the pickings are even better if he heads straight for the dishwasher where he can lick the plates and forks.(Eeeew!)

Questions? Please ask.

Blessings,

This post is linked to Blissfully Domestic.

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1. Updated Chore List for Our Large Family
2. Daily Chores
3. Not Me Monday: Cows and Tortillas
4. You Asked: Character Training, Alone Time, Another Olive?
5. Not Me: Popsicles and the Van

Why am I posting this picture and why am I telling you this? Because if I didn’t you wouldn’t know. Blogging allows me to show you my best side. You get to look only at what I choose to show you and I am able, if I so desire, to create a persona that is not real, but I want you to get a real glimpse into our family and home. I am amazed by what God has done and want you to be amazed also, not at our success, but at God’s mercy and power. “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” (1 Corinthians 1:27)

I want you to remember that I am a real person who struggles to get it all done, to be kind and patient with my children, to be respectful toward my husband and to be faithful in the calling that God has given to me. Anything I get right is because of Christ in me and because of God’s gracious power in my life.

My prayer is that this blog will encourage you to love your husband, serve your children and manage your house even when it gets hard and even when you fall short. I want you to know that our family struggles just as your family struggles and our wonderful and merciful God still uses us all for His glory. “For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.” (Psalm 103:14)

God has chosen  us and is pleased to use us, frail and imperfect as we are. He will be glorified through us, even when we fall short. “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” (2 Corinthians 9-10)

My life should reflect, must reflect Christ’s love and mercy toward me. I am no longer  living for myself. “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

I’m not perfect but He still uses me, He still loves me and I belong to Him. Nothing can change that. ^“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39) It’s not about me, it is about Him.

Praise God that He can use someone like me and someone like you. Keep on keeping on!

Sermon over!

An easy way to purge clothing is to turn all the hangers around so that the hook is facing out. Then each time you wear an item you turn the hanger around. At the end of the season any hangers that are still hook side out should be donated. Or you could do what I did and simply fill 4 large kitchen garbage bags with clothes and take them to the Salvation Army. Be ruthless.

Yesterday, I finished in our master bedroom. It is wonderful to have a place to retreat and relax again.

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Related posts:

1. Decluttering: Art Closet
2. The Words We Say
3. Decluttering: Master Bath
4. Decluttering: Final Thoughts and Your Results
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Here are a few final thoughts on decluttering:

• To declutter in the kitchen take all of your utensils, gadgets, and appliances and put them in a closed box. Go about your normal routine of cooking and meal preparation. If you need something from the box take it out and put it away near to the area where you will use it. Anything left in the box after a week or two may need to be given away.
• When you decide to keep an item think about the best place to store it. Don’t put it back where it was simply from habit.
• Remember some areas in your house are prime real estate and should be used for frequently used items only.
• Make a list of items to store in an area by priority. What must be stored here? What is up for debate?
• Gather all of your multiples together and evaluate if you need all of them and where they should be located. In my case  I got rid of more than half of these wipe containers.

Here is a small cabinet of games for the children. This used to be packed, but I gave away a lot of the games so that the area would be easier for the children to keep clean.

Even though some of the games have just been tossed back in after use, the area remains tidy and everything still fits. I know that I’ve said this more than once, but if you have children I think it is key. Leave things a bit empty and it will be much easier for the children to maintain. It is better to have fewer things that your children can actually play with than many, many things that are scattered, cluttered or inaccessible.

Now it is your turn. Let’s see what you’ve accomplished. Feel free to include posts about decluttering, re-organizing or simply creating a space that is more usable. Please post the permalink to your decluttering post, not a link to your homepage and link back to me.

You can also read my other decluttering posts (read the oldest ones first) or check out some more before pictures.

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1. Join Our Decluttering Spring Fling
2. Decluttering: Art Closet
3. Inspiration to Declutter/De-junk
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5. Banishing Clutter

This is a picture of my art closet. I really wanted to tidy it up before I took the picture, but Mark said that was cheating. So here it is in all of its cluttered glory. Yes, those are permanent markers on the floor. Yikes!

I knew that this area was going to be a special challenge for me. I love art and I love creating and I love for my children to create and explore with art. In my mind everything in this closet has potential and is valuable.

I have organized and reorganized and tidied and cleaned out this closet many, many times. Everything supposedly does have a place. So, why does it look like this? We just have too much stuff in this area.

So how do you tackle a more difficult task  and push yourself to get rid of unnecessary clutter?

1. Have a specific and defined goal before you start. Consider what you want this area to accomplish.
2. Enlist an outsider to help. They are not attached to your junk.
3. Don’t change your goal. When you have more stuff than will fit, get rid of the stuff, don’t amend your goal.
4. Don’t move things to a different area unless they belong there or it is objectively justified. This just delays dealing with the issue.

I wanted an area to store our art and craft supplies that would be easily accessed and maintained by the children. I also wanted that desk space in the closet to be usable.

My goal was nothing stored on or under the table and everything on the shelves had to be easy for the children to get down and put back up.

Another thing that really helped me with this project is to remember that I can’t have so much stored in an area that it needs to be put back exactly as it is, in order for it to fit. The children won’t stack it just right and then I will be back to my before picture.

Case in point, do you see the fabric in the box and overflowing onto the floor? That does all fit in the box, if you fold it  nicely. The children won’t look for a piece of fabric, find it, and then fold everything back nicely so it will fit back in the box, hence the overflow.

I gave away or threw out more than 5 large boxes of stuff from this one closet. Here are some of the ways that I encouraged myself to give away more things:

• I defined a space for a category and then had to eliminate what would not fit into that space. (i.e. clay and play-dough)
• I eliminated categories of items that no one is using, even if I thought that someday someone might be interested. (cross stitch items.)
• I let the children vote on some of our craft items. Everyone loves the craft sticks, no one was big on the craft foam.
• I was brutal in going through my craft idea books. (How many of the books do the children actually use? Don’t keep a whole book for just a few good ideas.)
• Rather than eliminating a whole category (i.e. fabric) I slimmed down the amount of stuff I had in that category. I allowed the children to pick some of their favorites and then gave away the rest.
• I used large trash and giveaway containers.
• I didn’t keep things, just in case. Unless you have a specific purpose or you have proven that you regularly transform trash into treasure then don’t keep it for it’s potential.

In the interest of full disclosure I did move a couple of items out of this closet. I moved all of our paper out of the closet. It is now stored on shelves under our main school table that is right beside the art closet. This makes it much easier for my smaller children to get the paper that they want. The other items that I moved out of the closet are the art/craft bags. Each child has their own bag to store their current project in. We moved these to the shelves in their closets. Everything else-GONE!

Yeah, me! This closet is now used constantly. The children are creating and using more of the things in the closet because 1) they can get to and find everything and 2) they don’t get scolded for leaving a mess. The closet still looks like this after more than 2 weeks of use and I have not tidied it once.

Want to add your before pictures here? Read my other decluttering posts.

Need more help? Read about making a schedule, having children help with chores, or laundry management.

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2. Laundry Help: Decluttering the Laundry Closet
3. Decluttering: Final Thoughts and Your Results
4. Laundry Help: The Family Closet
5. Join Our Decluttering Spring Fling

My first step is to gather some containers, a trash can, a box for things that we will keep but should be stored elsewhere and a box for things to be given away. I remove everything from under the sink, the medicine cabinet and that set of shelves and sort it into one of the containers or in a pile of things that will stay in this area.

Now I decide that I want to get rid of those shelves. We have a medicine cabinet in which we should be able to store all of our grooming essentials and we have space under the sink for some of the larger items like a hair dryer and curling iron. This idea of defining my area helped me tremendously in evaluating and getting rid of more things. (More on this later.)

I mentioned before that this is a small space. I  was still able to get rid of a medium sized box full of things that we didn’t use and I moved some items (extra bottles of shampoo and deodorant) into our other bathroom. Here are my results:
I used these cute little shot glasses (Yard sale find, nearly 20 of these glasses plus some other unique glassware and a basket for $1 and you wonder how come I have a clutter problem. In my defense I purchased these to use as containers for all the bouquets of fresh flowers that the children bring in during the spring and summer. Dandelions and clover look charming displayed in these tiny glasses.) for my daily make-up essentials.

Tune in for a much larger project tomorrow, our art closet!

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1. Decluttering: Art Closet
2. Decluttering: Final Thoughts and Your Results
3. Recycling Shot Glasses
4. Join Our Decluttering Spring Fling
5. You Asked For It: Our Chore List

Scroll down to see more recent posts.

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Related posts:

1. Decluttering: Final Thoughts and Your Results
2. Decluttering: Master Bath
3. Banishing Clutter
4. Decluttering: Art Closet
5. Vision Forum Spring Sale

These thoughts have motivated me to get serious about decluttering. I realized that I was spending more time picking up, cleaning, asking the children to pick up, or worrying about the mess than I was playing games or reading books to the children. It has been getting increasingly difficult to keep everything picked up and put away because we simply have too much stuff.

The stuff wasn’t enhancing our lives; it was taking over our lives.  Clutter and extra belongings make every job take longer.  How long does it take to dust an empty shelf? A shelf that is full of nick-knacks? I find that most of  what bothers me about our home isn’t the dirt, it is the clutter, the stuff that is not put away or doesn’t have a home.

Contemplate the 80/20 rule. 80% of our space is is occupied by things that we use only 20% of the time. 80% of our family entertainment comes from 20% of our games and toys, etc. Think about it. How much of that 80% could we get rid of and not miss. How much of your beauty supplies do you use every day, every week? So my goal is to really get rid of clutter, not just move it around. If we simply move it around and organize it, we will still have to manage it. If  we get rid of it, we never have to move it, clean it, or deal with it again.

Get rid of things that:

• are broken or obsolete
• you don’t want your children to have to deal with after you’re dead.
• you have to clean and store , but don’t get much use out of. (We have a lot of games, toys and activities that fall into this category. Sure we use them, but only occasionally. There are some games that we play often, those we keep.)
• you never really loved
• you don’t love now
• you don’t have room for

Keep things that:

• make you happy
• help you do what you love to do (or what you need to do)
• are truly valuable
• give more than they take
• your children will appreciate and enjoy

Remember if you are really serious about decluttering, you will be getting rid of some good things, maybe lots of good things. It isn’t a question of whether the item is good or not. It is a question of whether the item adds significantly to your enjoyment or purpose of  life. Does it help you to achieve your goals? It is back to the question of priorities and trying to chose what is best and not merely what is good. We can’t own it all.

Let’s do this together. Spread the word. Post before pictures of the project that you are tackling this week, link back to this post and add your post to Mr. Linky.

Powered by… Mister Linky’s Magical Widgets.

Don’t forget to come back and  link up with us next Friday to show off  and check out other finished projects.

Read the other decluttering posts. Need more help getting the house in order? Read my posts on scheduling, chores or laundry management.

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Related posts:

1. Decluttering: Final Thoughts and Your Results
2. Banishing Clutter
3. Big Projects with Little Kids
4. Decluttering: Art Closet
5. Decluttering and Being Real

That said, I have children, a husband and we home school. All of which require a certain amount of “things”. Our children enjoy hands on learning and experimenting so we continually have multiple and sundry projects and activities in progress. We also try to create an environment where the children are inspired and are able to explore and learn on their own. That translates to a quantity of books, music, art, and science supplies available to the children all the time.

Want to declutter with me?  Come on, please tell me I’m not the only one who has accumulated too much stuff.

If you want to join in on the de-cluttering fun, pick an area. It can be a drawer, a closet, or a whole room, just be sure to get some before pictures. Then work through your area next week and I will post some decluttering ideas, tips and pictures of what I’m working on. Write a post about how you decluttered and/or reorganized your area, link back to me and next Friday I will post Mr. Linky and you can share your success with the whole world. Well, OK just the readers of this blog.

Have you already posted a decluttering or reorganizing project? Those are welcome as well. Don’t have a blog? Feel free to leave comments telling us what you are working on!

Be sure to read the other posts on decluttering.

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Related posts:

1. Decluttering: Final Thoughts and Your Results
2. Join Our Decluttering Spring Fling
3. Inspiration to Declutter/De-junk
4. Laundry Help: Decluttering the Laundry Closet
5. Daily Chores

Everyone should have their own responsibilities to help with the household responsibilities. (Here is our current chore list.)  How can you accomplish this?

Train your children to work.

1. Start young. Young children love to help mommy. Let them help you as you go about your work. If you have them with you while you are working think of ways that they can help. If you give them the opportunity, you will be surprised to see how helpful they will become and how much they will learn. Watching is learning at this stage.

As they become more capable, give them their own chores. This gives them a sense of pride in their accomplishment and allows them to feel that they are really helping mommy.

We use kid friendly cleaning products. White vinegar for disinfecting, baking soda for scouring, etc.

A 2 year old can:

• Help load the washer and dryer.
• Empty small trash cans.
• Run simple errands like fetching the diapers and wipes.
• Help add ingredients while you cook.
• Sweep the floor using a small dust pan and brush.
• Help dust.
• Move things while you vacuum.
• Put their own toys away.

A 3 year old can:

• Empty the silverware from the dishwasher.
• Wipe down the babies high chair.
• Make their own bed.
• Help fold laundry.
• Use a damp cloth to clean the bathroom counter and sinks, or the baseboards. A 3 year old LOVES to use a damp cloth.
• Run errands.
• Pick up a room.

A 4 year old can:

• Fold and put away their own laundry.
• Clear and wipe the table.
• Empty a rack of the dishwasher depending on where your dishes are stored.
• Sweep the floor.
• Wash some dishes and load a dishwasher.
• Dust.

2. Give them real responsibilities.

At 4 years our children get “real chores”. I view this as the real beginning of chore training. They are assigned an area of the house that they are responsible to tidy and clean. This allows them to take more responsibility and gives us the opportunity to train them to be diligent as they move through several different tasks. The area that we assign is well suited for training and includes tidying, wiping, dusting and sweeping for more practice. I list exactly what they need to do each day and then check when they are done.

Daddy gets more involved at this stage as he will frequently ask who is responsible for an area of the home and then will tell them how wonderful it is looking. Our children are so excited when daddy notices their area. There is certainly a sense of pride in a job well done and an area that is clean and tidy.

3. Set high standards.

Consider what constitutes a job well done for each child and write it out as concretely as you can. Then consistently check to make sure your child is meeting your standard. If not ask them to return to the area and correct what still needs work.

I like for our daily chores to take no longer than 30 minutes and we frequently use a timer to see who can make it within the time limit.

Assign chores.

1. Determine how you want to organize your chores. Do you want to organize your chores by task (i.e. child A vacuum and child B dusts)? We did this exclusively when we had all small children. Do you want to give each child an area of responsibility (i.e. child A cleans the living room and child B cleans the bathroom)? We use this system currently and love it!

2. Decide how much time you want to devote to chores each day. Decide if you want to have more than one assigned time. We have two different times during the day that we have chores assigned. See a simple version of our schedule.

3. List what needs to be done each day. Decide how much time each task should take.

4. Assign tasks to each child. I assign a chore to whomever is the youngest child that can safely complete it. This stretches those little ones and doesn’t overburden the older ones.

• This does mean more supervision and oversight on your part, as you train your children to work hard.
• A benefit to this practice, that I am seeing now, is that it frees the older ones up to serve in areas that they are gifted or that they have a particular interest.

5. Clearly communicate each child’s responsibilities to them. I like to have it written down, that way if when I forget I can just look at the list.

6. Check every chore, everyday. Well, only do this if you actually want the chores done well.

Have fun and work along side your children.

1. Change it up. When your children are generally diligent in their work, have fun with chore time.

• Try team chores. Divide your home into two fairly equal (as far as chores) parts and then divide you and your children into two teams and let them race to get all the chores done. Let the little ones or the big ones be team captains.
• Give them a day off of cleaning chores. We do this every weekend and occasionally during the week. Everything needs to be picked up, but nothing needs to be dusted, swept, wiped, etc.

2. Enjoy working with your children. Pick a day to work with each of your children on their task. In our house I have deep cleaning tasks in each of my children’s areas, so on the day that I am working in their area, we enjoy special time working together.

All of my children enjoy helping me in the kitchen or doing outside tasks. I use this time to enjoy and talk with my children. Try to include your children in your life as much as possible, they love being with you, take advantage of that to learn their heart and their thoughts.

3. Have contests with prizes, or not. One of my favorite contests is the bedroom contest. We have two bedrooms for the children, the girls are in one and the boys in the other. Every morning I check the bedrooms to see who did a better job. I am picky, checking under the beds, in the closets, etc. The prize? During Christmas time the winning room got to display the table tree in their bedroom for the day. Currently they just get bragging rites. If both bedrooms are amazingly clean and they tie for at least 3 days during the week, we pick something extra special to do or eat on Family Fun Night (Friday). This happens more often than you suppose. Our children are very motivated by this game.

We have also had penny jars. Each child has a jar with their name on it and each day that they finish their chore on time and meet the standards we have set, they get a penny to put in their jar. When they get to a certain number of pennies they get a prize. We use a lot of special time rather than special things for prizes.

Chores do not have to be drudgery. A lot of it is in our attitude. This is one of the ways that we can serve Christ by serving our families.

Read about how to make it all work together in the schedule or our current chore list.

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Related posts:

1. The Schedule
2. Updated Chore List for Our Large Family
3. Daily Bible Reading
4. Laundry Help: Laundry Systems for Large Families
5. You Asked For It: Our Chore List