Cleaning Up The Walls From Your Little Artist!

It is bound to happen eventually. Your little one will color all over the walls like it is their personal coloring book. After you have tried the obvious cleaners here are a few other things you can do to try to get it off of your walls.

• Spray hair spray on the ink/pencil/crayon marks and wipe with a damp sponge.
• Spray WD40 on a paper towel and rub gently on the marks. Do not spray directly onto the walls.
• Rub the marks with a damp sponge with baking soda in a circular motions.
• Nail polish remover on a cotton swab/ball. Do not try this as a first resort as it has been known that with some paints it will fade or come off with the marks.

Hope this helps clean some walls after your little artists have their way with your walls.

This is for the packrats!

Alright, I am a former pack rat myself and my husband is still a horrible pack rat. It is really hard with him seeing how we live in a one bedroom apartment that is so small we barely have room for the things we NEED. What my husband doesn't know is that once a week(when I have the the time, its been a hectic and busy summer so I am doing this tonight) I take a garbage bag and just toss all the junk we don't need out, 95% of the time my husband doesn't even notice(that's when you know you don't need it). I usually wait until I put the kiddo to bed before I do this so I can focus all my attention on the task but if you think you can do it with the kiddo(s) around then go for it.

Exercising as a Family

Exercise Idea's as a Family

Here are some idea's for you to exercise as a family so we can all stay in shape.

• Take a walk before or after dinner.
• Turn on some music and dance in your living room like no one else is watching, it will be good for a laugh and good for the heart.
• Make a game out of cleaning your house. (such as you are going to be attacked by aliens and you have to pick up all the "moon rocks" before they can get to you.)
• Turn TV commercials into workout breaks. (when the show goes to commercial have a competition to see who can do the most push ups or something until the show comes back on.)
• Have a weekly sports night.
• Take the kids to a walk/run for a charity.
• Take the dog (and the kids) for a walk.

Those are just a few things but as you can see it is easy to incorporate workouts into your daily life, as long as they are fun and creative.

Cleaning with Child(ren)

For my second Mommy tip I'm going to help you find ways to get things done while keeping your children happy. For people like me with an (almost) 11 month old it is hard to get around to doing things that need to get done such as house work. Even at that age you can include your child in your cleaning activities. Which in turn will help you when they get older and start to take on the responsibilities of chores. While it does take longer to get your house work done when you have your little one helping you it beats it not getting done at all or your getting frustrated while your child is screaming for you to play but you are cleaning. First, lets say you have dishes to do(not all of us are lucky enough to have a dish washer). You can set your child up in a walker, jumperoo, exersaucer, etc, next to where you will be doing your dishes, you can make games with them by blowing the bubbles from the dish soap at them or while you are cleaning cups(DO NOT DO WITH GLASS) you can bang the cups together(can also be done with plastic bowls, tupperware, etc). Another thing you could do is give them cup of their own and let them just play with it and bang it around on their own. Now lets say you have a living room to pick up. An easy way to do this AND keep your little one happy is to clean with music on and dance around while making goofy faces at your little one. They will enjoy the time together, play, and it will wear them out for either nap time or bed time. Honestly, if you clean to music, no matter what the cleaning, you should be able to keep your child entertained enough that you can do what you need to do, plus it will also make cleaning a little bit more fun for you. Plus you will be satisfied when you get done cleaning because you aren't sitting with a mess or worrying about getting things clean.

I hope this is a helpful tip for you ladies and it helps you keep your baby happy AND help keep you in a happy, clean home.