If you need a place to live in Minneapolis and you’re not a crazy person, read on…

We have an apartment for rent March 1st!

For those of you who don’t know, we live in a duplex (first floor is a rental apartment and we live on the second & third floor). Our fabulous tenants (who’ve been with us for over 3 years…sniff) are spreading their wings and purchasing their first home!

That means that someone (again…no crazies) should come live in our first-floor unit near downtown Minneapolis!

From Abraham’s post:

The unit is the first floor of a big, old duplex, so it’s a pretty large apartment at about 1,400 square feet. It has 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. The living room and dining room are spacious and open, so they’re great for hosting if you’re into that. The kitchen was completely remodeled 3 years ago (and now has more cabinet space than you could probably fill). And if two bedrooms isn’t quite enough for you, there is also a smaller spare room that could serve as a bedroom or library or study or craft room or exercise room or… I could go on.

Here are a couple pics and some other relevant details…

• $1000/month +utilities
• Available March 1
• Month-to-month lease
• One off-street parking spot included
• Free laundry
• Located in Ventura Village — equidistant from Downtown, The U of M, and Uptown. Near bus lines.
• We live upstairs (That’s a plus, right?)

If you’re interested in coming to look or know someone who is, email Abraham.We’re really nice, I promise!

Okay, here it is:

I opened a 2nd gallon of milk when there was already another open.

[GASP!!!]

This is a serious infraction. Serious.

My OCD can hardly handle this.

What are your household cardinal rules? Ever broken one yourself?

I think it’s good to have rules. I also think it’s good for me to break my own rules sometimes, because then it destroys that I’m-so-awesome-at-following-rules pride thing that I can so easily go to (have you picked up that I’m a “good girl”?)

It seems like often when I’m about to RAGE with anger at someone in my family about SOMETHING they did that they SHOULDN’T do (leave a wet towel on the floor, open 2 milks, leave dirty clothes lying around) I’ll find a pair of my dirty underwear on the floor within minutes. Minutes.

Welp, that’s a pride-buster.

I’m not saying that happens every time and I’m always super patient and gentle with other people when they don’t follow my rules, I’m just thankful for the times I do have some victories from God to give grace to the people I love most.

I’m sure there are many of you with tons more experience under your belts for making summer a success, but here’s how I’m trying to make it work for me:

Jobs

I’m never very consistent about allowance or chores, but Orison’s very interested in earning money (& then counting it over and over and telling me the year that’s printed on every.single.coin). He does a few tasks for 10 cents each, with the earning potential for 50-60 cents per day. Cheap help! Of course these will be different for every household, but right now he does the following jobs:

• Emptying the silverware caddy from the dishwasher each morning.
• Running the bare-floor vacuum and cleaning off the high chairs after breakfast and lunch.
• Cleaning his room and/or the playroom.
• Putting away his clean laundry.

Of course Morrow (2.5) wants in the on the action, too. So he even gets some money for his jobs! Morrow gets 1 penny for the following jobs:

• Getting diapers for the babies.
• Throwing away diapers.
• Putting the bottles into the sink.

All of these things happen a lot throughout the day, so he might make about 10 cents a day. He’s thrilled to be like his big brother! I don’t think it’s that meaningful to him yet, but he thinks it’s fun, so I’m going with it.

There are a few ground rules for working:

• If you complain when asked to do your job, you will still have to do it, but you won’t get the money.
• You can say no politely from time to time, but just know that you’re passing up the cash.
• Money can be deducted from your wages if you are purposefully mean or unhelpful throughout the day.

Right now I’m just keeping a little tab on the counter of how much each boy earns per day. If I can get my act together soon, I’d like them to have a chart where we could mark it down. That way it would keep them more motivated and keep me accountable to bless them for their help.

Do your kids do household job? Which ones?

You might question that previous statement–”Molly, did you really have to make muffins?”

The answer is yes. Yes I did. And if you ever make these muffins you’ll understand why they’ve become a household necessity. They’re like oxygen to me and mines.

Most mornings I try to work a little stitch of time for Morrow and me–Orison’s at Kindergarten (for only a couple more weeks–eek!) and the babies are taking their morning nap. Sometimes we read books, sometimes we have a dance party, sometimes we play board games or puzzles. It’s not always easy to do, and there are always other tasks, but I’m really trying to be intentional with my second-born. These days are too short (as proven by my first baby almost being done with Kindergarten!!!)

Anyway, today he really wanted to help me make muffins. Every efficiency-craving bone in my body wanted to refuse him and just get it done quickly by myself. I really felt the Lord’s prodding though…

“Will you let him help?”

When I asked him if he wanted to help me, you’d have thought I’d asked him if he wanted to go to Disney World or something. He was so excited.

I’d measure things out while he stood on the step stool giggling with the excitement and anticipation of getting to dump it in the bowl. It was seriously precious.

We were getting to the end of our project and he said to me, “Mom you’re a heartbeat.”

Then he asked me, “What’s a heartbeat?” (LOVE him!)

I said, “Hang on. Let me wash my hands (which were covered in muffin batter) and then I’ll show you.”

“Are the heartbeats in the closet?”

“No, buddy, they’re in your body.” So I put his little hand on his chest and let him feel the flutter. “Do you feel that?”

“Yeah…” he said, concentrating on the sensation.

I gave it my best shot to explain heartbeats to my two and a half year old, but, not surprisingly, he quickly lost interest.

But I loved making muffins with him today. Here’s a silly (low-quality) picture of me and my little heartbeat:

It’s not always practicable to sacrifice efficiency in a mom’s busy world. Today I really felt the trade-off though: efficiency v. life-sharing. Will Morrow remember making muffins when he’s older? Probably not this particular time. But will Morrow remember that I made time for him, despite a busy day’s schedule? I hope so.

I can be too easily owned by efficiency and tasks around my house. Granted, I think that having an orderly home is important; it’s a value that I have. But…when and how can I flex that? I’m very thankful for God’s gentle reminders today to take time to feel the heartbeats. They’re not going to last forever.

And neither are those muffins…

I haven’t told you all very much about our live-in help, Miss Katie. I’m choosing to respect her privacy and our relationship by keeping most details about her out of my blog. But I will say…I love her to pieces. She’s amazing with my children. Seriously, her coming to live with us is an answer to prayers that I hadn’t even thought to pray, but God said, “Hey Molly, I think you need…” and just gave it. So great.

Well, one of the specific things I love about Katie is that she’s a photographer. And she really loves to take pictures of my kids! Double yay for us! She just got a new lens for her camera the other day, so all of us were treated to fun pictures of yesterday’s Easter festivities while she played with her new toy!

She grabbed these ones of the twins:

What I love about the second one is how it really captures who they are right now. Whit is always playing this game when he’s in his highchair, where he lays his head down just like that, and then someone (or everyone) copies him, and then he does it again. It’s so cute!

And Cadence, she pretty much always has her mouth open that wide, smiling or making these funny growling noises. And her arms are always out to the sides like that. Always.

And here’s my big boy on Easter:

And my other big boy:

A couple funny things about this one: 1. it was 60 degrees out and he needed neither the coat or the hat, but had almost no concept for a warm day. That’s the kind of spring it’s been around here. 2. He’s attempting a jail break under the front gate. And he even has a sneaky look on his face!

I hope you all had a lovely day yesterday.

I might try this for a couple reasons:

1. I hate buying dishwasher detergent.
2. I don’t get out much anymore, so this might last longer.

I have my hesitations for a couple reasons:

1. I don’t want to put money and time into making it if it’s not going to work well.
2. I’ve never used powdered dishwasher detergent (always liquid).

So, what do you think? I figure Friday’s a good day to post something like this, since you might be out on errands this weekend and decide to pick up the materials, and it’ll be fresh in your mind. So, I ask you:

• Have any of you ever tried this? or something similar?
• Have you had good results with this kind of concoction?
• Do you plan to give it a try?

I’m thinking about doing it. If I do, I’ll try to remember to let you know how I like it! The one trick she talks about that I definitely intend to try is using white vinegar for a rinse agent instead of the chemical one.

Happy weekend, all! It’s supposed to be a fantastically gorgeous weekend here in Minneapolis. I hope it’s lovely where you are as well.

I promise to write some more in the next few days to fill you all in on how things have been going. Most of the time it’s been going really well, thank you GOD!

The babies are amazing, and I love having two. Not to say there won’t be some difficult times when I’ll want to puncture my own ear drums to block out their crying, but hey…so far, so good!

Feel free to gush about them in the comments or over at Abraham’s blog (HA!)

Not that I didn’t love Christmas before, it’s just that it becomes new and fresh and wonderful when you experience it through the excited and eager eyes of a child. That sounded really cheesy, but it’s true.

Last night my mother-in-law lovingly babysat our kids. One thing you should know about my mother-in-law: she has the most Christmas decorations of anyone I know. It’s like a Christmas Spectacular over there. And as you can imagine, for Orison, it’s a-ma-zing!

There are nativity sets from all over the world, lights in the windows, and even a life-size manger for re-enacting.

Orison told my mother-in-law that he was being Joseph and he was taking care of baby Jesus. She wrote a sweet and beautiful post reflecting on that idea.

Most days you can find him playing with his Playmobil Nativity set or with this magnetic doodad he got from… can you guess? His grandmama (the above-mentioned fellow Christmas fan)! He used this magnetic set to do Sunday School lessons for me and Abraham the other day.

He also loves to sing. There have been lots of traditional carols and some non-traditional ones he writes himself:

So if you’re needing a little shot in the arm of Christmas spirit, let us know! Orison would be more than happy to accomodate. He’s got enough to go around!

And now, I pay the price. Folding party at my house tonight! It’ll be fun… really.

Doesn’t she look like she’s having fun???

I realized that my anxiety about starting the laundry is two-fold:

1. The sheer volume. Heavens to Murgatroyd, we dirty a lot of clothes. (By the way, I think I’m gonna name the lady in the photo Murgatroyd.)
2. Not wanting to start and then find that I missed something.

I suffer more with the second one. I hate when I try to wash every last stitch of dirty laundry in our house, and then, as if from nowhere, a random dirty sock will appear. When that happens, it feels like it was all for naught.

And then, inevitably… the end of the day comes and there will be more dirty clothes, thus confirming the maddening phenomenon that is the laundry.

You know, you hear about postal workers going insane because “The mail never stops.” But I think more wives and moms would be justified to go similarly batty by the same token.

Okay, gotta go start this exercise in futility. I’ve put it off long enough by:

1. Pondering.
2. Posting.

So if you’re slogging through piles of laundry today, you’re not alone. And just remember Murgatroyd. She’s having so much FUN!!! (insert insane laughter).

Our project is now complete!

I promise, promise, promise that I’ll post pics or a video this week. I’ve been trying to get all our stuff situated. Finding a home for everything is what takes the longest. And with a 13-month-old in tow, things seem to take 13x as long.

We still have some paint touch-up to do. Kelly@LoveWell shared an awesome tip for ongoing paint touch-up that I plan to put into place.

We’re feeling very satisfied with the end product (actually thrilled). Just to have a legitimate bedroom with a door that closes… it’s amazing.

As the project neared completion, I was actually feeling worried about having too much space. But God gave us a sweet confirmation about how to use our space the other night.

A fellow blogger and Twitter friend, Zach Nielsen, tweeted the other night that he and his wife were likely going to be stuck in the Minneapolis airport overnight on their way to the Together for Adoption Conference.

Abraham tweeted him back and said, “If you end up needing a place to stay, call me.” (We’ve met Zach in person before and we share a lot of mutual friends—we don’t necessarily invite any old stranger to spend the night.)

A few minutes later we got a phone call, Abraham left for the airport, and we had our first house guests in the newly-purposed guest room!

We have lots of decorating to do, but that’s easy work in comparison with what we’ve been doing. Most of all, we’re just happy to have all the major decisions made, the heavy stuff moved, and two healthy kids sleeping deeply in their new room.