40 days and 40 nights.....

Lent is a special time when you can share the concepts of prayer and giving with everyone around you. Taking time each day to offer devotional prayers, helping others in need by giving of your time or resources. Even as young children, my kids have enjoyed participating in this process.
As a mother, I carve out time in my busy day for special prayer time and recalling on lessons learned.
Some things that I have done differently for Lent are suggestions I have gotten from Dr Marcellino D’Ambrosio, Catholic theologian and speaker. He has come up with many great ideas for making the most out of the Lenten season.
He says:
Spend some focused time with your spouse, strengthening your marriage.
Start praying together, or make praying together a more frequent occurrence.
Spend some focused time together with each of your children. Take time to listen. Pray and maybe even have fun.
When Easter comes, don’t drop the new practice you’ve begun during the Season Lent!
Make a permanent feature of a deeper Christian life!
Family values are a big part of the Tubiolo house and with every passing year, I can see where our faith and family has grown stronger.

FaT tUeSdAy

Today is going to be a good day.....it is Fat Tuesday, ya know!

Not only will I feast with my family but, we will figure out what we need to leave behind for the next 40 days.....

I view Lent as a minor sacrifice. I have been truly blessed and if giving up chocolate, coffee, Facebook is a way to show my God that I am grateful...then I gladly will.

Big House......Clean House

I was always one of those people that said "the bigger the house, the more to clean" but, I was wrong.
A year and a half ago, our family moved, again. I never would have imagined having a 3,000+ square foot house for half the price of what we sold our 1,700sf, 15 year old fixer upper in Fla. so, six years ago, we jumped at the opportunity to get the biggest house we could find. HUGE mistake.
So, we moved……but, somehow I managed to gain two extra bathrooms, an extra bedroom, and an enormous yard. Although, the neighborhood, schools, yard, and front porch was just what we were looking for, one problem still remained…..How am I going to keep this house clean?
While I love the idea of a clean house, I’d rather spend the day sewing, chatting on Facebook or searching Pinterst than start cleaning my bathrooms……all five of them!
So, how did I do it???

I made myself a schedule.....Daily, Weekly, and Monthly.

Daily:
Morning:
Laundry
Make beds
Dishes
Vacuum

Evening:
Wipe down counters/toilets in bathrooms
Dishes/Counters/Kitchen table/Stove
Vacuum/sweep & mop floors
Put away toys, mail, etc.
Dining room table cleared and cleaned

Weekly (i try to spend less than an hour on these)
Monday: living room/play room clean and dust
Tuesday: run errands/grocery shopping, de clutter pantry
Wednesday: Kitchen: clean oven, microwave, fridge
Thursday: clean bathrooms/ showers/bedrooms/closets
Fridays: Catch up on any chores not done
Saturday: Clean out purse and car/plan my coupon and grocery lists

Monthly:
Dust blinds
Wash windows
Yard work
Baseboards
Reorganize closets

I am somewhat of a natural housekeeper anyway, but I have three active children and a nursing career, and I refuse to spend my days cleaning. There are lots of great advice out there and I was determined to be one of those moms that could keep a clean house in less than an hour a day. I’ve read books and taken suggestions from Pinterest to get myself to a happy medium and decided to see how much I could get done in 60 min. It was a struggle in the beginning. I was so happy today, to be getting it done before the timer went off.
I do have to give credit where credit is due: I say a prayer daily to keep me focused on being a good mom and housekeeper. And I can’t do it without the constant help from my wonderful husband and children for helping me daily by picking up after themselves.

Cleaning Tips You Haven't Heard Before

• The best way to dust blinds: Close them, then wipe up and down with an old dryer sheet. It'll create an antistatic barrier that helps prevent dust from building up again.Vinegar and water is a great deodorizer for a musty bathroom. Spray your shower down as you're getting out. It really absorbs the odors, and the smell of vinegar goes away in an hour.
• The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is your friend. It will cut your cleaning time in half for bathtubs, sinks, countertops, and dirty walls.
• To clean glass and mirrors, use coffee filters, not paper towels. They leave no streaks or lint — and they're cheap.
• Vacuuming bathroom mats is a nightmare. Toss them in the wash every week or two instead.
• A wet pumice stone will clean a dirty oven faster than any spray-on product.
• To damp-mop wood floors, use plain water or a water-based floor cleaner like Bona. Don't use vinegar. The acid in it will pit your polyurethane finish, can void your warranty, and may reduce shine over time.
• Seventh Generation dish liquid diluted with water is a great nontoxic all-purpose cleanser. Just put two squirts in a spray bottle and fill it with water.
• Our biggest secret weapon? A powdered product called Bar Keepers Friend. Use it on everything. Its active ingredient is rhubarb powder, which really cuts through grit and grime. It cleans glass-top stoves, counters, toilets, porcelain and more. Your sink will never be shinier.
• To clean your microwave oven, microwave a cup of water with some baking soda in it until it's boiling. That eliminates odors and makes it super easy to wipe away all that stuck-on stuff.
• Clean cobwebs with a yardstick covered by a tube sock. That also works for cleaning under stoves and refrigerators.
• Shine your bathroom tiles with lemon oil. It also helps prevent mold and mildew.
• To eliminate that ring in your toilet, drop in a bubbling denture tablet, and leave it for at least 30 minutes or overnight. The stain will come off with just a few swishes of the brush.

Sources: Torrey Shannon, former maid service owner in Westcliffe, Colorado; Lynette Haugen, owner of True Blue Maids of Pasadena; Tangela Ekhoff, a housecleaner in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Theresa Peterson, owner of Quality Cleaning "Maid to Order" in Fremont, California; Dee Strickland, owner of A Zing Zap Cleaning Service in Minneola, Florida.

Getting My Craft On

Although, I started planning Valentines Day projects in January….here I am procrastinating on the night before the big Valentines party at school.
I spent numerous trips to the craft store and many hours on Pinterest looking for cool ideas.
Here is a recap of my crafty valentine’s.

Here, I made a custom wrapper, using Stampin' Up Unfrogettable stamp set, to cover a teachers favorite candy bar:

I used a blender pen with old olive, pixie pink, and chocolate chip Stampin' Up ink to decorate the frog. When I was finished, I cut out each item and glued googly eyes to add character.

For another teacher, a fellow Starbucks addict (like myself) I got a Starbucks gift card and a 'buy one get one free' coupon that the baristas were handing out. She also loves junior mints so, I filled a valentines treat bag with junior mints and included an 'I Dig You' valentine tag.

I found these cute magnet guitar valentines at the store and picked up some small pop rocks candy at the party store. I think they look so cute!

My biggest challenge was making Ethan's valentine box.

He wanted a Florida Gator football themed one and I hunted down all these items to make it for him. I found mod podge, football beads, alligators, UF fabric, football field and grass scrapbook paper at Joanne's fabric store. I found football the cake toppers at Party City to make this box.

Here is his completed Valentine box and he loves it.

I Dig You

I think that my kids are taking after my crafty side (thank goodness)!

For this Valentines Day, the kids asked me if they could make their own Valentines Day Gifts. I happily agreed hat it was a great idea. At the kids ages now (12, 10, & 8) it is pretty hard to come up with Valentine cards that are age appropriate so I turned to my good friend, Pinterest, for suggestions......this is what we all fell in love with:
I quickly searched for everything I needed to make these cute Valentines.

All the information can be found here.

I enjoyed making these with my kids but, I seemed to do most of the work.....I didn't mind at all, though.