Fernandez Family of Five: Monday Maids...

On Monday, April 9th the girls had off of school for Easter break. We had some fun in the morning making Resurrection Rolls (which we did not get to on Easter morning) and then we played a new game we made up which I will call Monday Maids. The house was in major need of a top to bottom cleaning, but none of us wanted to spend the whole day cleaning. So, we came up with a fun game to make it faster and enjoyable. Regan got a clipboard and we went around to each room writing down what tasks needed to be done in each room (such as straightening, dusting, make bed, empty trash, vacuum, clean mirrors, etc.) After we accessed every room, we figured out which rooms had equal amounts of tasks or equal levels of difficulty and assigned each person a room and then had competitions against each other. Some of the rooms were pretty hard so we would assign 2 people to a room if they were more difficult than another room. Before the competition began, we gathered all the cleaning supplies we would need for the day and gathered them at the bottom of the stairs. During the competition we timed everyone and whoever finished first won that round and we recorded all the times. No one could be officially finished until I checked their rooms and made sure they were done. We added up all the times at the end and whoever had the overall fastest time of the day did not have to help mommy clean the kitchen (which was by far the messiest room in the house.) We worked fast and furious and was able to get the whole house clean, including kitchen, in 1.5 hrs. We were all so exhausted afterwards and were even sweating. So, not only did we have a clean house, but we also had our exercise for the day and we wore each other out. Regan took a nap, Reece almost fell asleep and Riley was mellow upstairs. I told the girls, "See how tired you are? Imagine how I feel when I have to do all this cleaning by myself and it takes me 5+ hours since I have other interruptions throughout the day as well." "That is why mommy is always so tired and grumpy when you mess up the house, after I have spent all day cleaning it!" It was a great lesson for them to learn and hopefully will make them more appreciative and more willing to help?! They did all admit that the game was fun and they would be willing to do it again. :)

Making Resurrection Rolls...

We took marshmallows and dipped them in butter and then rolled them in cinnamon and sugar (supposed to represent Christ's body being prepared with the oils and spices). Then, we put the marshmallow in the middle of a crescent roll and sealed it up (like putting Christ's body in the tomb and sealing the tomb with the stone.) We cooked the rolls and when they were done the marshmallow was gone from the middle (Christ had risen!).