Cleaning!

As I prepare for starting homeschool I am struck with the thought of, "How will I clean my house?!"   I have 2 choices as I see it.  After we do school or to spend my Saturday mornings cleaning.  NO thanks on the Saturday mornings!!!  I will probably do it on Fridays and use my little helpers.  The boys are more than willing to do a few things around here to help.  And yesterday they vacuumed their rooms for the first time!!!  They were very excited about doing this, but quickly learned how heavy the vacuum really is, but they tried it.  And want to do it again.  It's a start!  Next week I'll see what they think about cleaning baseboards......can you see the BIG happy smile on my face?!

Yesterday we continued on with the "cleaning" theme and have started the Laundry Room Consequence(a.k.a Clean Your Heart). 
I found this on a homeschool blog,  http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/
and loved the idea!  Even if you are not a homeschooler she has some GREAT ideas!   Not just about discipline either!  Check her out.
Anyway the whole idea is to go in the laundry where things go in that are dirty...right?  When they come out of the laundry room they are clean.  We will practice the very same thing, but with our hearts.  You sin and it is time to clean your heart. Go into the laundry room, ask God to forgive you, to make your heart clean again and look at the smiley face until you mean it.  Come out with a clean, happy heart.
I was going to use the printable page she has on her blog, but the boys were not crazy about it because it was a GIRL.  So I will do my best to make a new one with a little boy praying. 
We did get the chance to use the Laundry Room Consequence yesterday.  I don't even remember what happened, but Matthew was off to the laundry room.  He came back outside and told me he talked to God.  I said, "But you are not smiling."  He said, "Because I don't mean it." 
We'll work on that part, but he was very open to trying it.  And over time my prayer is that they will learn to truly want to clean their hearts when they sin against one another.
Stay tuned for Cleaning with The Fontenot Boys 101.