Anyone else despise winter with a passion? I don’t like it, not one single bit. I’m a summer girl through and through. It’s gotten cold enough this week that I was stuck inside two days, so it called for “winter cleaning”. I don’t do Spring cleaning because once it gets warm, I’m outside and you can’t get me in, so I do my deep cleaning in the Winter. Anyone else?

Winter cleaning brings scrubbing walls, baseboards, and floors. My kids are outside kids. They love all things dirt, mud, ball, anything that gets them dirty. The little handprint in the picture? It’s been there 3 years, and I can’t bring myself to clean it off the wall. It’s a perfect little handprint Kyleigh put there one day when she came in from playing in the mud. Every year I clean the walls; I clean all around it but not over it. It’s the perfect reminder to let them be little and enjoy every minute of it. Her hand is now twice that size and even though she still loves to play in the dirt, she’s growing up and all her likes and dislikes are constantly changing.

So, instead of sticking them in front of electronics to keep them still and quiet, let them be little! Yes, there are days my kids drive me nuts because they get so wild and it’s tempting to stick them in front of something to “calm” them down but if I did that, I wouldn’t have that cute little handprint to look at right now. These little reminders of their earliest childhood days are some of my most favorite.