Five on Friday

Hi there! I'm back for Five on Friday. I wasn't able to blog much for this week since we spent our weekend in Oklahoma to see this guy get his PhD!



Congratulations to my little brother (in-law), Mark! We are crazy proud! Also, check out that handsome guy on the left!

It's also been a brutal week of standardized testing. 16 hours with just me and my thoughts...I might be going crazy and I definitely haven't been very nice. BUT...TGIF and standardized testing 2016 is OVER!

1. Mother's Day 2016



This just made my year. All the tears.

2. We are potty training...!



I'd post the precious photo of my baby girl "tinkling" in the potty for the first time but I try to keep her social media presence down and posting potty photos would definitely come back to haunt her some day. She's been asking to "potty" a lot lately so we took her interest and ran with it. #pottytrainedbysummer

3. Book Binge



It's pretty apparent that I've been on a children's book binge this week! All of these books showed up on my doorstep today (oops). I recently attended an Usborne online book party and purchased several of these books from them. I need some time but I'll post a review soon.

4. Clean House



We recently broke down and hired a monthly cleaning service. I can't even handle how much this has changed my life. It is worth every hard earned penny and Wednesday was the best day this week!

5. STAAR Week



This is the only good thing to come out of being locked up for 4+ straight hours. Now that's what I call active monitoring!! Boom!


                    Linking up with a few of my favs - April, Christina & Natasha!

Happy Friday! See you next week!

Trial Tuesdays

This is post #2 of my new themed post, Trial Tuesdays. Click here to see my first Trial Tuesday post on hanging frames the easy way.

I didn't grow up with stainless steel appliances but Chris and I both really love the look of it. So, when it came time to purchase a refrigerator, we bought stainless. Right out of the box it had fingerprints on it and there they stayed for months because I had no idea how to clean it. The delivery guys had told us, no paper towels and no harsh cleaners.

When I couldn't stand it anymore, I searched Pinterest and found this pin, http://smithocracy.com/2012/02/23/how-to-clean-stainless-steel-for-real/.

I read through her blog post and decided to give it a try. 

For this trial I purchased:

*Orange Pledge - which says its safe to use on wood, granite, stainless steel, etc.

*Microfiber cloths from Target

This is what my fridge looked like before:

To clean, I sprayed a little of the pledge onto my microfiber cloth and buffed it onto my fridge. In minutes the fingerprints were gone and my fridge looked flawless! I also discovered that the pledge protects my fridge from future fingerprints and I now have to clean it less often. Oh, and the orange smells amazing!

*Tip: In the smithocracy blog, she does mention that this does not work on brushed stainless steel, so beware.

Hooray! Go try this today!

It's No Use Crying Over Spilled Latex Paint

Chris and I have been carefully painting the rooms of our house for almost a year with no incident. Not a drop on the carpet, no spills, no drips. Until one ill-fated evening when I was working on a project using bright red paint.

I was painting on a canvas drop cloth and being extra careful with the red paint. When I finished, I moved the drop cloth out of the way and found little puddles of red paint all over my beige carpet. Apparently canvas drop cloths are only good for making fabulous curtains, like these.

We did not have carpet cleaner on hand and this happened late in the evening, so after many tears, I googled what to do and came up with a solution using things I already had on hand.

Low and behold, the below method worked! The stains are just a slight tinge of pink, barely noticeable. I do not have a before picture for you but just imagine bright red, nickel size puddles of paint all over the middle of my living room. Basically, it felt like I was in an episode of Dexter. :(

Here's what I did to save my carpet:

**Tip: When you're blotting during each step, you're blotting until you are no longer making progress on the stain before moving on to the next step.

**I hastily combined several methods from the internet and I didn't write down any sources so if you feel like you own this cleaning method, please let me know and I'll give you credit.**

My Favorite Household Cleaner

If you haven't already discovered the cleaning power of Vinegar and Dawn, this post will change your life!

I've never loved cleaning my kitchen and bathrooms with strong, commercial chemicals. When we moved into our house, I started reading about people using Dawn dish soap and vinegar to clean. Having recently used up all of our cleaning products in the move, I thought I'd give this idea a try and...it really does work! It makes sense economically to clean with everyday products vs commercial products AND it actually cleans better, in my opinion! 

Vinegar and Dawn Cleaning Solution

1 cup warm Vinegar
1 cup Dawn dish soap (*If you have light colored grout, I would suggest buying the clear version of Dawn, not the blue)
1 empty spray bottle

Mix equal parts warm vinegar and Dawn in an empty spray bottle. Spray on surface, lightly scrub with a sponge, and rinse.

For tougher stains, leave the solution on longer or even overnight. The longer it sits on the surface, the better it works and the less scrubbing you will have to do. You can also use baking soda for more scrubbing power.

There are so many uses for Vinegar and Dawn that I just haven't had time to try yet, but you better believe I'll be posting about them when I do!