Fluff the Nest Friday: Blitz the House!

Around here, Friday is the day to “fluff the nest”, which is just a much cuter way of saying “clean the house”. Am I right? So my Friday posts are all about tidying up and getting the house fresh and in order for the weekend. Some weeks my nest-fluffing comes more easily than others. I need motivation each Friday.

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My last two Fluff the Nest posts have been all about getting the kiddos on board with household chores. My first post started with the basics of picking up their own bedroom in “The ABC Pickup”. The following post moved on to daily tasks in “Chores for Children”. Today we’re going to talk about the big cleanups that need to happen that aren’t scheduled as part of the daily routine.

Maybe things have totally gotten out of hand over a weekend, and you want to get the house back in order before starting a new week. Maybe you just got a call that some unexpected company is stopping by in an hour, and the house is a wreck. Perhaps you’ve had sick kids for the last week, and it’s just finally time to pull the house back together.

When any of these situations arose, and we needed “all hands on deck” (my girls just looove when I say that, ha!), we would call a “Power Hour” for them to give us one hour to get as much done as possible—fast and furious! As they grew tired of that phrase, Joel gave it a new name: Blitzing the House!

So here’s how it went. We would call a House Blitz, and would make it into a beat-the-clock game (or I guess it was more of a beat-the-music game). We have the entire soundtrack for the music from the rides at all four Disney parks (yep, HUGE Disney fans here, folks!) We found the soundtrack for the Test Track ride to be incredibly exciting and motivating. It’s FAST, therefore, we moved FAST!! We’d play the soundtrack for each room and try to get the entire room cleaned before the end of the music piece. With several of us working on different areas—pickups, dust, windows, floors—we’d usually make it in time! Then we’d move on to the next room and start the music over for that room.

The kids loved it because I’d let them play the music really loud, and because the soundtrack was something that reminded them of our Disney memories. It’s amazing what a little musical motivation can do!

I hope these three posts have given you some handy little ideas for getting the kids all in on house fluffing! There will be more to share on this topic in the future, but these are my three basic starters.

By the way, the photo above is from last fall! See the little pumpkins? I don’t just take pictures of my living room often, so I had to scroll all the way back to almost a year ago to find one. And now, fall can’t get here soon enough for me!

 Have a blessed weekend, friends!