Stair Cleaning at your Service

Yesterday morning the kids all got up extra early -- of course it would be a Saturday! Hayley came in just after 6:00am and said she needed to go potty (she is quite proud of being able to get out of bed by herself these days). I have been trying putting her in just underwear at night the last few days instead of a Pull-Up and she has been doing really good! Anyway, I noticed the game room light was on and I thought she had turned it on before she came in to get me, but I found out later McKay was up extra early for some reason and was on the computer.

I tried to go back to bed for a little bit. Brian had to get up extra early to go to an Elder's Quorum service project (they were putting siding up on a sister's house). Before long, the other girls were up and I lay in bed, imagining what kind of trouble they were all getting into. When I did get up (about 7:30), it wasn't too bad. The girls had mostly gotten into snacks that they really shouldn't eat first thing in the morning. I found McKay watching our vacuum cleaner instructional video tape. He has watched it before (quite a while ago) and it just strikes me as so funny (and odd!) that of all the things he would choose to do or watch on a Saturday morning, he would pick the vacuum cleaner video.

Naturally, since he had watched the vacuum cleaner video that morning, he started begging me to use the vacuum cleaner to shampoo the stairs. I have let him do this before, but I'll admit I was reluctant to agree. You might think that's nuts since he's offering to clean the carpet, but my reluctance stems from the mess I envision getting made in the process and the battle I know will ensue later when it's time to put everything away and clean up (something McKay really dislikes doing).

He begs me and begs me and finally I give in on the condition that he promises to vacuum the stairs first, practice the piano and clean everything up. Easy enough, he says. So out comes the vacuum and all the attachments and the girls are ready and willing to be his helpers. They decide that McKay will spray on the soap suds, then he and Hannah will "pat" the suds down with sponges while Courtney is in charge of turning the vacuum on and off as they do each step. (I think later Courtney and Hannah switched jobs.)

I think the main reason McKay likes to do this is because of the spraying aspect of the job. He thinks it is pretty cool. I really don't think they get the stairs all that clean -- they certainly don't scrub the tough stains or anything -- but I'm sure they're better off than they were before.

While they were working, McKay and Hannah decided that they should start a family stair-cleaning business and go around cleaning people's stairs. They even came up with some long fancy name for it, but I can't remember what it was. If only they were this excited about any other cleaning I ask them to do. :-)

(And, not surprisingly, it was a bit of a battle to get everything cleaned up and put away. Initially, they just threw all the pieces in the closet and I made them put them away correctly which they weren't very happy about.)

So, if you ever need your stairs cleaned, you know who to call!

Later in the day, the girls had ice cream cones for a treat and Hayley asked me for a spoon. She started eating the ice cream off the top of her cone with her spoon -- I guess she is not big on licking from a cone!

And a final picture for tonight is of Courtney after her haircut this afternoon. I cut McKay's hair and decided to also do Courtney's since it gets so easily tangled the longer it gets. I maybe went a little on the short side, but it's not terrible and it will grow. I just barely make the cut when it comes to hair cutting (if that!).