My daughter has been helping me arround the house since she was little. The tasks she did where ofcourse very simple to begin with. Starting with cleaning up her own things to helping me cook a meal. She’s 12 now and I just learn her how to bake an egg for herself. She knows how the oven works although I only let her prepare oven breads yet and shove a pizza in.  Its great because it keeps her from getting lazy and learns her vallues and become independent. Yes, your children too can help you arround the house with little tasks. You could even give them a little pocketmoney for a job well done. Ofcourse it shouldnt go down to what you call slavery, they are not your free housemaid. Children need to have the time and space to be kids at all ages. And ofcourse you can not let them organize ur china cabinet at age 3, unless youthink its time for replacement of your wares LMAO. But they could learn how to fold kitchencloths, water the plants and making the table aside of picking up there own toys and putting them where they belong. Its not only helping you with your chores its also educating them on there vallues and showing them how things are done. It gives them a responcibility and makes them feel proud of helping. I found a few sites that listed tasks that your child can do at a certain age. Ofcourse I could have made my own list but why not just give those people credit for the jobs they did instead of trying to compete with them :).

Women News tells us about a bunch of task that your children can help you with, varying from age 3 till 15.  I will give you a few examples.

• Three and a Half to Five:In terms of food preparation, no one needs their lettuce torn up perfectly, so let them give that a try while you work on the rest of dinner.
• Six to Eight : Get your kids stripping their own beds, helping to separate the lights from the darks, and even folding their own laundry. If they cant handle everything yet then start simple, think about socks and towels :).
• Nine to 12: This group can be changing light bulbs for you, bathing the family pets and washing the car. ( I don’t know about bathing the pets but they sure could help you clean the cages from the pets, and washing the car meant for me a few extra coins in my pocket when I was a kid)
• 13 to 15: This age group can be changing the bed sheets by themselves and hang and fold your laundry all by themselfs. (I have to say that my 12 year old has been changing her own sheets since she was 10 though.)

Ofcourse you should be the judge when it comes to knowing what your children are able to handle and what not. One kid is not the other, some like it better then others and some do a better job at things then others because of that. Give them tasks that is not only boring but try find things the kid can make a little game out of. You will need to help them and explain and show how to do something. Don;t only critic on them when they did something wrong but show them how to do it right and applaud them for a job well done.

The Reel News write about how you could also set up your house so your kids can do more things themselfs so you don’t have to do everything for them. When they are at an age that they are able to help you unload the dishes, make sure that the plastic wares are low enough for them to reach in the cabinets, let the things they need to make lunch  also be reachable for them. Thank them and reward them occasionally. Don’t go overboard cause then they learn to get paid for everything they do for you. Helping someone should not only be done for the reward.

And last but not least I like to tell you about a family with 8 children. In that family everyone helps out except for the two youngest children because they are simply  too young still.  But with about 12 loads of laundry on one single day you simply need the help you can get. Read there story at Worldchild.org

With Christmas when my mom was here I had asked her to make some carrotsoup like she used to make  as long as I remember. I just love that soup and we had bought our selfs a new refridgerator with a freezer with 3 drawers so I wanted to  put some in the freezer too.  And ofcourse my mom made a load of soup and it was delicious as always. We froze in a few liter soup that she had made extra. But all that soup.. well… its all gone.. we ate it all in January and February allrdy and  a few weeks ago it started itching again.. I wanted to have carrotsoup.. Now our normal grocerystore where we always go was doing a redecorating that would last till half april so I was going to wait till then… And this week it was reopened.

So I bought  all the Ingredients I needed and today I made that famous carrotsoup myself.. for the first time.. And it was delicious, just like my mom makes it. Good job eh? Thank goodness I made a lot of extra so next time when I want  some carrotsoup again, all I need to do is open my fridge n get myself a pack of frozen carrotsoup out. Since that soup turned out so well when I tried to make it by myself, I wanted to share the recipe here. So you guys can try it for yourself :). I am using European/Dutch measurements so you might want to google up to converse to your own country.

Carrotsoup  (+/- 8 portions)

• 500 gram Wintercarrots (those are like the biggest carrots u can find XD) fresh ofcourse.
• 1 onion
• 2 toes of garlic (I used garlic paste thats rdy to use)
• 4 beef bouillon blocks (make sure its for 2 liter bouillon)
• 40 grams margarine (butter)
• 40 grams flour (all purpose)
• 2 liter water
• 3/4 teaspoon curry powder
• 150 gram grounded beef)
• 1 thin leek
• parsley hacked in small pieces for finishing touch.
• salt and pepper

Clean the carrots and cut them in  big slices. Peel the onion and cut it in tiny pieces. peel the garlic and  use a garlic press to make 2  toes into paste.

Use a BIG soup pan thats large enough for  all ingredients to fit when the soup is finished.  Put in the pan: 2 liter water, the carrot slices, the cut onion, the pressed garlic and the bouillon blocks. Bring it to boiling and let it boil for 15 minutes.

Take a large bowl (or 2) and a sieve and pour the soup  thru the sieve into the bowl(s) so u have a clear bouillon left over. The carrot and onion and garlic that u catched in the sieve you going to have to mash completely (I used my kitchen machine with blades for this) U can put all the bouillon back together in the big pan and keep the mashed carrotmix seperated for now.

In another pan you melt the butter and stir the flour through it when its melted. Then little by little you add some bouillon as you keep stirring till you have a lightly bound soup.  Add this lightly bound soup back with the rest of the bouillon int the large pan and add the mashed carrotmix aswell. Now its time to test the taste of your soup first time. add a lil bit of the currypowder and try again.. then add  a little more if neccesary and some salt and pepper just the way you like it.

From the ground beef you gonna have to make tiny lil balls. Bring your soup back to boiling and add the lil meatballs. let that boil for about 10 minutes. In  that time  you can cut the leek into  small/thin slices (rings) and let those boil aswell for 5 minutes in the soup. (If you want to freeze in the soup then seperate what you going to use right away and add the leek to that so the part you going to freeze dont have the leek. You will have to add that when you going to use the soup.) Last but not least, when serving the soup sprinkle a little bit of the  hacked parsley after pouring the soup into bowls/plates.

Make sure the soup has cooled down before you freeze it. enjoy 🙂

Ok so a few times when I was too busy to hang up the laundry right away and I did it the next morning.. my laundry kinda had a bad smell on it… I couldn’t define what it was and I clean the rubber band that’s on the inside where it opens a lot of dirt came from it actually o.o wow little did I know that dirt gets stuck into the washing machine. Didn’t think much of it and  happily put in another laundry. When I was gonna hang it up (I have no space for a dryer rly in this tiny mini apartment) I noticed lil gray dirt stuffs in my clean white laundry o.o. Ok that got me worried. I started thinking and did a google search…

Little did I know you have to clean your washingmachine every so often simply by running it empty on the highest temperature with some dishwasher cleaner in it. I also read that bleach and vinegar for cleansing are helpful. the vinegar is for the chalk actually. I personally don’t like using the bleach and vinegar because of the smell and I really don’t want to run my washing machine empty 2 times. Its a waste of money and the environment has a hard time enough as it is already. So right now my washing machine is running empty on the highest temperature… o.o;. I hope this tip will help someone else as well.