hey guys it’s finally time in our
household get ready for some extreme cleaning motivation and some decorating ideas for
christmas come decorate with me for christmas 2021 it’s going down i feel like i might be the last person on earth
that is finally decorating but you know what to be honest with you i just haven’t been in the
mood to decorate for christmas so i’ve held off and i i’ll admit it’s time and
i’m i am excited and i’m ready um but you’re gonna see me clean my whole house
all three floors throughout my house cleaning i think three days maybe three or four days i’m
gonna be cleaning up some everyday messes that we deal with but just getting my house ready for the
holiday season ultimately this was night one and it was just one of those nights our house was
a disaster as you can see and i wanted to clean everything up before decorating the neck next
day i kind of wanted like a clean slate before i decorated so this will be filmed over at least
a couple of days and i’m also going to be sharing with you two of our favorite christmas morning
recipes so i hope this video gives you all of the the holiday motivation all of the
holiday feels that you’re looking for so i want to introduce myself in case you’re new
i’m jamie which i’m sure that’s pretty obvious i have three daughters twin two and a half
year olds at named addison and emory and then a six and a half year old named avery i’m
married to mike he is a financial analyst and we have been together for a really long time um
we’re high school sweethearts and we are truly partners in our life just trying to juggle
the craziness of life with three young kids either way i’m glad you’re here no matter if
you’ve been around for a while if you’re brand new i’m just glad that you’re a part of the jamie’s
journey community i want to be that friend for you i want to be that person that grabs your
hand and walks along with you as we’re cleaning or organizing at our homes you know sometimes we
just need that person you know to to go through stuff with each other so i hope i can be that
person for you we’re in this together i’m here for you and i always like to say you guys are
stronger than you realize i think sometimes we need to we need someone to tell us that so here
on my channel as you’re gonna see decorating is not really my forte it’s not my thing i kind of
keep things pretty simple but that’s what you’re gonna find here i always like to decorate
but i like to keep things pretty simple my like i kind of touched on earlier um if you’re new
i don’t love to decorate if you’ve been around for a while you know that um it’s kind of stressful
it takes a lot of energy out for me so typically what i do with my decorations is once i get it
to the way i love it and i like i really love it i just keep it like that like my fall decorations
i didn’t really buy any new fall decorations this year because i think it was last year i finally
got all of my decorations the way i like i just loved it and like i just i don’t i don’t like
buying a lot of new stuff every single year so honestly i didn’t buy any new decor christmas
decorations this year what you’re seeing here is all from last year some of it is still available
and i’ll talk about where i got everything but a lot of it is is not from well none of it’s from
this year so i like to keep things pretty simple i don’t want to spend a lot of money on decorations
because i know we will be in a new house next year so i don’t want to spend the money and i’m not
going to force anything just because like there are some places i know need some new decorations
or maybe something doesn’t work in that space but i’m not gonna force it i went shopping
and i didn’t find nothing spoke to me and so i’m just not gonna force
it so i hope you enjoy the simple decorations that i have and it
works perfect for our family and let’s remember it’s about the
things we share let’s come together so you guys might be like jamie didn’t you just
clean your living room carpets and i did but i did not clean this area this little front room area
we call it the front room i did not clean this because um well i’m cleaning it because this is
where our christmas tree will go so that’s why i was cleaning it tonight um but when i cleaned
my carpet in my living room so when we had our old couch we had a love seat and a couch and it
was just those two pieces and i was able to take all of the furniture and toys from both rooms and
put it on the hardwood floor and i would clean all of the carpet but with our sectional it’s a lot
bigger and then now we have the coffee table and that console table against the wall and there’s
just too much stuff that we cannot fit all on the hardwood and be able to walk back and forth and
like get into the kitchen and go up the stairs so now i have to break it up unfortunately so
i honestly the last two times i’ve cleaned the carpet in the living room which i did it maybe
a month ago and the last time i did it i think was in may or june and then before then it was
like the beginning or like last year so i know it seems like i clean my carpets a lot more but
i’ve only done it twice and i didn’t click either time i didn’t clean this front room so i wanted to
get that done before we put up our christmas tree it’s all around us christmas has found us and then when i’m done with this we are
moving on to day two and avery and i are going to decorate together the house
together mike actually took the little girls the twins down to the basement
to play and kind of get out of our hair so avery and i could just have fun spend time
together and decorate she really was excited to decorate and wanted to help me decorate so i was
excited to spend one in one quality time with her ready to decorate yeah yes every time the snow is falling down and it
is cold outside we gather around the fireplace and no one cares about
yesterday my favorite holiday to be 100 honest with you guys um i was
not feeling it this day um as far as decorating like i didn’t i had not planned on
decorating i guess that’s what i should say so i filmed this right before thanksgiving we wanted
to leave the fall decorations up as long as we could before thanksgiving but then i wanted things
decorated because we had a really busy weekend the weekend i mean thanksgiving’s always busy
right and then the weekend after we had three get-togethers like three party slash get-togethers
and so i wanted it done right before thanksgiving and i just had because we had those three
get-togethers and thanksgiving we had a lot on our plate and i was just this was a day i
was not going to decorate and i was not in the mood at all like i was just like maybe feeling
a little overwhelmed i felt like i had a lot that i needed to do and i was like all right we
need to do something fun i just wanted to stop like feeling overwhelmed so i said okay avery
let’s decorate tonight because like we had no other plans and so i blasted some christmas
music we were dancing mike took the twins so avery and i could just have fun and relax and
just decorate and it definitely improved my mood i got these stockings from target and like i said
almost all of this stuff is from last year so the stockings were from target the stocking name
tags were from etsy the garland the light up flocked garland was from target the reindeer was
from hobby lobby a couple of years ago and then the trees were from home goods all of the stuff
that was on the mantel and then the tis the season to be jolly sign i got that from kirkland’s last
year but it i went in there the other day and it’s still there but that’s pretty much it i also have
a wreath you’ll see me put on our basement door i got that from target last year some of this
stuff may still be available but like i said because i got it like at least last year or years
before um i’m not really sure so i apologize for that but avery and i ended up we ended up
going shopping after this we just walked around like hobby lobby kirklands and target and i try
to find like a small like a few small pieces i didn’t want to spend a lot of money on decorations
i tried to find a few small pieces because there were some areas that i wasn’t like 100 happy with
but nothing stood out to me like nothing called me out of all three of those stores and like i said
earlier i’m not gonna force something if some if like an area in my kitchen on my countertop isn’t
perfect i’m not gonna stress about it because i mean it’s my home you know like i’m not gonna
stress about it i’m not gonna waste my money and it’s just christmas it’s not like it’s
you know it’s just for about a month so um yeah so sorry if you like
something and you can’t get it um and maybe next year i can find
some new decorations and fill in those holes memories i live my house with christmas lights so you
should come back home to me and when we wake up in the morning i’m gonna play those
carols that you love we’ll be singing so i was wiping things down with the mrs meyer’s
peppermint spray which i love the peppermint i also love it’s in a blue one winner i forget
what it’s called it’s the mrs meyers and it’s uh i i’m like blanking on what it’s called but
it’s the blue um bottle that and the peppernet peppermint are my favorite now the mrs meyers
multi-surface spray like i’m gonna use it on my blinds i use it on my countertops it does
leave streaks on my count my granite countertops but the only way you’re gonna see the streaks is
if you like get down to eye level and really look and i mean who’s doing that so it’s all about
my like how i’m feeling that day like my mood do i want something with a strong scent like
mrs meyers which picks up puts off a you know a pretty strong scent which i wanted
tonight other times i’m like i don’t even care about a scent like i want my my um my
countertop sparkling clean so i just switch up my cleaners based on like my mood how i’m feeling
how dirty my countertops all of that but this it does a good job of cleaning it just
leaves streaks at least on my countertops is something that i’ve been thinking a lot about
you know when christmas rolls around you start thinking of traditions and how like
my family did things one way mike’s family did things a different way and you’re like
trying to combine all of them so for example growing up we had three presents from santa
and then the rest were from mom and dad growing up for mike um all of their presents were
from santa he didn’t get any from mom and dad and then um all of his presents were wrapped
and for us all of the presents from santa were not wrapped because they’re made in the the
workshop and so he doesn’t wrap them and so i just think it’s interesting how do families do
things differently so let me know like where do you stand as far as like presents are they like
a mix from mom and dad or is it all from santa are they wrapped are they not wrapped yeah
let me know i’m just i’m really curious hey did you pick out the decorations what decorations did you pick out this is mommy’s it says jamie 1989 three and a half years
so i was a little bit younger than sissies who is this so this is mommy who is it now because avery’s a volleyball player tomorrow it is christmas the first for you and avery was so excited to decorate her little
pink tree we got this for her last year she was using all of the ornaments um that
like our parents gave us from when i was little like i was a volleyball player so like
there’s a volleyball player and she wanted to use all of those like um ornaments
that have memories attached to them and i actually might i don’t hold me to this it
might be in here i don’t know i’m filming this the day before thanksgiving and we actually do not
decorate our christmas tree until the night of thanksgiving but like i said earlier we have a
really really busy weekend um coming up and so we are going to decorate the tree on
thanksgiving night because that’s kind of our our tradition and it’s something i want to stick
to and i don’t want to alter it just because i’m decorating the rest of my house so in years past
you know we have thanksgiving on thursday which is a big busy day and then black friday is always
like relaxing and shopping online for christmas and then saturday is always a big day because we
are big ohio state buckeye fans and their biggest rival the biggest game of the year um we play
michigan and so like there’s a big rivalry every year we go to a party with our kids like a lot of
friends and their kids are there and stuff so like that game’s at noon and we’re pretty much
there all day so usually thursday’s a big long day with family and then saturday big long
day with you know um friends and so friday is kind of nice to have like that buffer of like that
relaxation day and stuff in between so in years past we used to decorate thanksgiving night and
then all day on uh the friday after thanksgiving now i am way too tired to have thanksgiving
festivities all day and thursday decorate all day on friday and then you know be at like another
party on saturday like that’s too much for me these days so i think last year i decorated early
like mid-november and it really wasn’t for me it was it was too early for me personally that’s
my personal opinion uh i just i don’t like my christmas decorations up for much more than a
month so i was decorating on a few days before thanksgiving and then thanksgiving night because
i wanted to hold on to that tradition with our family i might put up the camera i’m not really
gonna like film too much of it but it’s nice because i was actually going back and looking
at some of my old videos my christmas clean and decorate videos and like the clips of the the
girls oh my gosh like i’m so glad that i have some clips of them decorating the tree so if i think
about it depending on like how we’re feeling i plan to put in some clips of our tree if not
then you’ll get to see the tree in my next video is so i hadn’t planned on cleaning the basement
it really wasn’t even that messy but i told you guys that i really was not in a good mood at
all this day but once avery and i got moving it’s kind of like working out um and this had nothing
to do with cleaning i just wasn’t in a good mood but like you know with working out it’s like
you don’t want to do it you don’t want to do it you get dressed you don’t want to do it and
then once you get going you start feeling good um and then the more you do it you’re like yeah
this feels really good and that’s kind of how i was feeling like once we decorated it just
felt good i don’t know if it was the cleaning part it was the decorating part it was probably
a combination and just avery and i having fun my mood was like lifted and i wanted to keep
going and i was just like hey i guess i’m in this like this mode i might as well
go down and clean the basement okay so i know you guys are gonna be like how
do you get your roomba the irobot roomba robotic vacuum how do you get it to do that go in lines
i don’t do anything i’ve never done anything it’s just what it does it’s a great vacuum for
carpet highly recommend this one specifically for carpet i think it’s the roomba
960 but it’s linked in the description i also have these two recipes that i’m making i
will have them both linked in the description but every christmas morning we do cinnamon rolls so
i’ll either just make cinnamon rolls or a cinnamon roll castle casserole i feel like that’s anyways
a cinnamon roll casserole that sounds funny and then a breakfast casserole so growing
up my mom always actually did both and mike’s family always did cinnamon rolls so
it’s kind of like combining our family traditions and the breakfast casserole i’ve never made this
specific recipe usually it’s i make i basically make the same thing but i use bread instead
instead of biscuits but i thought the biscuits was like a fun change so i wanted to give it a try um
so it’s just like biscuits sausage cheese and then egg you can obviously add onions or peppers or
something like that or bacon ham but mike is super picky so we keep it pretty simple around here but
like i said i’ll have the recipes linked below as far as um the cinnamon roll casserole this one
was really really good and both of these take five minutes to assemble so you could totally do it the
morning of and then you just pop it in the oven you know i’ve never been that person i hear a
lot of people who love to cook they’re like i love cooking and giving it to someone and having
them love it and like you you get satisfaction knowing that you’re making something that
someone loves for me that does not give me satisfaction because i hate to cook like making
something that like even my kids if they love something like it’s great and i guess it makes
me want to make it again but i don’t get a ton of satisfaction from that except on christmas
morning because it’s such a special morning i enjoy making these breakfasts different
breakfast casseroles for my kids for mike because he loves them and it’s always like i said it’s
also a way to kind of tie in our family traditions oh and for the breakfast one it called
for pre-cooked sausage i could not find pre-cooked sausage they were all out of it
at my grocery store so i just got regular sausage i had cooked it up ahead of time so
if you can’t find fine pre-cooked sausage which would make it even easier you could
always cook up your sausage sausage a day or two before and keep it in the freezer or in the
fridge that way it’s super easy to literally throw feel it together the air that every
child got their hearts filled up with joy yes it’s christmas all around oh snow is falling down so it is another day of cleaning
i told you it was going to take me a long time to clean my entire house
it’s just never done in one day anymore so here i was tackling the upstairs our bedroom
the girls bedroom avery’s bedroom um in a bathroom and oh the laundry room i forgot about that but
pretty much the whole upstairs and i will tell you day three or what you’re seeing here was actually
filmed before we decorated and the reason for that was i wanted i had the time so this was on a
monday avery was at school and i wanted her room to be clean before we put up her tree and so i had
the time to clean up stairs the twins were also at school for a few hours so it gave me like
i just had the chance to do it so i did this ahead of time so just throwing that out there
because you’ll see me clean her room and there’s obviously not the tree in there but then if you
go back and you look at her decorating her tree her room was already messy again which is just you
know it’s it’s it’s how my life is i clean there’s messes constantly and i don’t i feel like avery’s
room does drive me crazy i feel like it’s so messy and i just decluttered a lot of her toys she
honestly does not have a lot of toys in here it’s basically just barbies and some art stuff
but when i watch other cleaning videos and i see their kids rooms i’m like why like it almost
looks like the rooms don’t have anything in them and i’m saying this from a perspective of like i
want avery’s room to look like that like sometimes i watch these the cleaning videos of these kids
rooms and i’m like it’s like a bed and a dresser i’m like where are the toys we’re all the little
junky toys i don’t know like no matter how much i declutter avery’s room and i am ruthless
when i go in there i get rid of so much but i feel like her room always looks messy to me
and it drives me crazy um i mean it just drives me crazy in general and then she’s always just
like hanging stuff up in like random places but it’s her room and she’s a kid and i want her to
have the room that she wants but then i just it’s when i see other cleaning videos sometimes i’m
like do their kids not just like draw and then tape the pictures all over the wall like she
hangs the most random stuff on the wall and i mean it makes me laugh and it’s cute and i mean
obviously i let her do it because it’s her room but when i see other cleaning videos i’m like man
i feel like my kids rooms look so bad um compared to a lot of the kids rooms that i see on youtube
keep each other warm while we stand and watch a choir performing all the christmas songs that
we love get all the christmas songs that we love and then while we’re gonna go inside and drink
our chocolate by the fire cause all i want is to spend this day with you let me give you look i was
wiping down the cr the twins crib with cribs with hydrogen peroxide if you’re curious um so i just
got a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and then i got a spray bottle sprayer from like a just a spray
bottle that i have and i put that on the hydrogen peroxide bottle and the reason why i did this is
because well everyone has been sick i’ve been sick um the twins have been sick and they have snotty
runny noses uh you know how that goes so i like to make for sure i’m wiping down their crib a
lot when there’s especially when they’re sick and i don’t mean they put their hands all over
their cribs they put their hands in their mouth and all of that so i don’t like i don’t want to
wipe it down with like clorox but i like using hydrogen peroxide because it can kill germs but
then it is also something that is safe to consume um so that’s why i was using it and if you were
curious earlier i had turned on something in my room it was a air purifier so i have been meaning
to get one of these because i’ve been so sick and it’s allergies and cold and i just like we need
cleaner air yes we clean out our air filters we do all of that but i was like oh i need an air
filter and i just are a purifier i just have not prioritized it and then finally someone one
of you guys mentioned it and i was like yes i have been meaning to get one so i finally
stopped okay let’s take the time jamie once she said that i was like yes i’ve been meaning to
get one so i went on to walmart or amazon i forget and i finally ordered one um who knows if
it makes a difference but it helps clean and purify the air which definitely cannot hurt with
all with all of the allergies that we’ve been any experiencing as long as i spend this day with you i’m
so beautiful kissing on a mistletoes baby in case you’re wondering i was wiping down the
vanity with my diy cleaner which is one part rubbing alcohol one part water and then i bought
it um and then about a fingernail size of dawn dish soap one part sometimes that confuses you
guys like when i say one part and it’s because bottle sizes are different um so it’s you know
the same amount of water put in the same amount of hydro or isopropyl alcohol or rubbing alcohol
honestly the ratio is not super important like if you don’t get it exact it’s not a big deal i just
eyeball it to be honest with you the only one you have to be careful with is the dawn dish soap
if you put too much if you’re when you spray it it’s going to get really soapy so that’s why i say
like a fingernail size because you want it small uh but it’s kind of hard to
measure out just don’t put too much okay so i was able to add in the footage
from thanksgiving night when we got together decorating our tree and it kind of makes me laugh
i’m sure a lot of you guys can relate but you know you watch this clip and it’s not like a super
long clip of us decorating but you’re gonna watch it and you’re like oh beautiful memories
it looks really nice when it’s a you know you’re seeing this family decorating a christmas tree
as christmas music is playing it just looks so wonderful but if only you could be there in
person to be 100 transparent it was a mess we decorated on the night of thanksgiving it
was the first time that the twins did not have a nap because we were at my grandma’s and the
time we had to eat it just did not work out so we’re like two and a half you know they’re
able to skip a nap so we skipped their nap and you guys they were an absolute mess an
absolute wreck when we got home we started decorating the tree there was so many tears like
so many tears mike is a huge buffalo bills fan so he is dressed in his buffalo bills gear which they
played the night of thanksgiving so if you’re from buffalo you’ll see his pants and you’re like
yeah totally understand those pants like i guess they’re pretty popular in buffalo but the kids
were a mess like literally all three kids too much fun not enough sleep there was a lot of tears and
then the top of the tree did not light up and mike could not find like the missing light or whatever
it’s a pre-lit tree so needless to say you get a little clip but it was a mess behind the scenes
but you know what it was it’s all good we’re gonna try to get some lights to string around the tree
um but yeah i just want to throw that out there because like when i added in the clip i’m like oh
you could not hear the screaming the crying the fighting the tears but you know what that’s the
holidays sometimes with young kids there’s a lot of highs and then there’s a lot of lows because
everyone is over stimulated overwhelmed and sugar high and not enough sleep so either way
that’s our christmas i hope you guys enjoyed this say merry christmas maybe
can you say merry christmas say happy new year happy new and year why i wanna
