In Which I Lose My Mind Just Before Thanksgiving

For some crazy reason, I decided this last week would be the perfect time to deep clean and organize Sweetheart's room. I love her and I am in no way wanting to humiliate her but let me just say: her room was amazing. (In a Hoarders sort of way.)

No, we did  not find any dead animals or grossness of that nature (!) but wow. The problem was not totally hers. A few months ago, when we moved the girls to their own rooms we just sort of said, "where do you want the furniture?" and called it a day. We never really set up PLACES for everything. And she needs that.

So me and my trusty label maker worked overtime and found a spot for each and every category of items. But habits take a long time to cultivate and so mama has to stay on her hard now for the next few weeks months. And I have to--because I don't ever want to spend 2 days of my life like that again.

Little Bit, who LOVES order and is really naturally pretty good at it, wanted her room to be better too. So I had 2 rooms going on for awhile there. It was really coming down to the wire on Wednesday as we were

1. leaving to go out of town Thursday morning.
2. having people over for Bible study that evening.

So...S grabbed some trash bags and stuffed the remaining pile in there and called it a day. Now, we can sort through the bags at our leisure. I doubt much of it will come back out!

For the record, I'm glad that is done and I don't want to do it again. I mean, I KNOW we will have to spring clean sometimes, but mercy.

Next up? Our room. Ug. But the homeschool room, dining room, both girls' rooms, and living room are awesome.

AAAAAAHHHHHH. That's me breathing a sigh of clean-house relief.

And we did enjoy our weekend at my parent's country place. Now it's good to be home.

Other Catching Up Pictures

Here are some other things I failed to blog during my first trimester.

(By the way, I am REALLY anxious to feel baby move! It's been 2 weeks since my last ultrasound and how can I know everything is OK? Hate how long it is between visits!)

We had Physics with Carrie and her kiddos a few times:

 They were packed to move on this day--boxes everywhere!

We attended the symphony with friends.

And started a Keepers at Home club with the same family. Here are the girls with their sashes....the baby HAD to have one so we quick made her one out of fabric scrap. :)

They are working on their "plastic canvas" craft badges. Little one will NOT be left out.

Today we also had a meeting but took no pictures! Sweetheart and I have been organizing her room (she's working on the Organization badge) today and we got NO school done. Sigh. Which means we will have to go one day longer before Christmas break or cram some more work in somehow.

But it was a good day. After our Keepers meeting, we went out to eat for lunch and ran into some friends so we ate/played on the restaurant playground with them and had a good time. And I went to the grocery store so I'm hoping to NOT leave the house tomorrow.

OK. I'm all caught up. (On blogging.) (Not school).

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!!

Weekly Wrap Up--Week 13

Hey! Remember when we used to do weekly wrap ups around here? Me too! Feeling like you missed something in weeks oh...6-12? Well, basically mom napped and the girls played and somehow we got a little school done each day. You didn't miss much!

But last week we were on the ball!

So..I don't have any actual pictures of school taking place, but it did. Trust me. It took a long time each day, or so it seemed since we aren't used to actually doing every subject. Saturday morning we had some school to do because I had taken last Monday off and at 5am Saturday morning I had an epiphany!

An epiphany, I tell you!

See, I've been waking up for 2-3 hours for no good reason every night. THIS particular time, I grabbed my phone off my nightstand and started typing notes so I wouldn't forget all my awesome ideas.

(And I never did get to organizing the kitchen.) (Later, OK?)

First of all, I realized some things about our homeschool room.

1. It's crowded.
2. I won't fit in there much longer.
3. We only use the table for about an hour a day.
4. We stack crap on it the rest of the time.
5. It's hard to vacuum after the birds with the big table in there.

So....out went the table. (Just stored it in the garage--it's a good table!)

And now we have sort of a library. Neat. Clean. Simple.

Uh...did I ever mention that a few months ago we moved the homeschool room back to the little room at the front of the house and the girls have their own rooms now? Hmm. Guess all that happened on my break. So I have no pictures of how crowded it was in there with the bird cage and table and TV cabinet and BOY HAVE I BEEN A SLACK BLOGGER!!!

By the way, we moved the girls to their own rooms shortly after this post and right when I found out I was pregnant.

So....now we have a room to store all our homeschool stuff in (plus the girls have bookshelves in their rooms for school books) and we work at the dining room table, the couch, the living room floor, and at their desks. I like it. I don't feel tied down to sitting in the same chair all day and we are still getting things done. AND our dining room is not junked up.

AHHH. So much better. (I really cannot believe I didn't tell you about the rearranging! Or take any pictures! Man!)

OK, so this is not really a wrap up---more of a catch up.  Here are some pics from last week:

Kids 12 and up are asked to help serve at our homeschool group's Thanksgiving feast. 

Sweetheart was SO proud to be old enough to help with the "teens." 

After lunch, Little Bit colored with some sweet  friends. 

And got to be the 5th little turkey during the Thanksgiving stories for the younger kids.

The Day I Became a Nag

You know sometimes you stay home all day and get school done?

And you know how you and the kids just camp out in the living room with school books scattered all around and maybe someone snacks on the box of Froot Loops during school and leaves them out and you also decide to be industrious and fold a load of clothes in the middle of the floor while your child reads to you?

And you know how the living room looks after several hours of that?

Yeah. Well.

Then suppose you remember you are supposed to take husband's clothes to the cleaners today so you round up the kids and get everyone in the car leaving the living room in it's current state?

Yeah.

And then you know, your house alarm goes off while you are gone but you don't hear the phone call on your cell phone so they call your dad down the street and he and a police officer come to the house and determine no foul play was at hand?

(How they determined that is beyond me because it LOOKED like a ransack, I'm telling 'ya.)

That's so embarrassing, isn't it?

Don't you just hate that?

Sigh. That's it. I'm a hardcore MOM NAG from now on. PUT THAT UP. ARE YOU FINISHED? WELL THEN? DO NOT DARE LEAVE THAT BOOK THERE. ARE THESE YOUR SHOES? WHO LEFT THIS OUT?

Good grief.

When Friday is Not Friday

It's actually Thursday around here. I say that because we are on day 4 of our Sonlight assignment sheets instead of day 5. This, of course, is because I took that teacher workday on Monday.

So....we will be having Saturday school. A first around here that I am NOT looking forward to! But that will make everything even and happy before Thanksgiving so that is a good thing. And I feel sure it won't last very long on Saturday. More than sure, actually.

Our fun, exciting, wondrous plans for the weekend include (school) and organizing the kitchen. The girls were not REAL enthusiastic about that, but what they don't know is that I am willing to pay them. I'll post pictures next week to inspire you.

I love how Sweetheart gets ready in the morning and then goes to her room to start school. She likes getting her independent stuff done and out of the way while I work with Little Bit. She loves having her desk and locker in her room. She independently, and without being reminded now, practices piano. Twelve is a really cool age so far.

And she just asked for a make-up kit for Christmas. This is the child who, in the past, would not comb her hair for a week if she were not made to. Growing up is so funny. By the way, the "make-up kit" had nail polish and lip gloss in it. I am fine with that. :)

But let's not talk about Christmas right now because I don't have one idea or gift purchased or anything thought out at all including where will we put a tree this year(?). Let's concentrate on Thanksgiving for now, OK?

Thanksgiving involves eating. This I can do.