Family Time with the Popes: family

What a month! I've gone from, "Wow, this should be fun," to "OMG, are we going to be on 'Hoarders'?"

Now that weeks 1-3 have come and gone, my house has some spots that are truly working well:

Kitchen: The papers cluttering the counters and refrigerator were out of control and we had no real system for keeping them managed. After adopting a filing system that included a calendar, my family is now more organized than ever! We know the day of the week, what is due (and the cost), as well as where the kids need to be and what's for dinner! Whew! :-) That alone makes me happy.

Kids' Things: Not really done, but much more manageable, the "toy room" was a mess and the boys didn't like to play there. What does that mean? All the toys came out into the living room! This wasn't pleasant. So, we put away the toys we wanted to play with, stored some we wanted to keep, and donated [very] few that were not loved. We also got the labeled tubs back on their shelves and my oldest son's artwork up on the walls for his little brother to admire, which he does all day long with "My brother made me this!" :-) I also got binders to house their artwork and writing samples so that there was a real place to put the things that would never make it onto a scrapbook page but needed to be kept. This week's project makes them smile because they can play in the playroom and admire their work in the binders.

Closet, Cabinet, and Drawers: This week's project took a lot of effort on my part only really. It was all my stuff! I like to think that my family makes the messes, but I too had way too much stuff. I culled my clothing by 4 big bags, emptied some drawers to make room for baby, and down-sized my scrapbooking items to almost half (and organized it in a way that got it out of the over-crowded, catch-all office that should be a baby's nursery in a few months and into the room where I actually do my scrapbooking!) What a great idea. This not only benefits my family, but also my good friend's Girl Scout troop that loves to do craft projects. It's a win-win.

Week 4 was supposed to be about the garage. I planned on spending the whole week hanging shelves and cleaning out tons of stuff we don't really want. Instead I think I'll spend the time working in the office, turning it into the baby's new room.

I get so excited thinking about this little boy and I want him to actually have a room of his own. The older boys love sharing a room now, so we are going to wait until this guy is old enough for a twin bed before changing the rooms around. Ry will be in third grade in two more years, and O will be starting kindergarten the same year, so that may be the time... or we may wait until Ry is in forth grade. Either way, a baby's schedule would not be nice to the older boys' sleeping and eventually our oldest should have his own room... When the time comes, we will shuffle again, but for now I want to make the office more comfortable for us to spend time with the littlest. I am so looking forward to this week! :-)

So in this seemingly never-ending pursuit to clean up the house, I've discovered a couple little things that seem to impeded my progress... They are super cute and give great hugs, so I don't want to get rid of them, but today they just had to go outside. Rain or not, please go outside for a while...

Since we'd spent the morning cleaning out the playroom, they both deserved some down time from cleaning. Nap time had come and gone hours ago (without a nap) and neither of them were hungry, so I sent them outside. AS soon as they went out though, the long-awaited rainstorm came! This means only one thing: chalk time! :-)

O went first, as he usually does, and Ry came out a few minutes later. They play so nicely together. Their only concern was the giant fluff-ball who kept erasing their drawings with his wagging tail!