13 on Thursday

1. I'm ready for the play "Annie Get Your Gun" to be done, so that I can have my husband back. It gets pretty boring around here from 8pm to 11pm! On the plus side though, I've been blogging more!

 

2. The cleaning schedule is going kind of well, but I'm sitting here now staring at a messy livingroom and kitchen that I have no desire to clean, and THAT"S OKAY!! Breaks are good.

3. I had the last Positive Parenting class tonight at the Parent Link Centre. It was good. I have always hated "time-outs", until this class. I still only use them if someone hits though. I guess I'm still not completely sold on the idea.

4. Sam is teething....at least I think he is. He's had a slight fever and is a little more fussy.

5. I've been shedding like crazy! Every time I shower, I swear I lose 5000 hairs. So gross.

6. I need a haircut. I'm thinking of something like this, but I would need to learn how to do my hair like that first. Hmmm.

or maybe this one that my sister might do too

7. I had a conference call with Makia Creations. I'm a craft group leader - I've only had one craft night though, and it was with my 3 SILs. They are changing things up a bit, so I need to reconfigure things.....not that things were very configured yet.....Anyway, if you want to join my craft group or want to start your own in your home let me know! I can hook you up.

8. I am loving the warmth. Sure it's still only about 8-10 C, but the kids can play outside! They ride their bikes up and down our street as much as possible. I only caught them throwing rocks at a trailer parked on the street once.....yikes.

9. I am loving pinterest. You can see my board here. It's kind of fun to find other people and see what their favorite things on the web are. It's a great time-waster. Right up there with stumbleupon.

10. I'm finally getting the basement somewhat organized. Only one room left to go through.....kind of. I just keep moving messes from one room to the other.....at least the craft room is pretty much done! Yes, I have a craft room!!......maybe I'll do some crafts one day. I think Hadley is more excited about it than me. She asks to do a craft daily....or maybe hourly. Here's one that she got the idea from an episode of "Cake" that's on Netflix.

11. Hadley is singing in the Festival next week. I am excited for her. She loves performing.....definitely didn't get that from me!

12. I started wearing earrings again about a week ago, but after a couple days I remembered why I stopped. My ears are super sensitive and like to gunkify (get crusty and pussy). Pretty gross. Hopefully it's just because the earrings I had weren't sterling silver....I thought they were though, so we'll see. I ordered some cute ones here, hopefully my ears like them.

13. Sam does this a lot. He plays with his hair with one hand and sucks on the other. And he's got a LOT of hair to play with. Is it bad to give a 5 month old a haircut??

THE END

realistic cleaning

I finally came to a realization today.

I am a list-maker (no, that's not the realization I made...). I make lists all the time. They help me organize my scattered brain, and help me feel like some sort of progress is being made. They keep me sane.

A clean and organized house keeps me sane too. Unfortunately, as hard as I try (ok, maybe I don't try THAT hard), and as many lists as I make, this house just does not stay clean. I'm starting to accept that.

When I was a kid, I remember that our house wasn't always clean. I didn't care. My room was a mess. I would just shove all my clothes and junk in my closet and close the door. I remember doing Saturday chores, and our house was always cleaned up for Sunday, but during the week, we were allowed to make messes. My mom would let us create things, play freely, and even make cookies on our own. My cousin's mom wasn't the same. Her house was very tidy and we were not allowed to open the fridge. I always thought that was weird.

Anyway, I guess after thinking about this recently, I have realized that I need and want to be more like my mom was. I want our kids to feel like they can make messes without me getting mad. I want them to create and learn and have fun in our home. Messes can always be cleaned up.

A few weeks ago, my mom showed me a little cleaning schedule that my Grandma made and used. I tried to implement it. It didn't work. I guess with 4 little kids, there is little extra time in the day for "cleaning".

This is where my realization came in. Instead of making unobtainable lists and charts of how to keep our house clean and organized, maybe I should make a REALISTIC one that I might actually be successful at. Or I could just scrap the whole idea of making a cleaning list and just clean something when it needs it. Ha. No. That makes me antsy just thinking about it.

So, here is my "realistic cleaning" list (don't judge):

Daily: * kitchen & livingroom tidy at end of day
           * 10 min. tidy with the kids before bed
           * 1 load of laundry

Monday: * tidy office
                * sweep kitchen

Tuesday: * main bathroom sink & toilet
                * 1st & 3rd week clean all bathrooms thoroughly

Wednesday: * tidy craft room
                     * sweep kitchen
                     * 2nd & 4th week mop kitchen

Thursday: * tidy exercise room

Friday: * tidy laundry room
             * all laundry put away
             * sweep kitchen

Saturday: * tidy bedrooms
                 * vacuum living room and hall
                 * vacuum tv room and down hall
                 * 1st & 3rd week vacuum all rooms

So, that's that. I'm hoping that this will ease a lot of stress off of me. I won't be feeling like I should be doing something else all the time.

Do you have a cleaning routine? I'm curious how others do it.....

Caught one!

Hadley was supposed to make a Leprechaun trap to show at school, so I helped her make hers. She came up with the idea. It's just a box wrapped in paper with rainbow coloured steps leading inside where a thread is attached to some "gold". When the Leprechaun pulls on the gold, the lid comes down and traps him inside.
Well, I guess Hadley's a great engineer, because she trapped one. Too bad Leprechauns these days have cell phones, cause he called the Boss Leprechaun to come get him out.
The Leprechaun (let's call him John) got some gold nuggets from the gas station last night on his way home from play practice, and then made muddy footprints in our dining room. What a trickster...

march

We love our new (to us) house. The kids are loving the space. And I'm loving that the kids can play downstairs and mostly keep the major messes contained therein. Our house is not big by any means, but it is at least twice as big as the last one we were in.

John had surgery on his shoulder last week. Because both my mom and John's parent's weren't around (too busy taking care of other grandkids), and I didn't feel like getting anyone to babysit kids for us at 5 in the morning, we ALL went up to Calgary for the event. It was actually a very enjoyable day.

We dropped of John then headed to IKEA for their $1 breakfast. Then I attempted to drop of the 3 oldest at Smaland (the play place there), but Brian was 1/2" too short. So dumb. Anyway, after lots of tears, the boys and I shopped/played on furniture while Hadley played at Smaland. We had been there long enough that it was about lunchtime when we were done, so we had their $.50 hot dogs and $1 icecream. Man I love IKEA. I got a lot of "boy, you have your arms full" comments. Gotta love 'em.

After that, we stopped by the Ferrari/Maserati dealership. No, we are not in the market to buy one. I wish. Most of you know of Elijah's obsession with "cool cars". I took them there for him. I am pretty proud of myself. I felt very silly walking in there with 4 kids....but eventually the guy there was nice to us and it turned out ok. I didn't bring my camera...only a phone shot, but I don't have a memory card in my phone, so the picture of the kids by the Ferrari is stuck there.

Next up was Old Navy. I was hoping Sam would stay asleep in his carseat, but he woke up as soon as we got in the store. So I carried him around trying to keep track of 3 other kids who were by this point ready to run around. Soon Sam started crying so I took him out and used the carseat as our shopping bag. I got even more "boy, you have your arms full" comments there......but we survived. I got the call when I was checking out that John was ready to be picked up. Perfect timing.

We picked up John. He was starving as he wasn't allowed to eat or drink at all before surgery, so we stopped at Arby's. We hit the road right at rush hour, so it took a long time getting out of Calgary.

We got home at about 8:00. A long day, but kind of fun....for me and the kids at least.

Surgery went well. It was pretty routine.He is in a lot of pain, but is doing pretty good. His main complaint is how hard it is to put his socks on, but won't take me up on my offer to help him.

Here are some random pictures that have nothing to do with this post. I need to get pictures off my camera....sometime.

 Sunday dance party...

 Stole this idea from a friend - the kids loved it.

Valentine loot...