I love my kids and I love spending time with them. In fact, these last few days of having them home have been marvelous! I love the slower pace of our mornings without school and seeing the kids dive into creative play.
Last week’s snowstorm/ice storm/ five days of canceled were hard not because the kids were home…they were hard because:
It started with a day without electricity (always challenging in a large family).
Then ice storms (remember this?). When the weather is that cold it is hard to keep our large house warm, even with two woodstoves going day and night.
We couldn’t leave our driveway…even walking out to our freezer to get my Jenny Craig meals was a real challenge. Trying to take Frodo out without breaking a limb was extremely difficult.
My husband was out of work all week (no paycheck for us) and for several days it was too dangerous to let the kids play outside. We live in the woods and had large branches (and small trees) falling from the weight of the ice.
The weather was the issue. Not having my kids home.
But it has warmed up, every flake of snow has melted, the danger has passed and we are now enjoying our mini vacation!
I always chuckle when someone comments about our massive LEGO collection…because what I show in my organization posts are just our family LEGO collection…not the LEGO that belongs to our individual children.
Mordecai builds incredibly detailed creations with his LEGO. I love how he prioritized music in his house. Do you recognize the LEGO table we built him? It hasn’t been bare a single day since we gave it to him for his birthday.
With the weather and the house warmer, we have been able to leave the house occasionally, spread butter on our toast and have friends over. It’s been a blast.
And hey, I have some great new organizing tips for you!
Step 1:
Get so completely fed up with the condition of your house, the amount of laundry and clutter that you tell your husband you are ready to sell everything you own and move into an RV. Or a tent. Or a cardboard box.
Step 2:
Wait until the next morning and share your frustration new plan with the children. Let them know you no longer plan to spend their school hours walking around the house cleaning up piles of random stuff that has been left out.
Step 3:
Remind them that you packed away every single toy they owned years before Allie made it popular on the internet.*
Step 4:
Give them a detailed list of chores (make bed, pick up books, straighten shelves, ect) and end with walk through every room of the hosue and clean up your personal items.
*It turns out Step 3 is a pretty big motivator
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Once the room is clean, the kids will not be able to resist playing in it. I promise.
Clean room = Kids playing happily.
Works every time.
Yesterday we managed a trip to Walmart where Apollo had to make an excruciating decision….what set to buy for his buddy’s birthday…and what set to buy with the money he has saved up from losing teeth and cleaning up dog poop.
The possibilities were endless…unfortunately, the money was not endless so hard choices had to be made…
Apollo finally settled on the Catwoman Catcycle Chase (aff)…because it was in his price range and had Robin with the cute goggles <— that’s what he really wanted…the Robin minifigure. And he just informed me that he got “an awesome motorcycle” in the set too. Just so you know.
Finally, my friends, our regular PNW winter has returned in all of its splendor. We are once again surrounded by green grass and raindrops.
Let the fun begin.
