1st Cmas catalog

Our first christmas catalog of the year arrived this week.

The kids spent well over an hour circling their favorite items and I spent that hour drinking coffee and reading.

Aaahh...

Towel Fashion

Dear daughter,

When I asked you to help your little sister find something to wear, I didn't realize that you would take me seriously. I expected that you would find something in her closet to dress her in. I did not mean for you to have to create your own clothing out of dishtowels and office supplies.

I will attempt to be more precise in my requests from now on.

That being said, she seems to be comfortable in her new outfit. Nice job kid!

Your loving mom,

5,4,3...

Nothing beats a good box.How else would you get to the moon?

Now that we have this nice giant box (courtesy of the dishwasher delivery men), we may just need to have another party devoted to the greatest invention EVER.

2, 1, Lift Off!!!

Scouts

Does this little guy look proud in his new uniform or what?

You should see his daddy's face.

Morning Routine

I love lists. They are full of good intentions and order.

I love my kids too ... but the kids will never be mistaken for being orderly. They are, after all, kids. And second to speaking at ear-drum bursting decibels, they specialize in mess making.

A perfectly organized home isn't realistic, but I am determined to fight for basic cleanliness and functionality. My best weapon is our routine.

Our day can start at any hour, thanks to my husband's work responsibilities, so a strict schedule really doesn't work for us. But a routine is different from a schedule. A routine is a list (ahh, feel the order already?) of things that we do in the same order every day regardless of the time that we start.

The kids each have their own morning routine chart. I make new ones every year and I customize them so that the things that tend fall through the cracks will get caught. For a while we had "turn off your bedroom lights" on the list - pathetic I know, but it saved me from having to remind one particular child that this is mandatory.

Right now the odd-ball assignment on the kids' routines is "pick up hangers." We were somehow getting into the habit of leaving empty hangers strewn all over the bedrooms. Not pretty, so it went on the list. It hasn't solved the problem completely, but I do see progress.

The kids' lists are laminated and have velcro dots so that they can "check" off each task as it is done. Some are static, like "brush your teeth," but other tasks change daily. The "Clean Zone" task is one that works really well for us. When the kids are little I assign which zone they are to focus on in their room every morning. One day it will be cleaning the floor of their closet, and another day they will have to change their sheets.

As the kids get older, they are responsible for telling me what one thing they think they should focus on cleaning in their room each day. (Note: They CAN in fact see what needs to be cleaned. This was an eye opening discovery for me.) I am hoping that eventually this training in seeing what needs to be tidied will pay off in eternally clean rooms ... yeah, I'm dreaming, but it is a nice dream.

Even the 2 year old has her own list. She delights in moving the check marks after she completes each task. Granted, she can't reach her own clothes or squirt her own toothpaste, so she requires help, but she knows exactly what to do every morning.

I love the quote, "Don't expect what you won't inspect."

Oh, so convicting and very true.

So, what am I doing while the kids accomplish their morning routine? I am standing in the hallway folding laundry (A good routine for myself. It keeps it to a manageable heap). I am available to reach high objects, remind dawdlers that they have only x amount of time left, and to ensure that the checked tasks are, in fact, completed. When they are done they stick their chart to my dryer using the magnet I attached to the back.

My goal is to add at least one task to our morning routine every year. At the same time, I also plan to drop something each year too. They do not always need to be reminded to wear underwear. Once it is a habit, it is dropped from the list. Eventually they will be proficient in the obvious, and will be doing that laundry for me, so I will be able to pick up another task to do while supervising them.

When I am diligent at making sure we follow our routine I can feel the change in our home. We are dressed, the upstairs is tidied, and the kids are ready for school.

Not a bad way to start the day.

Flower Girl

Ever since she heard that she would get to be the flower girl for her "uncle's" wedding, my little girl has been practicing with her big sister. She practiced holding a flower with two hands. She practiced walking slowly. She practiced wearing her pretty dress.There was a major hurricane expected on the morning of the wedding, so she even practiced the ceremony both indoors and out.

The thing we didn't practice...

Going all the way down the aisle without an adult.

Oops!

My sweet baby made it about half way, and then realized that the adults weren't following her (the kids were the first ones down the aisle). So, being the smart young lady that she is, she quickly figured something must be wrong and backtracked. Then, she heard her daddy's voice urging her forward so she turned around again, this time headed in the right direction.

Ah well, at least she was cute both coming and going.

I guess I should just be grateful that big sister didn't teach her to stick out her tongue at the photographer.

I fully believe that kids are involved in weddings purely for comic purposes.

Intimidated by Ma Ingalls

We have been reading the Little House series, and I am beginning to seriously develop a complex because of Ma Ingalls.

That woman must have been something else. She not only happily trekked all over the country in a covered wagon, but she was able to keep her family alive throughout the journey. My crew wouldn't be so lucky in that situation. We would be very cold, very grumpy, and very very hungry.

I am not a gardener by any stretch of the imagination.

For years, we happily cultivated weeds and other miscellaneous growing things in an area of the back yard we called our "botanical garden," but really it was just a neglected pile of dirt that was too steep to mow.

I wish I could become a gardener, but truth-be-told, I don't like dirt,

or bugs,

or being too hot,

or tedious labor . . .

which places the whole gardening thing a bit (okay a lot) out of my happiness zone.

Luckily, my husband loves labor and dirt and he has taken the time to not only identify the bounty in our backyard, but to pull it from the trees, separate it from the weeds, and cultivate some wonderful-ness for our family (including self-watering garden beds). The kids seem to be following in his footsteps, and are thrilled to be turned loose every afternoon to pick, eat and enjoy. They love it.

Me? Well,

I'm afraid that if our local grocery store closed, my family would . . . have to drive farther to go to the grocery store. That's the reality of my life. We aren't self sufficient. We aren't even close to it.
But, despite my differences from Ma Ingalls, we are able to grow enough to make these little guys smile.
I guess that's all we need, because I'm not planning on pioneering through the wilderness in a covered wagon any time soon.