the view from here

Just a few random photos from the last week or so....

Slade received his Bobcat tonight. I got my first pin.

typical Monday morning laundry overflow

I'm on an organization/cleaning kick.

I'm also on a home decorating kick. This is my new family room rug. Pretty, ain't it?

Love it when I catch them playing well together.

Emma performed in her vocal recital last Saturday. We were a few minutes late and missed her opening solo. I felt like the world's lamest parent.

Slade is still convinced he can't read but we keep requiring him to read everyday.

Hopefully he'll love it one day.

Anne seems to be bursting with personality lately. She just cracks us up all day long.

if you fail to plan

This morning I planned ahead. I knew I had to take Slade to his Grandma's after gymnastics so I packed a lunch and decided I would also take the other kids to the park after we went to the library. That is just what I did (although we chose not to go to the library). The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed our simple picnic at the park.

Tomorrow is Slade's birthday party. I have been thinking about this for weeks. Thinking about but not planning. Not preparing. Consequently, I ended up going to the grocery store at 10 p.m. tonight. I will also have much to do in the morning. Much of this could have been avoided if I had started earlier and planned ahead.

Plan and be early. If I would actually do that, I would save myself a lot of time and frustration. I haven't been getting up on time in the morning so I am missing out on my planning sessions. Again I think about the things I should get done during the day but often forget what I wanted to do or simply do it in a inefficient way. Can you imagine the kinds of things I could accomplish if I planned a little better!?

Anyhow, this is what I've been thinking about tonight. Thoughts?

organizational bliss

I love organization. I love to read about it, figure out ways to do it, and thoroughly enjoy my house being organized. This weekend I felt that inner twitch that says its time to organize something.

I emptied most of the upstairs linen closet and moved the towels, air beds and such into an empty closet in the downstairs bathroom. Then I moved all the games which were in a closet in the playroom into the linen closet and put all our homeschooling stuff into that closet.

I added a bit of sunshine to finish it all. Remember this picture?

Well, I took that as my inspiration and cut lots of circles out of patterned paper and cardstock and put them on the wall. I think it turned out really cute and it makes me happy.

The best part of the day was when Slade came down and exclaimed, "Mom, you made it beautiful! You are so good at making things beautiful!" Aaaww.