Last week and this week the boys have been at VBS.  It's has been kinda nice with them gone.  I can spend more time with the little ones.  But I don't like having to rush around in the morning making sure they are feed, dressed (in clean clothes that match), and have done their chores.  And then I don't like them finishing their chores after lunch when all they want to do is play.  So, the kinda niceness of them being gone isn't worth sending them away often.  One week was plenty, two weeks is pushing it.  I could never send them to school and do it 10 months. 

With all the things going on around here, we havn't done one second of school.  I wrote up my list of extra chores for them to do, and now I can't find it any where!  We did rearrange the chore charts a bit.  Princess C now has one.  She loves it.  She doesn't always love doing what's on it, but seeing it makes her proud that she's now a big kid.  (Although, if you ask her if she is a big girl, her answer will be, "No!  Me small girl!")  Her chores are:  Empty the dishwasher (low, plastic dishesand silverwear), brush teeth, and put the dirty laundry down the laundry chute.  She will be 3 at the end of August.  3 is when we started paying the boys 50 cents.  Every year after that, they get a 50 cent raise along with more chores.  Here is D's list:  Make bed, bring down dirty clothes, wipe mirror a.m., clean up after breakfast, dog food and water, clean yard, sweep dining room after breakfast, wash, fold and put away own clothes, take garbage out, clean up after lunch, set table, clean up after dinner, wipe mirror pm, bring down dirty clothes pm.  He also has to sweep back porch and down stairs 3x's a week and take the recycling to the curb.  He tends to forget the simple things so we had to write down everything for him.  We also have a list of how he needs to take care of himself:  brush teeth am, cream on am, brush teeth pm, scrub finger nails, shower, cream on pm, brush hair.  He will be turning 9 in a few days, so I need to come up with a new "older" chore for him.  Here is N's list:  brush teeth, make bed, pick up animals and blankets, front porch shoes, back porch shoes, bathroom garbages, fold clothes, sweep kitchen (4x a week), kitchen garbage bag, set table, empty dishwasher, kitchen recycling, brush teeth pm.  And once a week bring in recycling.  He's going to have to inherit some of D's chores because Princess C has been taking over some of his.  His b-day isn't until December, but maybe we will have to make summer the official chore change time since we (supposedly) have more time to train them.  

After many frustrating attempts to get my boys to keep the play area clean, I locked everything up in the closet.  I had gone through the toys many, many times throwing out junk and putting other things in the garage sale. No matter how many times I wittled down the amount of toys, there was still too many and the boys still wouldn't keep it clean.  The main problem was N, who would just keep going from one thing to the next.  I finally stuffed everything into the closet, locked the door and made a schedule.  I have four weeks set up, and each day they get one toy/set of toys  to play with.  For instance, Monday - legos, Tuesday - rescue heros, Wednesday - cars, Thursday - lincoln logs, Friday - toy box, Sat - trains, Sun - balls.  I have enough catagories that I don't have to repeat anthing until the third week.  When I put the boys to bed, I put that day's toy away and take out the next day's toys.  If the toys are not cleaned up, then they do not get a new toy.  That has happened quite a few times.  It really motivates them to clean up.  There is no longer huge messes.  Sure, they still scatter the day's toys all over, but it is only ONE type of toy.  When they have to clean up, there is only ONE place to put the toy away.  No more sticking things where they don't belong.  No more not knowing which toys to put away first.  And if N sticks D with all the clean up (like usual), it's only a small amount.  No more, "I did ALL THAT, and he did ONE thing!"  Ahhh... the great feeling of success....

I promised before and after pictures of my kitchen quite awhile ago now.  Time goes way to fast.  We have not finished the window nor have we gotten outlet and switch plate covers.  Here is the best photo I could find showing our wall before we painted. 

The walls are nasty from the tile that used to be there.  There are holes in the walls from the electrician putting in new outlets.  But this is how we left it for a whole year before we finally got around to painting.  This is what it looks like now. 

Why, you ask, did we wait a year to paint?  Partly because we are lazy, but mostly because of our kitchen remodling fiasco.  After two years of living with this:

(We have the table in there for counter space.) 

we decided to go to Home Depot and get a new kitchen.  I had been living with a dishwasher that rarely got the dishes clean, a sink that was only 3 inches deep, a stove with only two working burners, no counters, and hardly any cabinets.  And after TWO (yes two) months of living without a kitchen - and it was supposed to take 9 DAYS mind you, I was glad to have a kitchen, even if it had nasty walls.  We were sooo done with messes, we just wanted to live again.  Here is our kitchen today:

(blue tape for painting window sill... not blue windows...)

(by the way, sugar is bad for you!  We leave notes on the fridge for one another and mess with them through out the day for fun)

I LOVE MY KITCHEN!

We remodeled our kitchen over a year ago.  Since then, we have been putting off doing something about the walls.  We figured we would get tile for our backsplash, but when we found out that it would cost around $500, we opted for the $20 can of paint instead.  D and N really wanted to help, and me and hubby are the type of people who would rather do things ourselves for less mess and a quicker finish.  But, something strange came over us, and we decided to let them help. 

Here is D:

And N:

The kids were so pleased with themselves.  I told them whenever they walked into the kitchen, they could look at their wall and know that they painted it.  We still have some finishing touches to do, like the edge by the ceiling.. yuck...  And behind the fridge.  We will finish it up today or tomorrow and then I will post before and after pictures. 

My friend over at B* Avenue Boys School posted a hilarious post, so I was motivated to sit down and write mine.

My hubby was off work last week and I had all sorts of projects lined up for him to do.  I wanted to have a garage sale over the weekend, so my main concern was cleaning the basement.  I knew we would get down there and my hubby would ask me what I wanted him to do, so I tried to figure it out ahead of time.  I decided that he could go through all of our games and get rid of ones we would never play, or ones we had multiples of.  Well, in order for him to go through the games, he needed somewhere to put them.  We had white shelves with doors in our pantry area (with the doors off) and so I decided that we would go buy some wire pantry shelving and free up the white shelves for the games.    This is what our back porch looked like:

(I had already started clearing the shelves so those empty shelves were really filled with books.... stuffed, rather.  There were curtains hanging to cover up the shelves, but they were always half on and half off)

We get to home depot to look at shelving.  We didn't go with wire shelves.  We saw the most beautiful closet options there.  We fell in love.  This is what happened:

We tore everything out, drywalled, paneled, painted, and built.  Ok, my hubby did most of the work.  I was kinda busy with the baby who still eats all the time.  But I did paint.  (My hubby wanted you all to know that he was up till 1 a.m. almost every night.  We did things during the day that prevented him from working on it in day light hours).  Today I just finished putting all the things on the shelves.  I struggled trying to fit everything up there because we put in a coat rack. 

My hubby still has to stain the trim and put it up and then it will be complete.  Not what I had in mind, but I'm glad.  And as for the garage sale... maybe next month....

Finally, I am posting my dining room pictures.  I cleaned this room about a month ago.  Here is the before picture:

I forgot to take a complete before picture.  All the clothes that are in the basket, were on the piano keys.  That is my outgrown, out of season clothes storage spot.  It is always filled.  Do these kids ever stop growing?  Anyway, I even pulled the piano out and cleaned behind it!  The piano was put there 5 years ago, and hasn't been moved since.  There weren't dust bunnies, there were dust monsters!  Now, the after pictures:

(yup, my hallway is a mess.... toys, toys, everywhere!  I swear they walk by themselves!)

The other side of my dining room is the school room/office.  That's a whole other story, for a whole other day week. 

I cleaned my hallway and linen closet!  Yippee!  And I must say, thank you Amy for doing the CHCHC, because without it, I might never have found my Saxon math solutions manual!!!!   There were angels singing yesterday!  Well, not angels, and not so angelic, but I was belting out the hallelujah chorus!  Here are the before pictures:

I really don't know why we ended up with two boats in the hallway.  I never meant to put them there, they just were.  One ended up becoming the "dry skin center".  We put all of D's lotions in it.  And some towels....  If you look really close at the photo, behind the book shelf, you can see my solutions manual.  Of course, I am just seeing it now.  I never saw it when I was tearing the house apart looking for it.... How ironic. 

Anyway, here are the after pictures:

(just so you know, this was taken from the opposite doorway than the first picture was taken)

See the shine on the door!!

Notice the change in color?  I started taking everything out of the closet and thought, ya know?  It has been way to long that this closet has been half pink/half paneling.  I got a little carried away, but I am glad.  I also cleaned out the cold air return.  Nasty!  I had to quickly wash all my towels, because I had NONE clean.  I didn't want to put everything away in the closet and find out I had no room for towels! 

I am off to finish my laundry.  Adios!

Last night, as I was lying in bed, I was praying that God would give me a kick in the pants with this CHCHC.  I have been really slacking lately, and I really need to get back on track.  This morning I was wondering around the house aimlessly, wondering what I should do, not feeling like doing anything, when I passed by our calender.  I stopped to read everything that was on it, even though I was pretty sure I knew what was there, I just wanted to waste some more time.  I got to today's date, and saw that my dad and brother were scheduled to come over - in 2 hours.  OH NO!  The house is a mess!  I have no food!  AHHH!!!!  I ran upstairs to wake up my sister - who was still sleeping at 11 a.m.  I got the boys cleaning, and I started making deviled eggs and pasta salad.  I made up a grocery list and sent my sister to the store.  I started cleaning what my boys couldn't.  Then I remember my prayer.  Hmmm.... was this the kick in the pants?  My house didn't get squeeky clean, but it sure did get a good straightening.  Now, tomorrow, I won't be so overwhelmed by all the "stuff" and I can jump back into the CHCHC.  Stairway and hallway.  This includes my linen/medicine/junk closet.  Boy, does that need a good organization.  Hopefully I will be motivated tomorrow.....

Today I finally finished cleaning out the fridge.  I started a few days ago by taking the before pictures:

Pretty gross, huh?  All the shelves looked that way.  The second step was to start eating up the left overs.  We have been eating left overs for lunches, but I also then served them for dinner.  My poor kids are so sick of left overs.  This morning I wasted no time in actually cleaning the fridge.  After all, I had already wasted 3 days.  It took longer than I expected, but boy, I get so happy when I look in there.  And the best part is, the dog can't get in there and shed or put muddy foot prints in there.  Yippee! 

Isn't it beautiful?  Can you see the shine?  Now I can't stay out of the fridge!  Uh, oh!  That's a bad thing!

The CHCHC got put off today.  My hubby was home from work.  He orded three yards of dirt.  We needed to fill in the bricks that I set up, and the garden.  The kids had a blast.  The boys helped shovel the dirt into the "wagon" as my son D calls it. 

Even Princess C helped out. 

Baby B didn't exactly like it out there:

There is still a lot of dirt left.  We are trying to figure where to put it.  I have already been sticking it in odd place around the yard - around my flowers, holes in the ground.....

I am so blank as to what else to type about.  I guess I should start dinner and change stinky C, and feed hungry B anyway..... 

I finished my entrance - front porch - today.  I only did a little yesterday.  I got to the boxes of lights for the outside, and took them outside and put them in.  Then I went to the back yard and did some transplanting.  I forgot to take a before picture of the porch.  Here is the after:

Picture the recycle bins in the middle of the floor, two more stollers, two bags of ice melt, some boxes and bags, a HUGE box - from the car top carrier - blocking the far windows, and some dust and dirt... I think that's about it.  AND I had cleaned it out a couple months ago.  I really got to work on keeping things clean.....  My living room is still relatively clean.... I am trying to keep it clean, but boy is it hard.... 

I have caught the Cleaning Bug.  I went through my daughters room the other day.  I got rid of toys, rearranged, dusted, vaccuumed, and organized.  Here are the results:

I am so proud.

Today, we are working on the master bedroom and dining room (because of furniture rearranging, we have to do two rooms at once).  A couple days ago, I did the frontroom because we got new entertainment center.  WOOHOO!  Clearing out the junk!

Woohoo!  It's Saturday.  No school!  It's a day of organization and tv.  We got a new entertainment center yesterday.  It's one that goes in a corner.  It's smaller than our old one, so I have been emptying out the old one, and trying to figure out where to put all of our movies.  I decided to make a list of all of them and put a code next to them to show us where the movies can be found.  There are movies in the frontroom, bedroom closet, upstairs closet, upstairs sitting room, and basement.  Me thinks we have too much movies....  And the kids rarley watch tv!  Today, however, the tv has been on all day.  I am keeping them out of my hair, so that I can accomplish as much as possible.  Plus, I have so many kid shows taped on the DVR, I am taping them onto VHS to free up some space for the Olympics which we are way behind in watching.  I have been taping Davey and Goliath, Adventures in Odyssey, Bibleman, and Magic School Bus. 

I also had to pack up our multiple game stations.  We have 3DO, Playstation, Nintendo and Sega - all the originals, and all my husbands.  We also have V-Smile.  I left the Playstation and V-Smile because those are pretty much the only ones that get used - sometimes.  I am sick of all this junk all over that never gets touched.  We are such packrats.  I want to get rid of everything (now how do I pass that on to my husband?).  I can't wait to go upstairs and get rid of half of the toys up there.  Kids, hide your stuff!  Momma's gone crazy!  hehe....