Cleaning the Kids Rooms...Girls addition

( I preface this post with the fact that I can no longer be embarrassed by anything my children do and someday I will show this to my children's future spouses so that they make an informed choice!)
I have been a little frustrated with my kids lately. They are a very independent bunch with a creative streak that will make them amazing inventors or artists. My kids are great, but.....they are messy and disorganized. I know, they had to get that trait from somewhere and I am sure that my own mother is saying I told you so inside my brain right now and I also know that this too shall pass. These are some before pics. My girls have too much stuff. This bedroom is plenty big. Polly Pockets, Littlest Pet Shops, Barbies, Baby Dolls, Build a Bears, Clothes, Art Supplies, Books, Papers, and CD's clutter their room. So for two days...yes two days with a total of 7 hours, I went through everything. At least 6 bags of trash and 2 bags of DI goodies and we have achieved Nirvana.

Before




A list of the creations I just happened to tumble upon is as follows:
1. A sprouting red potato (This one was probably a "ball" that Evan brought up)
2. A small ziploc bag of hard red wheat kernels (what did they want to do? Grow a wheat field in the mess?!)
3. A model of our house complete with paper furniture (Extremely creative, but very messy and lots of pieces)
4. Several homemade necklaces and bracelets (using my beads which were expensive)
5. A molding concoction that I don't want to know what it consisted of (complete with paint brush stuck in the middle)
6. Several sippy cups that were blackened (most were trashed)
7. Board game pieces and fake money ( I don't want any more monopoly games or Shopping Mall games either!)
8. glitter (Brighten is addicted to all things "Bling")
9. A very cute penguin made out of playdoh that was hard as a rock (This was cute and I would have kept it but the beak was broken off.)
10. Luckily, no mice droppings or dirty diapers or molding food...I guess I am doing something right?

After

Faking Spring Cleaning

There is SNOW on the ground outside my door. I am not a happy camper. Portland gets snow once a year for one day and that is it! Did I wake up in Portland Maine in December and this is all just a bad dream? The ice and frigid temperatures are starting to where me thin. Can you tell? Really, I am in a good mood, or have been until the snow. So yesterday, I was trying to motivate myself into doing some organization. I really am good at it although I don't let on. I can develop and implement amazing systems. They rock, but my follow through is lousy. There has to be some kind of incentive. So in my quest of an incentive, I decided to tackle the Laundry Room. You couldn't see the counter. It was filled with clothes that were too small or tools or old papers from school. The pile raneth over....but what is a girl to do? Who likes the laundry room? Not me. Well I decided that a little glue and paper might just inspire me to get a move on and sure enough...it did! I am a Martha Stewart wanna be am I not? Well to make a long story short, every cupboard was gone through, counter cleaned, baby in sink playing with water most of the time, brooms and mops hung up on walls, decor made for free, laundry washed and dried, curtains hand dyed from stained vintage runner from Grandma Laing, made a cleaning basket, and a soap bucket decoupaged. What I wont do for a craft project!

I'm a slacker mom....

Stickers, money, high fives, privileges; you name it, I've done it. Chores for five children can be an exhausting trial of patience and holding back. The charts and graphs and money banks and the "store" (that was actually fun) have all worked for a number of weeks but not a permanent solution for a mother that has a hard enough time being organized herself. I prefer a little chaos in my life. Walking through the forest, I love the clutter of leaves, branches, dead trees, ferns, critters, fungus...it just makes me incredibly happy how all this chaos actually creates such beauty. Don't get me wrong, I love the Japanese Gardens in Portland. They are majestic, but to me, a little uptight and constrained. Go figure...I am a free spirit. Unfortunately, my children haven't grasped the concept of restraint and to know when enough is enough. They don't care if there little friends come over and help them clean the bathroom. I have ceased caring and just drop a Clorox drop in into the toilet tank and call it good. They will eventually learn right? I pick my battles. But....
I spent $120 on this system a few years ago. It didn't work for more than a month. The kids get excited and then it fizzles. Why? Because if it's more work for me than the actual chores, their is no way in God's green earth that it makes sense to me to keep on keepin on! So for our Family night, I unburied these little treasures that were gathering dust and decided that if at first you don't succeed, then try try again! Here's to second chances.

Off the Charts

Evan is off the charts, growth charts that is. Most of you already know this. The funny thing is that we are applying for health insurance and I received a call a few days ago from the underwriter. She wanted to verify Evan's height and weight. After I assured her that indeed my 2 1/2 year old did actually weigh 41 lbs and was 37 inches tall. She proceeded to inform me that he was not within their guidelines. I'm sure that she could hear my laughter coming from the other end of the phone. "You mean to tell me that you wont insure my kid because he is too fat?" "He has a 22 inch head if that makes any difference. Did you see how small my other kids were? He eats the same stuff. " Well needless to say, I had to check this one out myself. And it is for real, my Baby is 75% for height and at least 120% for weight. When you look at Evan, you don't see an obese kid. He has no rolls of fat and just looks normal, but for a 3 1/2 year old, not a 2 year old. In some sort of odd way, this makes me feel better about my weight because now I am convinced the reason I weigh so much is because I just have large dense bones just like my Little Evan!! By the way, we were approved and will again have health insurance after a 2 year long break in coverage. Now my kids can get sick and my husband can fall off the roof as much as he wants!

Utah

Utah is a great place to visit. Not only did we see all of Patrick's family, but some great friends too. The Dinosaur Museum, The Discovery Gateway, Cafe Rio, Draper Temple Open House, Watching the Inauguration, eating dinner with some of my closest friends, were well worth the trip. We came. We saw. We almost rolled the SUV driving home. I say We but it was more of the royal We. It was actually me. Patrick drove for an hour (I am usually the designated driver because I can stay awake). The air was thick with smog. We had such a great time with all of our friends, some of whom let us sleep at our house with all of our kids. Gratefully, they are well behaved for the most part. Yes, I was whining in my last post, but I see things clearly now. I am in for a great blessing soon. One thing is for sure, I definitely appreciate clean air, bathtubs, heat, friends, The Spirit guiding me, and all that I have now. My house is not important. My friends are. The things I miss about Utah are not things, but People.

On Vacation

...and I am updating my blog, kind of. Utah is filled with friends and memories and dinosaurs. On it's land, I own a very beautiful home that God said to leave. Lehi and I have a thing or two in common. Unfortunately, I should not have stepped foot in my house today. Laman and Lemuel is more like it! Did I murmur today? You bet I did! (For those of you who have not read the Book of Mormon, Lehi left his riches and homeland to embark on an adventure, much to the disgust of his two oldest boys, Laman and Lemuel). Now I realize that in Oregon I can breathe clean air, gather chicken eggs, teach a gaggle of teenage girls everything I've learned, and let my children ride a bus to school. But I don't own a home. Can't paint the walls or plant bulbs. To this girl who got a degree in interior design, it's pure torture to not "touch" her space. So I am venting...I love Oregon. It's so much better than Utah in my humble opinion. Just wish we didn't have to crawl through the brambles of life to get back here...
This stove, commercial style, convection oven, griddle, gas burners...I miss this stove (the art above, my husbands handywork to hide nail holes).

I miss this bathtub more than anything in that house. I installed a chandiler over the tub just so I could have better lighting to read by...memories...

The MEAN MOM

Ok, ah ha moment yesterday that is quite profound, not really. But seriously, as I am steaming mad about my kids and how they don't care about anything in the house I came to the realization that I am just doing what our Father in Heaven is trying to do. The games lose all the pieces, the milk gets left out. They don't care if they leave their muddy shoes in the bathroom sink...obviously I am not getting through to them that I am not here to be their maid ( yes I just said that and yes I can hear my own mother saying that in my head). What I told them was it was my job to make them competent adults and not to make their life easy, they nodded in awe. Oh so true that our own Father in Heaven is trying to teach us the same thing. He is not here to make everything easy for us. We wouldn't grow to become like him. My ultimate goal is not to live with my kids and their husbands and do all their laundry while they live in my basement for the rest of my life! I want them to be able to figure things out on their own and come to me for advice, not a bail out everytime I turn around. Father is the same way. I ask him for advice all the time. I ask for a bail out too, but more often than not, he lets me go through it instead of bailing me out of my disasters. It truly does build character. So I am a "bad" mom. I make them clean their bathrooms, make their lunches, put their clothes away, set the table, unload the dishes, get their own snacks and sometimes their own dinner, find their own shoes, pick out their own outfits, suffer consequences of not doing their homework. I am so MEAN!! Someday they'll appreciate it when their college roomate can't iron or do laundry and eat ramen everynight, and they will cry to their mommy everyday and ask for money every week. I am not raising one of those kids!!