Cold Coffee and PJs

It's Saturday morning.
My coffee is hot, my PJs are still on, my house is quiet, and all I can say is "Phew!"

Between sick kids, sick husbands, snow storms, school projects, impromptu parties, birthday parties, extra-curricular events, sermon series to plan, friends to cry with, friends to chat with, flights to book and flights to catch - it's been a week. Phew.

It all started last Friday (just a week ago - right?) when I found an invitation to an 80's party hanging on the bulletin board. It read "80's party - Friday night - 6-8pm". Wait a minute though, a little closer look and I see that it's my address on that invitation. Apparently this was my party - or rather my daughter's party. No worries though - we had no plans and an 80's party sounded like the perfect way to start the weekend.

Pull out the crimper, the bingo dabbers (hair color!), the blue eye shadow, and lots of hairspray and voila - you have a party! Throw in Kids Bop 80's and let the dancing begin - after all, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"!

Wednesday night brought Cowboy Night at AWANA - complete with line-dancing, horse races and of course some cute little cowgirls!

We worked hard to complete our Night At the Museum Battle of the Smithsonian lapbook by our Feb 28 deadline. You'll notice a few blank spots - still a little work to do (Ivan the Terrible got lost at Nana's house!). I'll post pictures of the completed project next week.

In the meantime check out the Einstein bobble heads and Amelia Earhart's plane hangar - this project was a blast!

The Igloo was dismantled and recycled. It suffered a little wear and tear and a lot of graffiti over the last month. We were a little sad to see it go - but it was time to move on.

I did have a little giggle the other day when a neighbor kid knocked on the door and rather than asking if the kids could play she said, "Can I play in Karis' igloo?" It was popular with little people on Barrydale!

Speaking of bedrooms - they are spic-and-span.
I love clean bedrooms.

I've been reading up on the Montessori method of teaching and one of the things I love about it is "self checking". Self checking allows the child to discover for him or herself whether they got the right answer - usually there is a picture or diagram to show the correct answer.

Little brainstorm came to me in the midst of the chaos of this week - what if we applied the Montessori theory to the cleaning of bedrooms? So I took pictures of VERY clean bedrooms. Hung those pictures under the light switch in their bedrooms. And there you have it - no more nagging, no more "that's not clean enough" - it's simply this, "does your room look like the picture?"



George is feeling better and off to Vail for a few days of skiing with his cousin.
I'm still in my PJs.
My coffee is now cold and almost gone.
My kids are playing nicely.
And I'm looking forward to a quieter week.
But before we get to that quiet week we have skating lessons at noon and piano group class at 2pm. Maybe I should get out of the pjs and take a shower.
Maybe.