Monday...Again!

If you are going to have a table cloth...make sure it is one that matches the mess!

Happy Monday!  Mondays are for motivating and planning and rebooting from the weekend.  Mondays around here are not lazy, but there is not normally no visible sign of productivity.  I spend the day tidying and reading and making a mental program for the week.  And it is NOT good when Mondays are, well, sabotaged.  I was supposed to meet a potential babysitter at 12:45p today.  As I was doing the normal run through of email, facebook, ebay, blogs...she did the unthinkable; emailed to reschedule due to being sick.  While being completely ok and I'll happily reschedule, it completely opened up my time...I don't "have" to clean the bathrooms or sweep or finish the breakfast dishes...I can read a few more emails.  <pause>  Notice - Eloise is in the family room, Finn is somewhere in the kitchen...ACK! I didn't go clean up the water colors before Eloise moved away from the table...and yup! Finn was painting himself and the table!  Thankfully, we still have the Easter Egg tablecloth on our table and water colors are washable :)  (Didn't stop to get a pic of my painted boy :( )

But back to motivating.  I'm going to think smaller this week and motivate toward a goal (outside of surviving and accomplishing routine duties) that I can accomplish by myself!  And no our bedroom is not done, better - but far from done.  We are on track to get our furniture by July...so new deadline has been set and it will likely be finished the night before we go to Ikea :)  But we are getting there and the mess is getting shorter (literally).

This week the target of my attention is the pantry!  I'll share a pic before I start.  This poor pantry!  We hadn't had a pantry before and when we moved in I had no idea how I wanted to organize it, so everything just got dumped in there.  And since then, after every shopping trip and meal things have just been shoved in ANY open space.   Well, I finally came across an organization method that makes sense, and we are way overdue to go shopping for snacks and pantry staples so the inventory is low, so this IS the week.  Pantry here I come...tomorrow.  The idea for the concrete challenge creating Motivating Monday is from the Happiest Mom.

But on to more fun things, like things my littles may care to read about in 5, 10, 25 years...i.e. one of the main reason to write here!  We had a most wonderful and fun weekend :)  After much blah-ness the end of last week and wanting cancel everything, Mark kicked me out of the house Saturday morning ALL BY MYSELF to go have coffee with mom and Heather.  Thank you all!!!  Coffee and quiet are so good :)  I may have to escape for an hour or so more often (maybe weekly...hint hint)!

And then Saturday afternoon we all went to the Imagination Movers concert in C'ville.  Thanks so much to SuzySaid.com for picking us in the raffle!  We had a fabulous time.  It was a bit different watching an outside show, the kids were a little slower to warm up and start dancing.  I suspect because the lights were far less danc-y and focusing.  Love the Movers!!!!  Mark printed out "mini movers" name tags for all of us to wear.  And while I felt a little silly...Eloise got a shout out from Mover Rich and Mover Smitty :)   And we all got to hug and/or high 5 at least one Mover as they moved through the audience...yeah!

Waiting for the show to start!

Watching Choo Choo Soul

Smitty :)

Mathilde's 1st Concert

After the concert, everyone was of course starving!  And where did they want to go eat?!  Daddy's work!  And we'll take the enthusiasm while we can get it...relatively cheap to feed littles, no wait (empty actually) and close by!  So off to the hospital we went for spaghetti and BBQ chicken.

And Sunday was a day of rest (and cleaning) :)  Much needed after three weekends of traveling and activity!

**WARNING!**change of thought pattern**

Through some reflection on our existence and activities and behavior recently, it became obvious that our fun was - well, far less than fun for everyone.  So with very little effort, we turned our focus to fun activities and away from shopping.  It is amazing how much a cold winter can effect perception.  It is really not "fun" to go to Target or thrift store or antique mall shopping with 5 kids!  But it is SUPER fun to get out and play!  Two weekends in a row we didn't step inside a store :)  And with the money saved we bought the tickets for Mark and Finn to go to the concert, too!  The weekend before we went to Chesapeake to visit family, and during our downtime we wandered the trails at a visitor area in the Great Dismal Swamp!  The kids got to play in dirt, and see weird tree roots, and RUN!!!

 They are growing way to quickly!  Fia popped in while I was getting ready this morning, she needed to wash her hands. And without step stool or tip toes, she STOOD there and very adeptly washed her hands.  And while I knew she could, I never stopped and watched her do so...must go research how to stop time now!!!