Haircuts and playdates

Caleb and the girls got haircuts last week. All three of them did great. I was especially impressed with how well Caleb did... well granted once he got his sucker. Granted, he did manage to keep a scowl on his face the entire haircut. The girls were thrilled with their haircuts and have paraded around shaking their new hair cut all week. :)

Caleb's first professional haircut!

Isn't that a happy face?! ;)

HUH?

A few of my friends and their children got together and had a play date. It was actually really fun to hang out, spend time together and see the kids play together. I had to laugh at how funny they were. It is crazy how many children there are now when you get them all together!

in addition.

Little bit of this and a little bit of that...

The last two weeks have been quite busy and fun! The best part of the month was having Ana come visit from Mexico!!! :)  We went wedding dress shopping for my friend Lois's wedding and even got bridesmaid dresses. We ate lots of junk food, stayed up talking, and had a blast!

Kay, Ana, and Grace making funny faces.

Finally 

The girls and I had a lot of fun planning for Valentine's Day. We made heart craft projects, I made the kids crayon shaving hearts, and even made celery Valentine cards. I also made one for Josh. I also got him his favorite Jelly Bellies and a orange Crush bottle. The girls even made Valentine Day cupcakes with my mom. They were so excited to have to show them to me. 

YUM cupcakes!

Caleb really likes his too!

The kids valentine crayons! :) 

Our celery rose cards

Josh's Valentines gift

Grace striking a pose!

Look at that beautiful heart art project coming to fruition.

I found this when I walked into the bathroom.

As a highlight of the weeks, I found Caleb sitting in the bathroom sink today holding a razor and brushing his teeth with MY toothbrush- YUCK! I have no clue how he possibly managed to climb up there by himself. 

Needless to say we had a fun and busy beginning of February. 

And this when he realized I was watching him!

Organization January part 4

The last week or so I have been working on organizing the bookcases in the basement and our filing cabinet. Not exactly the easiest thing to photograph for my before and after. I took 3 boxes of books and files to school since most of it were either books or papers that had to do with teaching English, Spanish or counseling. They weren't really doing me any good sitting in a binder in the basement so I brought them to school and now have to go through them and recycle papers I don't need and file the rest in their correct home.  (This is for another week).
In the meantime I took 15 FULL binders of old InterVarsity binders from conferences, exec, Bible studies, and Small groups and got them down to 5 neat binders. I made sure to get tab dividers and label them so that I could easily find the resources later. There is one for all the Bible study materials, organized by book of the Bible. Another one is for miscellaneous Christian topics: creation, purity/ sex, marriage, women in ministry, etc. I have one for evangelism and another for leadership. The final one has organized my quiet times, prayer retreats, etc. I am really quite happy with this. The binders were doing me no good before because I couldn't even find something if I tried there were so many useless papers. Now when I want a resource I know right where to find it. :)

You can see the overflowing bookcase in the background and the binders on the floor in front of the beige bookcase (not a pretty pre-organization look).

Nicely organized by book of the Bible.

Love that these are now great resources I can access when needed!

I also have been working on the laundry room. Part of it was just getting rid of some things that were just stacking up. Of course I also needed to clear all the junk off the dryer that piles up. Now I just have a cup for coins, plastic bags for garbage, miscellaneous stuff, soap and dryer sheets/ balls.  It definitely makes it look more neat.  The other part of course is keeping up on the laundry so it doesn't end up in a huge pile on the floor every time! 

Pre-organization.

Looking better!

Now I have sleeping bags and snow stuff on the top shelf, hangers for dresses and laundry on the rack, and garbage and laundry basket below! :)

There are clearly many more things in my house needing organization. The basement and garage both need a lot more work. Overall though, my Organization January is a success in my mind. I feel like my house is so much more organized, I have gotten rid of a ton of stuff we don't use that was just adding clutter to the house, and even my children are so much more organized and responsible with putting things in their homes. Maybe I should declare February Basement and Garage Fun -do you think that would get Josh on board with me? Sounds fun right?

Update: Maybe God heard my comment about February Basement fun because.... suddenly it's February and Josh has taken Halo to the vet, purged and organized his 'box' in the basement with all his binders, helped me mop, went grocery shopping, put the plastic seals on the windows, and fixed the girls chairs!!!! INCREDIBLE! :)