5 Reasons Kids Should Play Organized Sports

So the Listable Life...list..for today from momof6 is ...

5 Reasons You Think Kids Should Play Organized Sports

1. Socialization - My kids are at home with me a lot. I work from home, so they've grown up just hanging out with me while I work, waiting for neighborhood friends to come home. Playing on a team of strangers helps to get them used to meeting new people and learning how to interact.
2. Exercise - Duh. Running around chasing that soccer ball is great exercise. At the end of the game, the girls are soooo exhausted its hilarious. They no longer care about the game and just can't wait for the whistle that ends it. 
3. Responsibility -Joining a team teaches my kids about obligations. Not in a drudgery sort of way, but in a 'hey, these people are my teammates and I owe them my best effort'. It's been really good to teach my oldest that she needs to try her best and work hard, for the other girls on her team.
4. Parental Responsibility - Honestly, I'd rather not go anywhere or do anything that didn't suit me. Going out, visiting with strangers, watching our children play together - not my thing. I like to stay at home, organize a drawer, take care of things around here. I tolerate the kids playing with other neighbor kids, because it's my job, as a parent, to encourage them to branch out, to be friendly, to have fun. 
5. Fun - sometimes it's just plain fun. The oldest has now decided she might also like to try basketball. So now I'll have to find a local basketball clinic type thing for her to try out. She likes shooting hoops on the playground - playing Knockout. I don't know what that means. She also likes shooting hoops after Awana on Wed. night at church, so I think that has piqued her interest.
 

Whew. Five things was a lot to come up with.

The wedding

My brother got married this weekend. We've been planning this...ok, they've been planning it for a year, but we've been planning how to get us there, what time to leave, are we staying over, etc etc, for a few months now. I've been obsessed with the logistics. The kid gets off the bus at 415...how fast can I get her in the car...can we pick up the husband instead of him coming home, shaving off more time so we can try hard to make it to the rehearsal before we've missed it entirely. We did and I think we got there just in time, the pastor was quite chatty so we missed most of that and were able to do an easy walkthrough of the ceremony. Then we headed off to dinner and the hotel.

The 4yo caught something at preschool. So she was..off...on Friday. Not hungry, but still wanted to play with the kids...so my goal was just to make sure she drank as much liquid as possible all weekend. Friday night she was up at midnight and 3am, dry heaving, sort of throwing up. I think it was our warning shot that she's caught something, but luckily she's sort of outgrown the actual throwing up part of catching a cold now. Which is awesome, that side effect is no fun at all. So Friday night, she and I slept together in the hotel bed, sitting up, propped by pillows and towels so she could breathe well enough and sleep well enough. I slept some. I got up at 645 to get ready to head to the salon..figuring I could lay the kid down and she'd keep sleeping. It was a rough night, so she needed a bit more sleep, I think she slept until close to 9 and I got back at 930 hair all perty. And then we began to get ready. The 9yo in her dress for passing out programs and bubbles, the rest of us in our regular clothes to head to the church for hair and dressing.

This story is too long. The wedding was beautiful,the bride was beautiful, everything went off without a hitch. They will have some beautiful pictures. And I had the most beautiful flower girl ever.

The hair, another bridesmaid did this, sooo pretty

So very ready for her duties

Goodbye Guilty Clutter

After about a week or so, the living room is finally cleared. As a reminder, here's the before.

Before

Too many THINGS everywhere. Floating shelves full of photos, bookshelves full of books and knick knacks. Mantle that just wants attractive.

So. I took down the floating shelves (and that shelf in between) and all the photos on them. I donated the frames to Goodwill and put the photos in a bin under my bed. Now I can see them anytime I want, and I know where they are when occasions come around that I might want to display them. In fact, I already have a plan for graduation (she's in 4th grade...I'm an early planner) and how to display the school photos. It's a great spot to just dump photos, of my girls, of family members, etc. I still HAVE them, but they aren't strewn all over the house in frames and on shelves turning them into clutter. In my hall between the front door and back door I have two magnetic decorative frames where I intend to put important pictures that I want to display. Pictures of my new niece, nephew and family photos that I can swap out. They are black frames with a dull silver metal magnetboard. Sort of like these. It works really well. I slimmed down the built in book cases and donated a lot of books to Goodwill. I still need to go through and donate the girls books, but that can wait a few weeks since they aren't in this room.

The big desk is still a problem, but compared to the photo above, the computer has slimmed and we have a flat monitor now. I also work at that desk all day with my laptop so I'm not sure what the long term solution will be. For now, it's ok, the desk is clean and I'll keep it that way. I also intend to swap out the small table (with that Partylight Infinite Reflections on it) with a medium sized curio cabinet. It should give a little height to that wall and it'll be a place for me to put my dad's china (he's keeping it until I'm ready) and the items I have from grandparents that have passed.

We had to patch and texture the wall spots where the floating shelves were. It turned out really well, but when I painted with my saved yellow paint..it didn't match. So now I need to paint the rest of the wall so at least the full wall matches. So this Sunday I'll probably paint the rest so that at least the color isn't so obvious. I think the sun faded the color, the paint is still good. And so. Here it is.

After

I tried to take the photo from the same general spot as the one above. I think it looks pretty great. I love my furniture in here, but it might be about time for an upgrade and perhaps a slightly smaller scale.  I also think I might take down and sell my Partylight pillar holders (I think they're called Sonesta, does anyone know?) because I think they just look like extra unbalanced clutter on the mantle. If I were to put anything on the mantle again it'd be a single medium height pillar candle holder probably. But right now my plan is to put nothing. I even threw away the unity candle from our wedding and I'm donating the holders to Goodwill (shockingly no one wants to buy 1995 precious moments unity candle holders).

My next cleanup is in the bottom left of the picture. You can see the dog cage there, our dogs are still stupid and eat walls and toys and whatnot, so we have to be able to cage them as necessary. I'd love to put that somewhere else. Behind that cage, under the end table, I've got a file box full of the kids last couple years of art projects and paperwork. I need to setup a lightbox and take photos of those things and create a photo book so I can throw out all the actual art. I think I'm going to try to paint the yellow wall AND take those photos this Sunday.  We'll see...

UPDATE:  I did paint the yellow wall, but I didn't take the kid art photos. I'm saving that for next weekend, we have a wedding this weekend and I just won't be up to it. Plus we're storing the in-laws appliances so my normal lightbox spot is taken. It will happen though!

5 Projects I Need to Tackle Around the House

5 Projects I Need to Tackle Around the House ( Momof6 )

1. Sort through the girls books. They have soooo many and I know some of them are baby books and the preschooler has outgrown them. It's time to sort and purge and donate (or save for my brand new niece) and clean up those shelves and drawers. We're big readers so I want to make them accessible and organized.
2. The desk. This desk is too big and really sort of cramps the style of this living room. I think ideally I'd like to move this desk and computer down to the basement, setup a sort of office there, but I'm not sure how well that will work out. It would be nice to at least slim it down to a smaller desk maybe if moving it isn't an option. 
3. In line with #1 - sort through the kids toys again. Some things we could save for my new niece, but the rest we've outgrown and should be donated. It'll clean up the toy room some and leave room for any new birthday and Christmas gifts that are bound to come along soon.
4. I need to throw out or give away my wedding dress. It's taking up some good space in my closet, I never look at it, I don't care to keep it..it was 2nd hand to begin with. There might be some usable material there, so I think I may offer it for free on craigslist if anyone has a use for it. I feel like I should be sentimental about it, but I'm just not. I paid $250 at a local 'repeat' store, so it's not like I got a brand new 'THE DRESS' experience anyway. 
5. I need to sell my hope chest. It was a Christmas present when I was 16 and I'm pretty sure it was my mother's idea but really, what sort of gift is that. Here's a wood box that won't fit anywhere for you to store things you don't even think are that important. Right now it is storing my wedding veil and bouquet and some stuffed bears I used to collect. It's also serving as the photo printer stand in our storage room. I could really use that space soooo much better.  

After all this wedding hullabaloo (my brother gets marred 9/15) I'm going to work on #4 and #5 first I think.

The alternative topic was 5 Things I Never Thought I’d Hear Myself Say As a Parent

I have to mention the one thing I never thought I'd have to say and the one thing that completely shocked me when I found myself saying it. 

Stop licking the cart.