Desperate Times--Desperate Measures

I finally had it up to my eyeballs in candy wrappers, socks, homework papers, blankets, laptops, earphones, dishes, board games, pencils, game controllers, backpacks, dog toys, you name it!  It was all over the family room and no matter how often it was picked up, it would be messy again in a couple of hours.  (I'll spare you the whirlwind disaster zone picture--I need to conserve my what little remaining dignity I have after my "before" closet picture a while back.  Oh yeah, update on the closet:  It has stayed ultra neat ever since I cleaned it.  Woo Hoo!!!)

So . . .Back to the family room.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  While the kids were in school I completely cleaned the room from top to bottom.  I rearranged the furniture and put a fresh bouquet of roses on the table--all to visually signify that we are turning a new leaf.

Next, I posted this bulletin in three places in the room.

If you can't read the small print, it says that all violators will be given extra jobs to make up for their lack of respect or be expected to pay for cleaning services at $5/hour.

Surprisingly, the kids LOVE it.  They LOVE the clean room.  They LOVE the idea of being responsible (and are happy to check up on each other).  I was very surprised at how they are embracing this new concept.  (I'm not sure that they can extrapolate yet that this "Clean Zone" thing will be spreading to other rooms of the house as well.  We'll see how excited they are then!)

Cute School Girl

Could she BE any cuter?!?

Hair Musings

Well, my hair is short again.  Here you go . . .

What a pair of clowns!

I'm thinking I'll enjoy some short styles for a while.  Maybe bangs next time!  I wonder how long I can keep my natural color.  My dad still calls me "blondie."  Once the grays start winning the battle, maybe I really will go back to blonde, and he can be right.  I'm just not looking forward to paying for it and dealing with roots.

Happy Halloween!

I actually SEWED a costume for Nicole this year.  Of course, I was sewing on the last details as people were loading up in the car for the youth rollerskating costume party.  Sierra learned what "down to the wire" means as she watched and listened to me sew.  Nicole was very happy with how it turned out.  That made it all worth it.

Ryan was a spider one night and a robber another night.

Sierra was a pajama princess, Jenna was an angel (wait . . .that's not much of a stretch), and Jordan was a modern-day vampire with canine teeth that were actually molded to fit his own teeth. (Travis didn't know what to be this year.)

We made a new treat:  Forked Eyeballs.

A few of our kids came away with about 10 pounds of candy each by the time all the festivities were over.  So, here's to the wierdest holiday of them all--Happy Halloween!