Countdown of all countdowns!

The big weekend is almost here!!! We are going to pick up our new puppy on Saturday! I don't know who's the most excited (me??? hard to tell!)

The breeder sent us a Christmas picture, as if she didn't have him sold already??? So excited to bring Checkers home on Saturday!!!

The girls have been trying to be more responsible with their toys and I also have to get back in the habit or remembering not to leave things accessible! They've diligently gone through their rooms and culled the herd a bit and there's been a lot of recycling, garbaging and tidying! I'm sure we'll learn a few more lessons the hard way but hopefully not too many!

Here's his Christmas photo, brace yourself, he's pretty darn cute!

Purge!

Our cup runneth over! The girls officially have too many toys. They couldn't even close the drawers on the organizers holding all their dress up stuff, baby dolls, stuffed animals and the list goes on.

Last Thursday, around 10:30am we started going through their room section by section, drawer by drawer. We pulled out every bit of junk jammed under their beds, behind dressers and doors and in their nightstands! We even found one bag of black moldy goop of unknown origins in Honey's section. (aka hoard central!)

They had a "give" pile for things they no longer had a use for, a "junk" pile for things that weren't even worth keeping or giving, and a "this belongs somewhere else pile".

I brought out stuff out drawer by drawer and dumped it on the living room floor and set a timer. Anything left on the floor at the buzzer would go in the garbage. 

Well! Those girls thrive on a challenge! I never found anything unsorted when the timer went off. The pile on the couch is the give away pile. It took til after 5 pm to go through everything and clean their rooms but they look great now and they have more room to play and they're quite proud of their work and tidy space!

(disclaimer: I did give them a popsicle break and a lunch break!)

Poor Deprived Kids

yeah right! They don't know how good they've got it around here! But they will when they're older, right? and then be appropriately grateful for the loving and enriched childhood we bestowed up on them during these years, surely?

My darling daughters are hooked on online gaming. It's a little early in life to be dealing with this but why wait? Let's get into the hard stuff right away! Dang you Disney! They have a wonderful website and you can play for free and have access to mediocre characters, accessories and watch the "members" shop for new hairstyles, clothes, pets, home furnishings and what not. However, this "member" status costs $6/month which we're not willing to invest in (times three at that!) and they can only become members when they have money of their own they want to spend on it (and even then I try my hardest to delay, distract & deter). They love it and want to be able to play together but Murray's craptop is not getting any younger and already has missing keys, a cracked screen and the monitor is detached from the base and only connected by a couple frail looking wires. (but hey, it still works so why would a fella want to upgrade a classic piece like that???). This leaves them with only 1 computer available. mine. Their solution to this problem is that they "obviously" need their own computer. I'm pretty sure Sweetie spearheaded this campaign.

They gathered allllllllllllll their money (except Lovey, she needed to keep $6 so she could become a member!) and put it together in a bucket. My aunt out west just sent them $20 each. Grandad gave them $5 each last week and they had other money from previous savings. Then they counted it all up and they're at $108 which, let's face it, couldn't even buy them Murray's craptop on ebay! So far they're very keen and dedicated to this shared savings project and asked for a job to earn money. I offered them $1 each to wash down walls in the kitchen. They snapped that up in a hurry.  However with distractions and disagreements, it took most of the day (off and on, of course!) to actually finish the job. At one point, Honey felt much too tired to continue and needed to "rest". I found her downstairs playing on Murray's workout bench and told her I was going to dock her pay if she didn't finish. The other two offered to pitch in to finish her section so she could "rest" which was ok with Honey. I said that would be fine and applauded their teamwork approach and using their fruits of the spirit. Then I sent Honey to really rest, in bed, in her room, fighting, whining and arguing all the way. (which only confirmed that she really did need a rest!)

So the "laptop" fund now stands at $111. Any bets on how far they'll get before it all goes to crap??? Oh and there's no way of knowing who started with what. Before I knew what they were doing, they'd already dumped all the existing funds together. In the meantime, I'll enjoy my clean kitchen!