a mom's life

I'm on the PTA this year.
It's a great responsibility. And amazing how this organization of moms gets money raised and things done for the school. They sure know how the system works. I don't understand half of what they're talking about. Just 'smile and nod' is still a good motto for me.
So I'm Beautification...which is totally ironic if you've ever stopped by my house unexpected.

Out of the many ideas I've proposed, one of them is happening soon! Pansy Day for the Kindergarteners. They'll be planting almost 200 pansies around the school grounds, plus a master gardener is coming to talk to them the day before. The idea came from another nearby elementary school that plants 800 every year! I decided to start small, and as I was organizing this, I felt like a project manager for Donald Trump. Definitely been juggling balls around here lately. But it's finally coming together.

Beautification also means hay bales and scarecrows out front in fall. Besides Juan Pablo's pumpkin contest, that's why I've been painting pumpkins for the last week.

Go bulldogs! (Although Isabela informed me that our football team is called the Miners...don't ask, something about school associations.)


I spray painted some tiny pumpkins our school colors, each having a letter to spell out the name of the school....and added this mascot, too. I found the pattern on pinterest. Did I mention I LOVE pinterest? Still do. If you paint your pumpkins, make sure to cover it with varnish so the paint doesn't wash off in the rain.


A busy mom equals lots of coloring on walls...and sometimes on paper.


And I finally gave in and decided to pay someone to clean the house. The kids!

They have a book fair next week and want to buy lots of books. I've posted a list on the fridge with all the chores and their monetary values. Last night they earned a total of six dollars....and I have a clean tub, folded and put away laundry, clean toilets, and shiny mirrors. I'm happy, and so are they.


There's one more thing I finally tried from the elusive mom manual I've always searched for: Listening. I've been struggling for years to figure out behavior charts, rewards, consequences...they're complicated, time-consuming, sometimes expensive.

But the other night, Joaquin told me, "If I knew I was on yellow or red, then I'd stop." My mind screamed, "What?" All this time, and he finally gave me the answer. See the school uses a color system...their card is changed from green to yellow to red, depending on their behavior. Sooooo, we started that here, too.
Ours works like this: Our colors are Green, Yellow, Red, and Black. Every day, they start on green. Outrageous behavior and unkindness will move their color. Kindness and helpfulness can move it back. Ending the day on anything but green will mean an extra chore the following day, for each color past green...so up to three chores. (Yes, Isabela ended on black one day.)

It's working. I'm happy and they're happy. Again.
I might finally be figuring this mom thing out.

Just look at this angel.

our favorite room in the house

I was inspired by Simple Mom to do some major spring cleaning in the house. I'd like to get it back to when we had next to nothing when we moved back here from Bolivia...there's so much more space, and less to clutter up and put away!

So the challenge at Simple Mom was one hot spot a week. And it started with the Master Bedroom Closet. Definitely where we needed it most. We have a very large walk-in closet...so big we even thought about making it Diego's room, except there are no windows and no heating or cooling vents...so it gets very hot or very cold in there.

Anyway two excellent pieces of advice I got from my friend Kim were
1.) Store things near where you use them...so towels in bathrooms, table cloths in kitchens, etc.)
and 2.) If it's not something you use all the time, put it in the attic (like Xmas wrapping paper).
Our closet was our dumping ground, since we don't have much storage space in the house and no one ever sees it. But we saw it all the time and hated to go in there.

You may be appalled when you see the before pictures...or yours may look just like ours did. Here they are:

BEFORE
tablecloths, hats, bins full of school papers


you can't see it too well, but there's Xmas paper and two bins of out-grown kids clothes that I consign


pillows and comforters


shoes and junk


kids' clothes, my clothes, cat box, and junk!!!


So here's the after...now I couldn't hold off until I got a couple more baskets, a large full length mirror, and some framed artwork to make it a nice space, but you will definitely see a HUGE difference.

AFTER:


One more basket will hide those toppling sheets.


Shoes are in order...there still quite a bit of clothes there, but as soon as the cold weather is gone, I'll store some more of that.


There is nothing on the floor!!


The kids were amazed and said it looked like when we moved in. Juan Pablo and I love it and sneak in here to get away from the kids....it even locks from the inside!

We've moved on to other parts of the house, and it's now in quite a disarray, but at least the closet's not! Hurray for spring cleaning!!