A week in review...

Our first day of HIS co-op was on Monday the 18th. Who is the young man that doesn't look like he is getting ready to turn 13 but 16!?!?!

Art class was a hit!

Everyone had fun busily creating a collage that would be the cover of their Art Portfolio and getting to know each other.

Science was awesome too.  We learned about molecules and atoms with a battery, wires, water, and baking soda.

The copper changed the water green-blue pretty quickly and it was so cool.

We put a completely new shinny penny in the water and a couple minutes later it looked like this:

Jake and the other kids with summer/August birthdays were celebrated.

And our co-op has GROWN!  Doubled in fact-which is a great thing!

And of course there was the playing in the gym to make the day complete.

This was after most of our friends were gone.  We are often the last ones to leave. :)

After co-op we headed to the library to practice our memory work (based on US History) with some of our friends. You are looking at a picture of "one room schooling" at it's finest.  Grades represented: 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 8th.

We are going to learn about the systems of our bodies so we will need paper bodies to use the whole year to add too.

Later in the week we decided an extended recess was need so we took advantage of Aunt Sheila's pool.

I love this picture.

Jake is serious about the suction of his goggles!  Nee was with us but I tend to focus my camera on my favorite face.  We had fun playing Marco Polo and Categories (one person says a category like ice cream.  The other people pick a flavor and the person who is it calls out flavors.  When you flavor is called you try to cross the pool with out getting tagged by the person who is it).  Nee learned you should never jump into the shallow (3 feet) end...ever!

Aaron and Jake restarted guitar lesson and Jake has been doing a great job practicing daily.

I am in continual planning mode.  I was searched the house for my three whole punch...do you see that is was in front of me the whole time?  It took me 10 minutes (at least) to realize that...

And on Friday nigh-it was my night to pick the movie for our traditional Friday night pizza and movie night.  I have watched so many super hero, intergalactic, boy movies that I thought it was time for a chick flick...Decisions, decisions...I choose Pride and Prejudice and after explaining what was going on through out the movie, they declared that it wasn't half bad. :) 

On Saturday Jake went to a lake day with the Youth from church and came back with a very red face.  Aaron and Jake watched Star Wars on Saturday night while I tried to organize more of the office/school room..This is what I got done...

 I almost bought paperclips and...

 ...Sharpies this week.  I am glad I didn't.  I need it in my face to remember we already have what we need.  This is a sneak peek of the amazingness that will be the office/school room!

It was a pretty good week. :)

Because I am a giver...

...I will share a little tip.  This seems kind of obvious to me but I am a re-user...plus I LOVE candles so this is a great excuse to buy more. :)

These are a few of my favorite things Thursday!!!!

I love these candles from Walmart.  They are only $5 and they smell Ah-May-Zing!  If you like other scents go for it, but I am strictly a vanilla girl.  I like the Christmas cookie or sugar cookie smells too but that is really about it. And they are serious with the easy peel sticker.  It comes right off.

 I love to light candles daily.  I love taco's but I don't want my house to smell like them.  I like garlic on about anything but I don't want my house to smell like it.  I like it to smell like vanilla. :)

 And then when I have burned the whole candle I wash it out with really hot water to get all the wax out and I use the containers for storage.  That is the re-use part.  And the justification for buying more candles!

 And while I am at it...here is the half bath that is in our master bedroom.

 I haven't started to decorate it at all.  It will be painted (upon Aaron's request-which I am thrilled to fulfill!) at some point and made pretty.

 The curtains in the whole house were left by the previous owner (aka-my "would be best friend" because our tastes are pretty similar!) and all but Jake's room (and temporarily the living room-I put them back up after feeling like we lived in a fish bowl...did I post about that...?) because he isn't into flower curtains. :)  I gotta tell you a house with just one bathroom is a big NO.  I wouldn't even consider looking at it.  But 1 1/2 baths I can work with!

 And our bedroom is still in the decorating process.  I have posted a few picture of it...but here are a couple to give perspective of the lay out...The bathroom is on the wall that is too the left of the bed,..

 ...the opposite wall from the double windows.

 The door to come in from the hallway is to the right of the closet...

 ...and on the same wall as the dresser and bathroom.  It is to the left of the dresser in this picture.

 And if you leave our bedroom and turned left (if you came straight out the door and through the hallway you would walk into Jake's room. You can't turn right because you would run into the wall at the end of the hall.) and then take your first left, you would come to another littler hallway that leads to the full bath...which is also not decorated but will be soon. 

 I am going to replace our shower curtain at some point.  Not sure with what.  I am kind of loving stripes right now so maybe black (or navy) and white stripes...?  We shall see.  It won't be for a while but when I do it I will post it!

 A new shower curtain, some paint, maybe frame out the mirror and a picture or two and it will look brand new!  Aaron changed out the shower head because apparently people in 1964 were short and he is not!  I will post that and all other "upgrades" when it is all done.

 In the little hallway the bathroom is off there is a linen closet.  But I don't have nearly enough linens to fill it up....

 ...so one side is pantry and...

 ...and the other side is linens, bathroom cleaning supplies, and extra bathroom supplies (extra toilet paper (we are Mormons which means we were prepping before prepping was cool), shampoos, etc.

{Sigh}....I am loving our little vintage house...More to come as I organize, decorate, and unpack the last remaining boxes-there are only 5 (I think...2 in Jake's room and 3 in the dining/library) 7 (I just found 2 more...) left!  I can't wait until they are all GONE!!!!!

It's Wednesday and it is safe to say the house looks worse...

...but we have accomplished so much!!!  We tackled the 3rd bedroom.  Or that is what we will call it after it is no longer a storage room.  It is sooooo much better already. I would say we are 75% done and we have already tackled the hard part.  On Saturday we are going to get our queen size bed in there and call it a bedroom (hopefully)! 

We went through  5 boxes (empty and ready to toss), and several Rubbermaid containers.  We organized, threw away, and got ready to take to Goodwill, a bunch of stuff.  Did you catch that last part?  Goodwill.  Yep, the yard sale is off.  I  remembered I like going to them, not having them. AND I noticed that 80% of the stuff I was going to be selling at the yard sale, was stuff I could sell at a craft show.  I decided to put the larger pieces I want to sell on Craigslist-which I am crossing my fingers will work.  I actually already got an email (an hour after posting it) from a lady interested in a desk.  She loves it but has to check with her husband....we will see what he say, but that usually isn't good.  But the point is there is already interest! 

Even with out the yard sale I am still going through every room in the house.  Once it is organized & downsized, I am going to go room by room and start painting and making it pretty. :)  I wonder if I can get it all down by Christmas...

It's Tuesday and the house is a wreck...

I am in the middle of "worse before it gets better" stage as we speak.  There are a couple of areas that are more organized:

I moved this shelf from the laundry/pantry and put it in the corner of the kitchen.   Yes, I want my kitchen to be pretty, but I also need it to be functional.  This is the happy medium and you can't see it until you get in the kitchen.  I used pretty contact paper, that I already had, to make the boxes prettier.  It makes me much happier than when I had the dry sink in this spot (it is now in the school room), that was always overflowing.  If I ever finish painting this room I will post a picture of it.   Aaron and Jake picked out the color and although I like it...I don't love it-which is probably why I never have come back to finish painting it.  I am going to take pictures of each room in the house and then come back and take more pictures of them when they are done. 

 This is the dry sink that was in the kitchen and is much better in the school room.  It houses a lot of things we will use every day.  I spent some time in this room today.  I have another 1/2 a bag of trash and several piles of things going in the yard sale, but...

 ...this is the "worse before it is better".  This table was cleared off before...It will be again soon!  Sadie was checking out the changes in the room (under the table) and made it into the pictures.

In all of the chaos I have been creating in the house, in my quest for simplifying and organizing, I am also getting ready for a Relief Society (women's organization at our church) meeting on Thursday night.  I am actually the Primary (Sunday school & sharing/music time for 3-11 yr old kiddo's) president, so I am excited to be involved with the grown ups.  I am doing a class on lunch box ideas-for kids and adults.  I decided to be test the new fad "mason jar salads".  I am as big a fan as anyone in the way of mason jars, but I am skeptical that the salads stay as fresh as everyone in the blog/Pinterest world says they do.  So far, so good.

We took a break from the large mess I have made in our house and took a trip to the Army Navy Store on Saturday.  Aaron's great uncle used to own it.  It has been kept pretty much the same and he has a lot of childhood memories there.  We made a couple new memories on Saturday.

 And I even made time to make frozen hot chocolate, from a recipe I found on Pinterest and modified.  It was de-li-cious!!!  My guys enjoyed it as an appetizer after their run, while cooling down and waiting for our breakfast for dinner.

In other words I have made a little progress and have found several things to do, so I wouldn't have to keep going through stuff...Tomorrow we are buckling down BIG TIME and getting a lot of stuff done!  I will get a lot of work out of Jake since he can't watch TV for the next 2 days-the consequence of forgetting to scoop the dog poop today...which really is perfect timing..for me any way!