P-A-D C: Before & After

The Playroom. Regardless of how many organizational systems I employ and how efficient I set it up, the room gets trashed. Regularly. I have been cleaning up the girls' messes for, well, 6 years really and I found myself getting more and more frustrated the older they got. A couple of months ago I started making them clean the playroom.

The first time they were responsible for it the task took them 5 hours. The first hour was spend rolling around crying hysterically about how hard it was going to be. Then they finally got to work.

The length of time it takes to clean this room seems to be in direct proportion to the amount of effort Ellis puts in. Not only is does she struggle in the 'focus' department, but she's not very committed to hard work. At all.

Here are the before and after pictures of the playroom. I took the before pix on the 20th like I was supposed to but couldn't take the after pix until today because they just couldn't pull it together to get it done in 3 hours yesterday.

P-A-D C: Something you wore

In honor of "Fancy Day" at BLS I wore a skirt. I normally wear skirts in the spring and summer - maybe early fall. However, my butt has gotten so big I am tired of people looking at it in jeans so I hid it under a skirt today.

Yeah, That's The Ticket!

Logan and Ellis have always been pretty good eaters. Aside from a period of time where Logan suffered an easily triggered gag reflex, I haven't had to worry too much about their nutrition. As long as the food isn't too spicy or too mushy we are in business and Sir Gags-a-Lot hasn't made an appearance in quite some time.

However, because there are developmental stages in a child's life where she chooses to exercise her "power muscle" I have set up a boundary for dinner and dessert that eliminates any arguments over food: The Dessert Ticket.

For Logan, dessert is her sole purpose for living. She looks forward to dessert the second she gets up in the morning the second she finishes her dessert from the night before. Because she will fill herself up on bread and then fail to get any vegetable or protein in her growing body, I determine a "Dessert Ticket" for each meal and then leave it up to the girls to decide if it's worth it to them.

Tonight we had spagetti & meatballs, vegetables and french bread. Logan asked what the Dessert Ticket was. Before I could tell her, Ellis said, "How about all of the vegetables. That's a good idea." Agreed. The vegetables would be the ticket tonight.

Not 10 seconds later, she had changed her mind. That was no longer a good idea. In fact it "didn't make any sense" to Ellis. She made tearful statements like "This isn't a good idea. It's not a good idea at all. It's a bad idea. A very bad idea." While I didn't capture the majority of her adorable and heart breaking melt down at the table, this is the tail end where she asserts that this is no longer a good idea at all.

Click to watch the video:

The Dessert Ticket Video

P-A-D C: 5:00

Today's photo-a-day challenge shot is titled: 5:00. I planned to take a picture of us eating dinner at 5:00 but it was spagetti night and neither of the girls were wearing clothes. Instead, I took a picture of the clock in our home that gets the most glances.

This clock has caused some controversy among my family members; my dad in particular. I had the clock hung a few months ago but it fell off the wall. The crash caused the hour hand to slip out of place so they minute and hour hands are no longer synchronized. You'll notice in this photo that the minute hand is straight up 5:00 while the hour hand is about 5:15. This drives my dad insane. It hasn't bugged me enough yet to do anything about it but my guess is that during my parents' next visit, this gets dismantled and fixed.

P-A-D C: A Smile

I couldn't choose between them so I am posting 2 :)

P-A-D C: Neighborhood and bedside

I forgot to post on March 3 so will double dip in this blog. To keep them in order I will post in reverse:

This is today, March 4th's picture. My bedside table is actually a lamp table and it has my alarm clock, a couple of bibles, a baggie of pencils with "Ellis DeJong" on them along with a hair pretty and "The Help". I am actually reading it now and look forward to doing so. It feels good to read again.

MARCH 3, 2012: Neighborhood

This is the picture of our neighborhood from the front of our house. We live in an awesome cul-de-sac with kids the same age as mine. We moved in last June and absolutely love it here. If you look closely past the stop sign and inbetween the two houses you can see The Home Depot.

Here's a closer look. Yes, we are THAT close to the highway. If I think about it, I can hear it. Mostly, I don't. Hear it or think about it.

P-A-D C: Fruit

Fruit that never goes bad :-)

March Photo-a-Day Challenge: UP

Apparently there is a world-wide challenge for the entire month of March. Someone made a list of themes and you are to take a photo using that the theme of the day and post it somewhere. Since I LOVE photography and I LOVE a challenge, I'm in. This is March 1: Up.