Week in Review: January 15th

One morning this week I woke up to find the kids in Hannah's room. I asked them what they were doing and why they were sitting on the dresser. It was because Joshua was doing a "concert". I don't think they know exactly what that means because his concert consisted of shooting his nerf gun at the wall, but they realized it was a show, so the girls and accompanying posse of stuffed animals were in the audience area. Unfortunately, I can't allow them to sit on the dresser like that as it isn't exactly safe, but they had a good time before boring, safety-minded mom ruined the party.

Joshua had a lot of fun playing with a scrap of craft foam I was throwing away. He colored a "map" on a piece of paper and we taped the map to the foam so he could play with it. He had a lot of fun unrolling it, figuring out which way to go to find the treasure, and rolling it back up. He liked to secure it with a hairband while it was rolled up. I think he felt it made it more authentic.

The older two kids had a really good time making a path from our throw pillows and ottoman lids and hopping from square to square.

We had one super nice day this week and we went out to ride bikes. It was overall fun. Clara rode Joshua's old scooter a lot and really enjoyed it. Joshua had less of a good time because he wanted to ride his new scooter, but he hasn't totally gotten the hang of it yet since it only has two wheels, yet he didn't want to ride his old one because that is "too small" now since the kids in his class typically ride the two wheel scooters. Hannah was clear and proud that she is big enough to ride her own bike without being pushed now. She wants a big-girl bike, so I said maybe in the spring.

I got a new shelf for near the front door and assembled it. Joshua wanted to help so I let him use the allen wrench to screw in a few of the screws. I thought I would have to go back and tighten them when he was done, but he did a really good job (better than I realized he was capable of) and I didn't have to do anything after he was done.

I am really excited about this shelf. We have major issues with shoes in our house. The kids each have 1-2 pairs they wear regularly, plus church shoes, slippers, rain boots, and snow boots. Which we really do need all those things, but when you have three kids, plus adults with a couple pairs downstairs at any given time, it adds up. And I like storing them by the door because I absolutely don't want shoes that have been worn outside walking in my house. We have a hanging shoe tree in the closet, but it is hard for the kids to use. So I got the shelf for kids' shoes, freeing up more space for the adult shoes in the closet. So far it's going well and looks ways better than a pile of shoes and is easy to use. I still want to get a boot tray because I don't really want muddy or wet shoes to go directly into the crates, but otherwise am happy with this solution.