Home is where you throw your junk

Life has slowed down a bit this January, and I'm grateful for the pace. Today I have time to note a few things I haven't had the time to blog about before due to other demanding topics and events. First of all, I haven't posted pictures of Weston and his new bow yet, so I'll include some of those. He's gotten it out a few times.  The last time he had to come in for some gloves, super cold, then kept going.

Nextly, I thought I might show you readers what I am up against when it comes to keeping my house clean. Granted its not nearly as intense as when they were toddlers, but it seems to still be the mentality of my children that home is not where you hang your hat, jacket, clothes, or anything of the like, but rather home is where you throw your junk.  Savanna actually displayed her philosophy on the issue quite deliberately when I asked her to pick up the curlers she had left on the living room floor and right in front of my eyes she swept them with her feet in a little obscure corner by the fireplace and moved on with her life.

The kids' bathroom downstairs is their responsibility to clean, so of course it never is clean. And since the kids do their own laundry and the consequence of not doing laundry is not having clean clothes to wear, often their bedrooms look like their dressers and closets spit everything up.  The top of Weston's night stand is getting awfully crowded with his valuables, but otherwise he likes to organize his messes.  A pile of ninjagos in the corner, a pile of origami next to his bed, a pile of toys next to the toy box, and his laundry of course, overflowing his hamper. At least its in the hamper. And of course the finishing touch, unmade beds.  I don't have a picture of the entry way where jackets and coats are supposed to be hung and shoes supposed to be set on the shoe rack, but I'm sure you can imagine what it looks like knowing that the coats and shoes rarely make it where they are supposed to.  Just because we don't have a house maid is no reason to not live like we don't, right!

Fiora's clogging pictures for this season turned out really cute, she is doing a great job practicing her steps and having a good attitude about going to clogging every week.  She is improved leaps and bounds, literally! Fiora also surprised us by entering into the spelling bee competition at her school, and came home last week saying she was one of three 4th graders who won the grade level spelling bee and she will be competing with 5th and 6th graders next week in the school-wide spelling bee!  Cool! So we have been spelling words morning and night to prepare.