One thing leads to another

When I woke up this morning, I had no plans except for taking care of the children. The thought crossed my mind to declutter and clean the top of the fridge, but that didn't happen. After eating breakfast and getting the kids ready for the day, I went into the kids' room to say my prayer and read my scriptures since Zach and Eleanor were watching a movie in the living room. Zoe's bed is at the perfect height to lean on while praying, so that's where I go when I want some peace and quiet. While I was in the kids' room, I came up with a plan to take the boxes that were under the bunk beds and put them in the closet so I could store Eleanor's mattress and Zach's body pillow under the bunk beds during the day. I used to put the mattress and body pillow in the crib during the day, but now that Kate takes a nap in her crib instead of her carseat, I can't do that anymore and I was getting tired of the mattress, body pillow, blankets, and pillows being in the middle of the floor. Moving the boxes to Zoe and Emily's side of the closet required me to take out what was already in the closet to rearrange and make room for the boxes that were under the bed. This led me to go through 2 boxes of Kate's clothes that were already in the closet and a few grocery bags that had Kate's clothes in them. I took clothes that Kate has outgrown out of the closet and filled 2 boxes with Spring/Summer clothes, and filled a few grocery bags to store in my parents' attic. I have no idea what I'm going to do with my time when I don't have kids' clothes to go through every season and every several months when there is a baby around! One of the boxes in the closet was full of sweatshirts, Spring coats, and a few play clothes, so I moved that box into the living room, which led me to remove the Christmas box, Zach's sleeping bag, and a Christmas cookie tin from the living room to the shed, I put the winter coats and snowpants in a different box, and organized the Spring coats. I took a break while Kate slept and Eleanor and Zach played outside, so I enjoyed an hour of quiet while I read blogs and posted my 600th post. It was quite delightful. This downtime gave me the energy to organize the top part of Zoe and Emily's closet to make room for some games and puzzles that were out of place on the bottom of the closet. I discovered a box full of toy make-up/hair accessories such as a blow dryer, nail polish, mirror, comb, eye make-up, which Eleanor LOVES. I decided to put those toys in Eleanor's box, which led me to declutter and organize Eleanor's box. I had no idea this was going to be such a productive day! The kids were content to play and I was content to organize. It was a good day. And the kids' room looks a lot cleaner now. :-)

We all enjoyed this beautiful day after Zoe and Emily got home from school. Kate was so happy to be outside with her siblings. Zoe took this picture of Kate.

She really enjoyed playing in this car. Zoe played with her at first and encouraged Kate to have fun because Zoe wanted me to stay outside.

Kate eventually figured out how to get in and out of the car by herself and felt more comfortable walking a bit outside. I took Kate outside last Friday for the first time to play and she stood in the same spot afraid to move. Eleanor brought Kate her Dora chair so then Kate sat and was just happy to finally be outside. Here are some pictures from Friday.



So Kate is making progress outside. I never gave the little slide we have a thought today as we were outside. It's the perfect size for Kate so I'll have to move that onto the grass the next time we go out and see how Kate likes it.

The kids enjoyed their first outdoor picnic at dinnertime. Kate tried to eat her siblings' chips and Zach spilled his water all over the blanket, but other then that, it was a success.