clothes clothes more clothes....moving mountains

The cleaning service washed this shirt for us. Does anyone want it? I am save-y, but NOT this save-y. And the last thing we need is a memoir of the dryer fire - Jon still says almost every day, if not twice, "It's a good thing Dad was here when the fire started! It would have burned the house down. Do you think it would have? I think it would have." And so on. So I started on the mountain of bags. I sit in the chair and sort. A box for Sean, who is younger than Jon, a basket for Charlotte Claire and Camille to grow into, things that go on hangers, pajamas for the girls, boys, a bag of stuff for Sam's friends who are all shorter and smaller than him. And piles of baby clothes (wah), and piles of undies. A basket of tights. It is getting done, slowly, but the rest of the house seems to be falling down around me. I need to ask these guys to pitch in a bit so I can put the piles away before they start jumping in them. (by "they", I mean Charlotte Claire and Camille. Especially Camille)....and in the middle of managing the little girls and working on this, I got ANOTHER dreaded school nurse phone call - this time for Suzanne. She just didn't feel well. hmm. I had to go pick her up. She seemed fine when she got home. Then, a nice surprise came! Rosie started barking at the mail-lady, I looked out, and she had two packages for us! They are from a very sweet and thoughtful friend who reads this. The kids were so excited! Suzanne took it out and took a picture....

Jonathan was in a hurry to find out what was in here....

It was a Nerf sword! He says now he can be a soldier for Halloween.

Charlotte Claire looks like a princess, Camille looks like a chubby little sweetie in princess clothes!

In this box was a Princess Bible. It is very beautiful, and sick Suzanne swooned when she saw it. So I let her have it and she said she will keep it nice in the box. When Sonja came home, she saw the box and I told her she could take special care of the books. And Evelyn asked for the pink bubble wrap. They are going to share it. There was also a gift card to Target to get something for the other kids. I must say, I was very pleased. What a nice surprise, and it came at just the right time.

I am taking this break finally, I am getting sick of the clothes thing, but I need to finish. I can clearly picture all of the bags sitting in the kitchen, ripped open, with the kids finding things as they need them. It could happen. I do not want it to happen. Paul has worked hard in the laundry room putting up shelves, so I do have a place to put things. In fact, he didn't even break for dinner until like 8 last night. There are clothes on the table, and all over the kitchen, so last night I had a great idea - bring in the Little Tikes picnic table!!! Kathryn and Evelyn went out in the dark and dried it off and carried it up the stairs into the living room. They had towels all over the floor in case it was dripping. Then some of them sat there, and a few other of them in little chairs, and I brought in their plates. We had the yummy roast beef and roasted potatoes and carrots for dinner in the living room while watching tv. It is funny, probably a lot of families eat in the living room all of the time, and occasionally eat in at the dining room table. Anyway, I think we'll keep the table in here for a while. It does not look beautiful, but our heat doesn't work yet,(and it went down to 29 degrees last night) and the kitchen tile is cold cold cold. The kids had a nice breakfast out here this morning. I am not sure how we will do dinner yet.

But one thing is for sure, we will do dinner. So that means I have to get moving. Camille is doing the "ba-ba" dance, she wants a ba-ba. Poor baby. Yes, I do know she is almost two. But she is my sweetie little baby. She puts her hands on my face and puts her nose right on mine and looks in my eyes and says, "MOMMY, MA MA!", with such sincere joy. She is a cuddler, and if she wants ba-ba's, then she will get ba-ba's. She also tells the cutest secrets. She has also changed her clothes about 10 times today. She keeps seeing things she likes better than what she has on. It doesn't matter if it is hers or Jon's or Kathryn's, she just puts it on. I have had to put lots of things in the hamper just from her wearing them around today. Oh well, she is cute. And her nap was cut short because Charlotte Claire missed her, and went in and woke her up. RRR. That's what I say about that.