Lego Area in the Basement

Well, I wanted to go climbing tonight, but around 9:30 I looked at the clock and realized I'd lost track of time and I missed my chance. Good news is that it was a good day, I worked hard on lots of things, we have a new lego area in the basement, and Ariel's castle is done! (pic at the end of this post). With that  done I'm feeling ready to move on, which will be good. I spent a good chunk of the day in the basement. I needed help though figuring out what to do. I talked about Lily about it first - about the pros and cons for different areas in the house (I really wish we had a loft area like Grant and Steph did at their house (last pic), or their upstairs family area where we made a mess with pearler beads) but alas, our options were: master bedroom, kids bedrooms, front room, side room, music room, Corey's office, finished basement area, or unfinished basement. While I liked the main floor (front room, side room, music room, Corey's office) areas for the space they had and natural light, the main reason they wouldn't work is because they are being used for other things and cause of the air vents in the floor. Also Corey's office is really hot. So main floor is out. Bedrooms I also liked for the natural light, but they are just too crowded. It's been a hassle this week to have to move bins everytime Sophi and Natalie needed to use their clothes closet, so annoying! (j/k) And the finished side of the basement was good for carpet type, no floor vents, but I just don't like how dark it is and it would make me sad to think K was playing down there in a dark unnaturally lit place. So, the unfinished side of the basement. Lily said that she felt that it was Wride right of passage to spend time down there. She has spent many hours and days of her childhood down there. I also laughed when she said she felt it was good for her to come across a spider now and then. Like it keeps kids sobered up as to their own mortality, haha, ok, so I liked that. The main thing that I hate about the unfinished side is the lack of a real carpet and finished walls, which means I'm cleaning up legos from the corners and crack of the unfinished wall, and it's annoying trying to get all the legos up from there. BUT, if we can train the kids to NOT DUMP LEGOS ALL OVER THE FLOOR... then this could work. So then I called Sophi down. She was on board and I'm sure happy and eager to get her bedroom back. Sophi helped me figure out the arrangement - first step - clean the carpet so we can move Owen's lego mine over, so we can then move that short table to the brown carpet to put the princess castles on. Sophi helped me clean the carpet, then Natalie came and helped me with tables. Natalie changed the arrangement. She wanted two long folding tables together to make a very long princess city. Trouble with that was then it was blocking off the room. I didn't want them flush against the wall, cause I wanted them to be able to play from both sides of the table. So a bit of back and forth, and then we moved Owen's stuff again - onto a different table so we could take his short table. Now I can walk past the princess city tables. We did put two tables flush against the walls, but those are for sorting only, not for building. And I've put several big empty bins there, and shown the kids that when they are looking for a lego, they dump the bin they are searching in into the empty bin and NOT on the floor. I think it will be good if we can keep the legos off of the floor. Peter and Katharine enjoying the new set up. 

And that is the part of the basement that I worked on all day. If you look at the other side behind them here....

...that is what I'll hopefully be tackling this week, since I do feel ready to move on from legos (if K will let me). Hopefully, with Katharine having a place to play, she'll have fun and be content with me in the room with her. I'm hoping to get a lot of this crap organized but preferably cleared out, as I remember one of my clutter books saying you can't organize clutter, you just gotta get rid of it. I've got a few piles of stuff to take to the DI already, I just need to get it into the car and get it out of here. Also Monday is bulk clean up, but I didn't do anything this time. No pine needles cleaned up, no branches trimmed back, nada. Oh well. But, Ariel's castle it built. Go me. Not that impressive, considering that while I was still getting up and going this morning, Christian was finishing running a marathon! 

Mel was there to support him, and his mom and little sister. They came back to our house a little after 10 and cleaned up, then Corey took them to the airport - they had a flight to Los Angeles for a concert. I was surprised Corey was back at 10:30 - he took Abi Lily and Sophi with him to a Hometown Day of Service thing out in Magna. They left for that at 7:30 am, and I went to Smiths to get treats for Owen's game (he wanted donuts) then Hyrum left for Idaho ~

Owen's coach was able to bring him home, cause I had to leave to come back home to get Peter to his game. First had to pull him away from legos. Natalie was home to watch K while I took O and P to their games. I was laughing at the story line - the lego princesses were ready for a party, and the party wouldn't get messed up this time by the naughty twins Pink and Zink, cause thankfully Elsa froze them so they're stuck, so now the princesses just needed to clean the streets so they could have their party. 

Natalie is such a good sister. Ok, she'll take care of Katharine, Peter let's go to your game! This was my first time watching him play, and it's pretty cute, but Owen's are a bit more enjoyable since those players know what they are doing. So for Peter's games I just need to go in with zero soccer expectation, and just let myself smile at cute 6 year olds. They were just running all around (video here). They lost like 10 to 1, and that was hard for Peter. He was frustrated and was mad at one teammate who was just playing with the net when he was the goalkeeper. Peter said "This is why I don't like versing other teams!" Peter had a turn as keep too and did a good job. They only scored on him twice. His team is mostly 1st graders, the other team looked like they were 2nd graders. And a year makes a big difference when you've only got 6 or 7 years of life under your belt. So it was sad, but he got a donut at the end. 

One time when he got scored on, the coach came and gave him a pep talk, and I could tell he would be crying if he was with me, but instead he did some deep breaths, and held his hands up as if he was ready to block a shot, and it seemed like he was trying to psyche himself up for a few more minutes of the game. I gave him a big hug after the game and hope that that was enough to help him get through, cause I was not buying him a frosty. 

Corey got back from the airport, I got home with Peter after his game, and the main thing I needed to do today was get food. I took Sophi and Natalie with me to Costco. It was busy. 

I spent $800 bucks, doh! Came home and unloaded the car, then Corey took Owen and Daniel on a ride to Corner Canyon. They parked at Peakview parking lot and all went down Canyon Hollow to the bike park. Then Corey left O&D there and he biked up Clarks to get the car. Back at home, I worked more in the basement, and that's where I ended up spending the rest of the evening, and I didn't go climbing. :( The kids wanted to do date night, cause they didn't watch a movie last night (also didn't have pizza, but I haven't been getting pizza for over a month cause nobody is doing their chores). Abi and Lily were at friends houses near Skyline tonight, Sophi and Natalie were at Jane's, and so I turned on a movie at 9:45pm for the boys and Katharine - Incredibles 2. I heard them laughing hard from the basement so I came and joined them for the last half of the movie. It is a cute show. And now, I've recorded the day's events, yay, and I'm happy Ariel's lego castle is done. Here's the front - 

and here's the inside. 

Aren't you so proud of me and so impressed? I hope K is able to play next week without me and that I can start being a homemaker again, but if not, I guess I'll redo Aurora's castle, cause we need to do that with the instructions!