** * Our Life with 13 Kids * **: Rearranging

I had the kids work a lot on Saturday, and the house looked pretty good and we were able to sort through quite a bit and get things more organized so we can start the school year off right. I finally put away the snow pants and winter clothes... yeah, only took me til the end of summer. So after a good weekend of work, it only took one day of all of us home to make it look trashed again. It's all about habits, and apparently we need to make some better ones. I timed all the kids to see how long it takes them to put their shoes away vs. leaving them on the floor. Average time was 3 seconds. We just need to get in the habit of it.

So, on Monday, since we had lots of work to do, I thought I'd give us even more by re-arranging their bedrooms, yee-haw! I re-arrange the furniture almost compulsively. Maybe I'm just always searching for the most efficient way for all of us to live, and that keeps changing with each kid and as they grow and change each year.

The boys and girls rooms are staying the same, but I'm switching the furniture around, I wanted the girls to have the white bed. A silly detail that bugged me enough that I made myself have to do a lot of work, but now it's Wednesday and we finally got it all together. Now to tackle my desk, which I'm going to give to the kids as their study/desk area, cause I'm going crazy from having them climb over me when I'm at the computer, getting into my permanent markers and using up all the paper and just making a big mess. I'm giving myself an area that's locked away in the laundry room and I'll not have a computer in there, that way they won't ask me if they can use if to play games or look up legos on and hopefully I can keep it kid free and organized. My computer died anyway, so now I'm using the computer the kids have their SmartMusic on, so we're all sharing that one. I think it will be good and will keep me focused in what I'm doing at the computer since we all have to share it. I came in to use it a few times today but kids were doing their music, so I went and kept cleaning.

Anyway, something funny, as we moved the dresser into the girls room, Mel was excited to see that she could make the mirror faces like they do on Grandma's ipad - they get such a kick out of that app, they've made some pretty funny pictures on there. So here at home everyone wanted to get in on the fun.