Birthday & Messy House

Today was my dad's happy birthday. 

We usually don't go visit my parent's at their home, but this seemed like a good excuse to go raid Hibbert headquarters. Older kids were quiet and respectable...

Younger kids were younger kids...

And I recognize that my parent's home isn't really made for the young people to gather in, but we didn't break anything and hopefully we didn't stress them out too much?? Me, Neil, and Beka and Matt were able to go by, and Joseph, Mel, Hyrum's (got back from Idaho on Friday), Wes, Abi, Sophi, Natalie Owen Daniel and Peter...

I don't know that we've ever all gone over to my parents' house like this? Joseph and Matt talking school stuff - 

It was nice to go over there and visit. I hope we do it again soon. We don't get together with the Hibberts as much as we'd all like. Back at home, I was hoping that Corey had enjoyed a little bit of quiet. I got K a drink and she sipped up some water and then spit it out on the floor. Why???

I take her upstairs, get her in something dry, left my phone within reach (she likes to take pictures) and it looks like she tried to enter the passcode a few too many times - it's unavailable for 43 minutes, yay.

Things have been feeling a bit messy and crazy around here. I took photos of all the chaos earlier today so I could have evidence for when I gave the kids a lecture later this week. These are all from this morning:

Almost every spoon, fork, and knife is used and dirty - aaaand has not been cleaned - 

I bought cups recently (again!) to try to solve the water problem I think we have going around here - like dirtying a cup every time they need a sip of water is just nuts. Maybe these will help? 

Kids ALWAYS leave their shoes all over the floor. Like how do we fix this?

Shoes on the floor in the kitchen as well -

Someone (Lily?) made an omelet yesterday, left the thing out, I move it, underneath it there is egg nice and hardened on the counter...

Dirty pan from eggs on the stove top...

Natalie has been knitting hats - and it's either left within Katharine's reach or Natalie lost interest?? Either way it's been discarded and unraveling from it's loom and becoming a tangled mess... do we throw it away? are we done with this or going to try and fix it?

Someone took a chair from my desk into the bathroom, and just left it 

Everyone is contributing to this mess. A pile in my room, so probably mostly mine - Laundry, towels, everything...

Someone got into the thread in the laundry room - 

Lily's desk - she has thread out, tape, scissors... she's currently making something, who knows, but she gets the stuff out and doesn't put it away...

And then as she was getting the thread out, apparently knocked over a little box of hooks and clasps...

Katharine! NO eating food out of the kitchen! Katharine with a stapler - pulling it apart and watching the spring get taut and letting it pull itself back together. Katharine, are you the culprit of these messes?

Ugh, it's all too much. I wish I could hit pause life and get ahead just a little bit... 

But kids keep growing and life is not slowing. Maybe someday I'll have a clean house and then I'll miss all the mess. I know I'll miss having little ones around. And if you can't have kids without the mess, then I'll suck it up and keep them both. I love these kids. I wish I was better at teaching them to help around here. Sigh - ok, done venting. Going to go to bed and I'll go clean up in the morning.