A Little Bit of Organization & Other Fun Things

After hearing the boys say that they can never find a pencil one too many times, I went about collecting pencils from their hiding places.  This is what I came up with.

Most of them weren't hiding after all, but rather, their points weren't sharp enough for my boys' liking and since pencil sharpeners just don't last in our house, we're giving mechanical pencils a try.

While Chris and the older boys were at Kids' Camp, and Gabriel was at VBS one morning, I took the girls and spent two glorious hours at the Container Store.  My very first time there.  It was wonderful.  A bit overwhelming, and I could easily blow hundreds of dollars there.  Actually, thousands.  But, much to my husband's relief, I did not.  I did get some good things for our homeschool shelf that's in the dining room, which houses our most used school books and supplies.  I didn't take a before picture, but just picture a couple of notebooks full of paper going through a tornado.  Throw a handful of pencils, crayons, markers and glue sticks into the mix.  Pretty much like that. 

But here is what it looked like after I had my way with it.

Each boy has a shelf of his own, and Gabe's is the most empty of school books so he gets to host writing supplies on his shelf.  Speaking of which, this is what I bought to organize our pencils and glue and scissors and staplers, etc.

We've had this system going all week and it's still neat and tidy so hopefully we can keep it that way. 

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A few things we've done in the past few weeks.

The San Antonio Children's Museum.  Gabriel, Leah, Anna and I went while the big boys were at Kids' Camp. 

Gabriel mapping out the plan of playing.

Anna getting in on the fun.

The grocery store was a big hit.  Leah and Gabriel knew just what to do with all the food in the little store.

Leah's cart was a little too small for her and she got upset whenever her groceries starting spilling over the sides.  One of the museum workers helped her to fit everything in though, and convinced her that it was time to check her groceries out.

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When Chris and the boys got back, we all went to see Toy Story 3 3D.  We are big fans of the first two movies and the third one was a hit as well. 

Although he liked the movie, Gabriel thought part of it was too intense and scary and even cried for a few minutes.  We just had to remind him that the good guys weren't going to get hurt and that the movie was pretend.  He gets like this at many movies, but only for the first time watching.  The next time he sees it, he'll be fine.  Anna did well through the movie, but Chris had to go stand at the bottom of the seating area with Leah a few times.  She's just not into sitting still for so long yet.

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Anna has started doing more big baby girl stuff and is has decided that smiling is really fun and being happy is how she wants to roll most of the time.  She'll play by herself for a while on the floor, she can hold onto toys and get them to her mouth pretty well now, and she'll play in her jumperoo or even hang out in her Bumbo while I cook dinner.  She's awesome at giving nice slobbery kisses and will start chewing on any fingers within her grasp.  She loves to suck her thumb if she can't find someone else's to chew on.  She is sleeping in her own 'room' in the pack and play now and prefers to roll onto her tummy whenever I lie her down.  She'll go right to sleep usually now instead of needing to cry for a minute or two like she used to do.  She still wakes up a time or two at night to breastfeed.  She takes one short morning nap, about an hour or so, and takes a nice long afternoon nap, about three hours which I'm pretty good at lining up with Leah's three hour afternoon nap...awesome!  We do school during that time and I still have time to sit and relax.  It's nice to listen to her wake up babbling to herself through the baby monitor.  She is so precious and I'm so in love with her.

Five months old is definately a fun age to be.