"Playgroup Garage"

A few weeks ago we went to an open house at one of our new neighbors' house. We didn't feel any deep connection with anybody, but we did get a great idea...the lady runs a small daycare out of her home, and so she transformed her garage into a really cool playroom. There's was way cool. And while I knew we weren't going to invest the money to make it as cool as theirs, both Kenny and I came home thinking, "that's what we need to do!" So we set to work. We found some of this flooring at a couple different places, but Sam's was the cheapest. I didn't have a membership there, but my mom did so we sort of worked the system. Along with that Kenny built 6 shelves in there that we needed to for toys, storage, etc. The other wall of the garage is almost completely lined with shelves too. Apparently we still have a lot of crap. We also have our piano out there in the garage, because there's no room for it in the house. So it helped to turn this into a playroom, or a "playgroup garage" as the kids call it, so that it was more inviting when we do play the piano. So far I have zero complaints about our new space. It is heated, it keeps ALL the toys out of the house which significantly reduces the clutter, they can be as noisy as they want, it's big enough to run around like crazy and get some energy out in these long winters, and it keeps them out from under my feet! It's been a huge blessing to have this new space. It's like an additional 400 square feet! :) Of course, I don't enjoy having to plan 20-30 minutes in advance to start the car outside so we can open the frozen doors and scrape ice/snow, etc. But for as much time as we're in the car compared to at home, this definitely outweighed that.

Standing at the door looking into the garage. Those metal things at the back (in between the kennel and ottoman) are to take to the dump. Obviously it doesn't look perfect yet and there's still work to do out here (like painting??) but the kids sure don't care.

A panoramic view standing over by Jake's kennel

They are out there all the time and it's really fabulous. We've had family soccer games, which is Ty's favorite. 

While I'm here, I'll quickly re-cap last week.

Tuesday I was in charge of Young Women's in Excellence. I got called and when I had my first meeting with the pres. she says, so I've put you in charge of YWIE...it's in about 2 1/2 weeks. Awesome. So anyway Kenny had to work late, which meant Tyler missed soccer and they all came with me to the church. They liked running around in the gym while I took care of what I needed to. Kenny came and got them around 7:40 and went home and put them to bed. I had bribed them with ice cream if they were really good and stayed in the gym the whole time. Except for Kelsey, they did do just that. So the next day after we went to the library, we stopped and got some ice cream sundaes as a little reward. They really are good kids. :)

Wed. Kenny had meetings for church at night. 

Thursday we went to our cousin David's preschool where they had a big activity for lots of kids. A lot of high schoolers were in charge of it and the kids were glad to get out of the house. That evening Ty had soccer. Friday Kenny had work off! So we mostly just worked on the garage turning it into what it is now. We also went swimming as a family at the YMCA. I don't know if I mentioned, but we got a 6 month family membership there to help get through the winter. We walk to it because it's so super close and I like that. Madison is still very scared of the water and it took a long time to coax her in. She's getting more brave, but hasn't naturally taken to the water like her siblings.

Saturday I took Tyler and Brynlee on a "field trip" since we didn't do it Fri. We went to the museum again, but this time saw a film in their Planetarium. It was called Earth, Moon, and Sun. We ended up getting a private showing because we were the only ones in there :). Wish we would have brought the whole family! Right when we got back Kenny went to a meeting because there was a member of the 70 visiting. I think it's so cool he got to go. I got some more work done on the house and that night I finished off the week with an hour and a half of bikram hot yoga. One of my top 5 favorite things in the world. I feel so amazing after I'm done.

We've been focusing on thanskgiving lately with school stuff. This is what our table often looks like, and they're happily crafting away. I think I ended up throwing away these crafts because they just sat around and never finished and it drove me crazy. Our counters are always so cluttered and I try so hard to keep up with it, but obviously still haven't gotten there.

Just a cute shot when Kelsey climbed up and hugged Tyler, then asked him to read to her.