My mornings and Custom Made Systems

[Hectic Morning]
So, today after devotional things got a bit hectic. My two little girls decided to wake up just as we were finishing up, my hair was drying (I have curly hair and so it has to be blown dry in a certain window of time or it goes frizzy), and kids were hungry. So, first I got my two little ones out of their cribs, and quickly buckled them into their high chairs. I presented them little bowls of applesauce hoping they would accept the offering, and forget about the fact that I didn't have any yougart (their number one breakfast choice as of late). Don't they look smashingly?! I just love Brea's hair. :) Luckily, they liked applesauce today, and started happily eating.


[Children?]
I then quickly helped the other kiddos get cereal, and rushed to my bathroom to start drying my hair so I wouldn't look like a total freak today. I kind of forgot about the four oldest kids for a few minutes as I finished up the blow drying process. However, as soon as I was finished I remembered them, and wondered what they'd been up to. I was crossing my fingers that they had started on their morning stuff, and weren't trying to sneak in a game on the computer. The house was surprisingly quiet, other than the grunts coming from my one year old indicating that she wanted more food. I refilled her bowl, and kept looking and listening for any trace of my big kids. I peaked around the corner, and much to my surprise three of them were all snuggled up on what we affectionately call our 'book bed' listening to my 7 year old read aloud a book. Of course my heart melted, and I couldn't help but document the little slice of heaven on Earth with a few photos.




Each day is getting better and better!! I feel like my house is in order, and as a result everything else is just falling into place. I am so blessed!!

[My Custom Made System]


I've been trying to figure out how to organize all the books we check out of the library. Not only am I concerned about keeping track of them, but also wanted to figure out a way to organize them so we actually used them. You see, some of our library books go along with what we're learning in history, others are cool science books (right now everything is about plants), others are just fun picture books, and then of course I have a few different categories of chapter books for my two oldest ones.

Last night an opportunity arose for me to have some free time to create my little system. My husband was so tired he went to sleep at 8:30, and so I headed off to Walmart to conquer my book organization/storage issue. After much looking, thinking, and calculating I found these $4 containers that seemed to work for now. Each one is labeled so that the kids, and I can quickly find what we are looking for. So far so good. We've had the books from the library for a few days, but I could definitely tell that today the kids read more of the books, and I've believe its because they could find what they were interested in.

Totally simple...probably totally lame, but hey it works. I just LOVE the power I have as a mother, to be creative and ingenious in my efforts to build a family culture that really works for our family. What a fabulous job I have!! Here's to more custom made systems for the Martineau family!!