helping

Beware it's a long and boring post, so if you want the good stuff, rush down to the last sentence.


My wonderful awesome amazing mom came up to help me out this week for our fall break.  I have had some corners in my house that just keep getting bigger and bigger piles of stuff that need to be sorted and put away, and with my limited energy, they haven't been touched, so my mom came to help me go through those corners.  In the 2+ days she was here we worked like crazy to clean them all out!  I definately couldn't keep up with her, but luckily the girls could a little better.
The first day we started with the bedrooms.  Avi has become somewhat of a collector of things and in doing so has made her room a little cluttered and disorganized.  Since she was the first one done with breakfast, she was the first victim.  When it got to the point that I wasn't being any more help plopped on the floor directing traffic I moved to Dailynn's room to get her moving.  I have been keeping closer tabs on Dai and JJ, so there wasn't as much clutter as just messes, so by the time Avi and Mom were done with their project, I had the filth cleaned up and was ready for the help with the project of going through clothes.  I was amazed at how many clothes we have inherited from people.  I have 3 boxed dedicated to the next size that JJ will grow into.  Lucky for me, it will be summer and she will probably be destroying those clothes way too fast, so I will have plenty to spare :).  After a quick trip to the dr, and lunch; we finished up with my room and a closet and started moving down the stairs.  While I was at the dr. Mom attacked my pantry.  I had done little sections here and there as time, energy and absolute need deemed it, but she was able to get everything so that it isn't balancing precariously in there and got rid of all the crumbs and spilled flour out YIPEEEEEEEE!!!!!  The rest of the day was doing laundry, cleaning a few little places and dinner.  We were so exhausted by the time the kids went to bed!
On day 2 the real fun began.  Mom let me go play volleyball for an hour and do some much needed grocery shopping with only Dailynn (do you know how nice it is to have a helpful child to shop with rather than a hyper 2 yr old) while the other 2 girls stayed home to help grandma clean the garage and play outside for the hour of sunshine we got.  I think it was good I wasn't there for the whole garage part because I would have wanted to lift all the heavy stuff to help, and after the first day my body was saying no way!  After putting groceries away and getting a quick shower we met Nathan for a lunch with Dad day because the older girls don't get to do that very often.  Then it was back to work.  We went to town on the garage again, deciding where to put shelves and all the stuff on them.  At the same time we were defrosting our deep freeze so that we could move it down stairs in an attempt to save energy by having it in a little more temp controlled environment.  Once we got the garage sufficiently destroyed and rearranged until Nathan could get home and rebuild the shelves that he disassembled the night before, we moved down to the food storage.  It has just gotten more and more cluttered to the point where we just didn't want to go in there much.  I had a wonderful neighbor come organize all the food a few weeks ago, but now we moved all the boxes to where they needed to go rather than the teetering piles they were.  The girls had fun transporting water bottles for me to put away a little neater.  By the time we were done with that, the storage room was destroyed again, but on the mend, and we just had to wait for some reinforcement to come help us move the freezer and heavy stuff around for a few min.  I was supper lucky to have Nathan motivated when he got home and got a few hrs. of organization from him as well.  By the time we got the storage room and shelves done, there were only 2 things left on my massive list, one was clean out under the kitchen sink, and the other was the dreaded computer room.  Lucky me, I got Nathan in the computer room cleaning out his boxes and boxes of computer stuff that we haven't looked through in years, while I trapped him in going through the filing cabinet.  Mom was awesome and took care of the sink!!!  By the time mom and I got through all the papers that needed to be filed, it was time for the kids to go to bed .  We got them down, and did a little last min cleaning before we all crashed as well.
This morning we had a baptism to go to and since it was my good friends daughter, I kinda signed myself (and in turn mom) up to help her.  On a day that I'm not pregnant and exhausted I might have been able to get the fruit salad and rolls done by myself, but the way I am now, there was no way, so in swoops super mom again and saved the day.  She took care of all the fruit while I made the rolls and got kids ready.  We got everything done with a few min to spare, yipee!  The baptism was great, and afterwards I ran to set up the luncheon with the help of about 5 6-10 yr olds thinking they needed to help.  It was great, but that age group doesn't quite have an eye for how a buffet table should be set.  I'm not complaining, it was helpful to have them carry everything in, and then all we had to do is arrange it.  After lunch and cleanup mom had to take off.  I came home put the food away and slept!!!  I was so exhausted and worn out from the last 2+ days.
This is a great big shout out to the most amazing, wonderful, awesome mom I could ever ask for!!!!!