And the road goes ever on

I just love having older girls! I love my toddlers and preschoolers too, but it is really nice to have some "middles" now. Not only were they, especially Aubrey, such a big help to me last night as we hosted Bible study without Daddy, but they have been a great help to me around the house this week!

Today they deep cleaned the school room. They dust all shelves, removing all books (we have alot of shelves and alot of books), vacuumed the curtain, vacuumed baseboards, and reorganized the art cabinet. That cabinet resembled out leftover container cabinet form two posts ago before, but now it looks so much better. And the girls can actually find things!

While they were doing that, I finished the kitchen. I took down all the stuff from on top of my cabinets and dusted the cabinets and that stuff. Then I took everything out of the upper cabinets and wiped out all those shelves. I even cleaned out from under the sink! I used a great trick my mother taught me to clean artificial greenery as well: put them in the floor of a shower and run the shower. I actually put them in one of the upstairs' showers that has a removable shower head and washed them all off. They are in my tub drying now and I'll put them back up tomorrow. So much faster than dusting every leaf!

I am also trudging ahead with school planning. I want to stretch out the history curriculum I'm using and cover the material in a year and a half rather than a year so we can hit the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation more heavily. So I made up a preliminary plan on which weeks to take more time on. I've also been culling through the recommended book list, marking off things I already own and those the library owns. Now I am in the process of deciding which books to buy (and from where) and which to substitute. I'll be able to do this a little more easily once I get the curriculum in my hands. Right now I'm working off the comprehensive book list on the company's site.

Less than 24 hours left to go until Kelly comes home! Lauryn actually cried this morning because Daddy wasn't home. She is really confused because his yellow car ("Daddy's yewwow caw) is parked outside her window, but he is still gone! But I have a little surprise for them in the morning. I'll let you know about it tomorrow...