Apartment Purge

In anticipation of our upcoming (yet still not finalized) move, and also just because it needs to be done, we're slowly clearing out and cleaning up our apartment.

Last week I went through the kids' room hoping to toss a bunch of old toys while they were out for the day. While I did manage to gather a trash bag full of stuff, it turns out it was all actual trash and not too many toys. I suppose the good news in this is that they DON'T have an over-abundance of toys they aren't playing with. Sure I got rid of some of the cheap stuff they got from well meaning relatives during the holidays, as well the little 'treats' that come in kids meals, but really their toy boxes (which my awesome B-I-L made, and are about the size of a milk crate) aren't full. The oldest has the emptiest box (perhaps because he has a separate box up high for legos), while the two girls with their babies and barbies and accessories have the most full boxes. All in all I'm please with the state of the kids' room.

Which leads me to...

Our room.

oy.

Admittedly in an apartment with almost no storage and a bunch of people the master bedroom becomes a dumping ground. A place for things to go and die. Or just sit on the floor forever. The rowdy nature of the kids made us put their dresser in our room (or run the risk of them dumping their clothes and having to rewash it all), and since all of the dressers are there might as well fold laundry in there, and since the clean laundry is there might as well put the dirty laundry in a corner...You get the idea. Add on that the kids still manage to dump all their clothes on the floor (just not their floor) and the bedroom is a nightmare. I'm a packrat and a crafty person, so I have a bunch of yarn and odds and ends that might be useful, or that I want to do something with. So today I'm trying to tackle the master bedroom. It's slow going, but it is going. I already got rid of yet another bag of clothes we don't need. A lot of it was old baby clothes I've been holding onto...we've been strapped for cash too long not to cringe about getting rid of some of this stuff, but it is worth the monetary cost of replacing it (should we need it!) if it gives us some breathing room and peace of mind.

Plus I really really don't want to move a ton of crap in the summer.

of toddlers and markers

I've reached the point in my parenting life (I have five kids, the oldest is 8 and the youngest is 1) where I can safely say I roll with most of the punches. Dominic (age 4) came into my room where I was reading to the older kids and asked if I gave Lily (age 3) some tattoos. The kids have gotten a bunch of temporary tattoos in treat bag recently, so while I didn't really like the idea of my 3 year old taking it upon herself to apply them, the news that she had wasn't completely shocking.

Except that it was a sharpie, not temporary tattoos.

sigh.

But you know what? I don't even care. Well, except that she had the sharpie without permission...
I'll scrub her down as best I can, but if it doesn't come off I'm not going to sweat it. The only place she's going this week is to the baby sitter, and our sitter has dealt with our kids since the oldest was 2, so *she* knows how to roll with the punches right there with me.

Bad Blogger pt. 2

Ha! Isn't it great to have two posts in a row about how bad I am at blogging? Yeah, I know, super annoying.
 I see the last post I did was in August...wow. What's been going on since then? I revamped my Teacup Dolls pattern. They are now called Teacup Cuties and I'm really happy with their look now. Most obvious is MUCH better pictures. While I really love the original Boy, the Person and Pink Princess No-No (that's what my kids named those first two dolls) my photography skills have definitely improved since then.

Life is still just as busy. The scheduling at my day job has gone semi-computerized...I say semi because most weeks my boss goes in and fixes it so it's not stupid, but he went on vacation and the computer has some weird ideas as to what constitutes coverage.

This school year is coming close to wrapping up and I'm really looking forward to summer. We never got into a good groove this year and it's been such a pain in the mornings getting all 7 of us out the door on time.

I *am* (finally) working on some new crochet patterns, currently in the works are some Barbie clothes (because let's face it, I have two little girls, what else am I going to make?) and I've re-imagined an unpublished doll pattern of mine and I'm super excited about how it should turn out (once I sit down and work on it!).

The biggest news, which is also the most terrifying, is that we're buying a house!!! We're currently crammed into a MUCH too small apartment that offers no outlet for the kids to run off energy and of course we just have too many people and too much stuff for it to be a practical living space. My grandmother has decided to move to live with my aunt and is going to be selling us her house. I'm really excited because it means that the house my mother grew up in, and the house my siblings and I played in as kids (not to mention where I lived when I first started college) will still be in the family for us to enjoy. There are still details and banking to work out, so it still might all fall through (eek!) so keep us in your thoughts and prayers in the coming months, because we *really* need this to work out.

And shameless plug here: Check out my Etsy shop! With the impending move we're gonna need all the financial oomph we can muster, so why not pop on over and buy a pattern or two? or some baby shoes! Also keep a look out for a big sale when I decide I really really don't want to move all my stock. :-) OH! Also Etsy related: They've added INSTANT DOWNLOADS for digital items like PDF patterns, so no more waiting for me to check my email and send stuff! It's awesome and I love it!

Whoa, this was a long one! I hope it makes up for the internet silence over the (eep) months!