UN BELIEVEABLE

I have confiscated Brandonś netbook lately for my own uses so, lucky you, that means it is now convenient for me to vent at home... and I´ve got some venting to do...

Disclaimer: this is the type of thing Im generally ¨Over" by the time I get to work to type it up so its not the most exciting thing ever... so... I know.

OK back story: Peyton has made friends with the neighborhood boys and I let him play with them outside.  I used to let them play videogames in the house until the fourth or fifth time they trashed my house.  Also, they seem to multiply.  So no more kids in the house.  Thats been the rule for months but since it has been SOOO hot the past couple of days, I told Peyton he could have ONE friend in the house to play video games if he wanted.  Until today he hadn´t taken me up on it.  This evening he asked if Matthew and Joann could come in to play.  Matthew is 6 and Joann is 4.  I figured Joann couldn´t do too much damage on her own and the boys would play video games so I said yes.  Well, the playstation controllers werent working for whatever reason so they went to play in Peytonś room.  Still fine.  I knew theyd make a mess but Id have Peyton clean it up this evening and at least it was contained.  

I walked by Peytonś room after they had gone back outside and saw cars all over the floor through the cracked door.  No big deal.  That is until Peyton came in for the evening and I told him hed need to clean up his room before bed.  he said ¨what mess?¨ - still typical.  So I pushed open his door to show him the mess I was talking about and I swear I had the same reaction as the day I opened the same door when he was a toddler and had smeared poo all over his crib and wall.  Simultaneously: horror, panic, frustration, defeat, and probably some other things thrown in there.

There were not only toys strewn about, someone had taken ALL of the hanging clothes off of the rack (that stands in as his closet) and thrown them on the floor, every toy in every bin was on the floor and board games were open and dumped out.  It was like his room exploded.  All I could say was, ẗhis is unbelieveable.  UN BELIEVEABLE.  There will be no more friends in the house.¨ Peyton: ¨Ever?¨  ¨Yep.¨

Now hereś where the poo situation was worse - when he was a toddler he didnt know any better and wasnt able to clean up the horrid mess on his own.  I had to deal with it while he laughed and splashed in the bath.  Now he is.  And he knows.  Instead of just cleaning up before bedtime he spent the next hour putting everything away.  He apparently got the point because on my last inspection, when it was finally cleaned up and I told him he had 30 minutes left before he had to go to bed so he could watch a show, he hugged me and told me I was the bestest.  Shameless sucking up but Iĺl take it.  

Also, theres this:  The kids in question (the whole group this time- not just the three of them) all asked for water while they were playing in our driveway.  Im not totally horrible so I gave them water in disposable cups.  Peyton and I went to let the neighbors dog out while they are out of town and ALL those cups are thrown at the base of our driveway.  It looked like we had a frat party at our house.  UN BELIEVEABLE.

The Night Before School

Twas the night before school ...

The backpacks were stacked by the front door with care

in hopes that the supplies were all surely there

The pencils are sharpened

For the shameless (and necessary) bid for teacherś pet 

And finally, as I tucked him into bed while the sun was still out:

Me:  Are you SO excited about 1st Grade tomorrow??

Peyton:  Not really.  I hate to take baths.  

P.S.  Brandons first day of school was today and it went very well.  Results:  MacroEconomics is going to be easy but horribly boring; Physics will be hard.  He found his classes and parking spaces all by himself.  :)

Reading Buddies

PawPaw reading to Peyton - must have been 1 year old?

 

Now Peyton reads to PawPaw.

The Cats Miss Their Boy

And here's what the cats did while Peyton was away.  I could hardly get them off of his bed.  Nimbus and Pete anyway.  Bella appears to be happy for the break.  Peyton REALLY loves her and likes to hug on her.  Tightly.  A lot.  

 

 

 

 

Big Boy Room

Project #1 DONE!

While Peyton and Brandon have been traveling the last couple of weeks, I worked on transforming Peyton's room to something he could enjoy and use for the next several years... approximately 4.  (which just happens to be the number of years I think we will be "camping")

So here's what I came up with:

The desk still needs to be painted and I need to paint the inside of the bottom drawer of the dresser.  Its a storage locker find that we didn't end up selling.  The bottom drawer was broken so I decided to just remove it and use the bottom area as shoe storage but I didn't think to paint that part of the inside. 

I forgot to take a picture of it but his book storage is a wire milk crate - the kind that my Grandpa had in the shed.  Also from a locker.   We have two and I love them SOO much!  I painted it black but didn't put a finish on it so that the black will wear off naturally and it should have a cool look to it over the years.  His laundry basket is a wire egg crate - (25 cents at a garage sale!!) that I put a canvas liner in.  Canvas liner came from a rolling laundry station mom and dad bought me.  Its the same as the liner that is hanging above the blue tubs in the picture above.  That one houses stuffed animals.  New rule:  if he gets a new stuffed animal, one of the existing ones has to be donated - that thing is full to the brim!

And who knew I wouldn't be able to find Pez dispensers???  I wanted to do a little display of them above his bed but I couldn't find them.  So that'll be a progressive project. 

Anyway... here's his grown up big boy first grader room!  Hopefully it will take him all the way to middle school.  He has a bedside lamp (for reading) and an alarm clock (because big boys need to learn to get up on their own eventually).  Sigh. 

Day 1

Okay blogosphere, I'm back!  For some reason I really want to title this post "Day 1".  Its certainly not "Day 1" of anything except the new phase of my blog.  But this IS the beginning of a new phase of the Anderson life (just maybe not Day 1).  This summer, brandon is taking a break from classes at UCO in Edmond, and working at Earls.  Beginning with the Fall 13 semester, he plans to quit working full time and take 17 hours of classes at UCO.  Repeat for the Spring 14 semester.  Then during the summer of 2014, we plan to relocate to Norman so that he can begin taking classes full-time at OU.  All of that means lots of changes for our household and change means anxiety for me.  And anxiety for me means OCD planning.  Like files and binders and drawings.  Don't judge!  Its how I roll. 

We are looking at apartments on and near the OU campus.  Brandon wants to live here.  I would like to live here or here or here. 

No matter where we land, the bottom line is, we've got to downsize.  A LOT!!  I'm okay with the idea of purging, but my idea of purging is going from four cutting boards down to two.  Being able to live comfortably with less stuff and less room than I do now is giving me heart palpatations.  Did you look at those kitchens???  Pretty sure there's not a place for my tupperware cabinet.  I do not know how we are going to do this.  And the possibility of not having my own washer and dryer is pretty frightening as well.

When the Boyle family moved to Texas A&M, we dubbed the experience, our 3-year Camping Trip. I've been holding on to that mentality (really hard) but the images of some of the bathrooms I've seen are making me think more of a 1-star hotel than a camping trip, which, for me, is way worse than camping. Probably because I camp like this. Sooo, if I'm going to rough it for three years, Im going to do it Troop Beverly Hills style.

black and white kitchen

So here's my plan for today (and by today I mean this moment... the plan for TODAY is actually work, swim lessons, dinner, bath, bedtime, lunch prep, bed... seriously who has time to move!?):

 

black and white overall color scheme for the apartment with pops of color for each room.  I'm liking the metallic accents in this kitchen. 

 

At the very least, this gives me a place to start.  All white towels so the colored towels are the ones to go; keep the black curtains; big ugly cherry desk goes away, small black table/desk goes to Norman. 

 

Still haven't figured out the whole tupperware situation, but there may be hope yet...

All About Christmas

I've not been very good at the whole photo dump thing but I thought I better do it while I was thinking about it.  Here's this week's offering... 

 

 

Peyton's 12 Days of Christmas board

I hope he has fun with it.  I think he will.  It starts tomorrow!!!

Peyton is really into gingerbread men this year.  I think they sing songs about them at school and I know he made a gingerbread house - which he consumed almost completely before I even picked him up from Nana's that night...

 

Icing the gingerbread people.  He made boys and I made girls.

Eating them wearing his santa hat that he HAD to have. 

And Ho Ho Ho'ing - I think.

I asked Peyton to clean up his desk on Sunday because it was a disaster.  This is what he did.  Pretty good, I thought.  Everything is displayed.  And that's a shoe hung in front of the lamp.  I dont know why.

 

And, yes.  His calendar is stuck in October...  I think I am too.

My view from the couch last night.  I have yet to take pictures of the christmas decorations so... here's the one that I have.  :)