Cleaning

I'm posting about this because it's very unusual. Scott's doing most of it: yesterday he washed and vaccuumed the living room windows, today he washed and vaccuumed the floor, I dusted, and of course, we're trying to get caught up on laundry and dishes. The vaccuuming included moving all the furniture around. Under the couch we found an ornament hook and some needles from the Christmas tree. Last year's. Here are pictures of the tree in front of our front windows in case you were wondering why this is such a big deal. There's another set of windows like that in the living room, and another set in our bedroom. (We haven't even thought about the upstairs yet . . . maybe next year.)

I've also spent the last several evenings after the kids were asleep (say around midnight) gathering up all the toys they either don't play with, have outgrown, or use as weapons. Most of them have one or two pieces missing, so everything is in the guest room awaiting final parts. So far they haven't missed any of it. Some things I'm just going to put away for a year or so, like the Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs (see previous comment about weapons), but most of it is going to KIDS, Inc., a local organization which provides all kinds of things to kids in needy families. They still have way too much stuff, and then it's Christmas and Mary Margaret's birthday 2 weeks later. She's already at age 3 figured out that she can ask for stuff for Christmas and birthday. This is the year we're going to get a couple of names off the Angel Tree at the store, so she can begin to understand that not all kids are as lucky as she is.