A very busy weekend and hopefully a lesson learned!

So this weekend wasn't supposed to be busy, but it was a crazy one anyways.

Friday Mike cleaned all day so I could just relax and hang out with my girls. The quality time with them is definitely lacking unfortunately. So Friday night after dinner I took Taylor and Bella to the mall with me. Then Taylor and I took Bella home and we headed to Wal-Mart (I can't stand this store and avoid it at all costs.) It wasn't too bad and when we got home Callee had cuddled up to Mike and fell asleep. We moved her to her bed and got Taylor ready for bed too.

Saturday I took Callee with me to K-Mart and grocery shopping. We ate a little lunch while we were out too and the plan was to watch a movie with the girls when we got home. Well, Callee lost a necklace she got in Disney World and asked me to help her find it. I did except her helping was sitting on the couch and every time she saw me she asked, did you find it yet? When I'd say no and continue looking she'd get mad I hadn't found it....did she help at all? NO!!!!!!

While I was looking for the necklace I noticed they weren't really appreciating or taking care of their toys. I went to talk to them about their responsibilities and losing things and taking care of their stuff. They seemed to care about nothing at this point. I told them I was telling Santa and everyone else no toys for Christmas and they still didn't care. I told them I was throwing out all their current toys and no reaction! Then I told them they couldn't go to the movies with my dad, that started the water works!

After talking to them and Mike, we decided to let them go with my dad and it would be the last for a very long time. We told them when they got back they would have no toys and they didn't seem to care. As soon as they left I got busy sorting and storing and disposing of toys! I kept 3 bins of toys that are sorted into babies, dollies (includes barbies, princesses and Tinkerbell) and Build a Bear dolls and outfits. They have to earn their toys back one bin at a time and on Wednesday if all goes well they can pick one. They are not allowed to know what is in each one, they get what they get. They can pick another one next week and then if they are still being good they can get the last one two weeks from Wednesday.

Here is what they were allowed to keep (I didn't want them having nothing and driving me absolutely insane): they still have their art center (art easel, coloring books, crayons, markers and paint), their puzzles and their books. They have all their CD's and their CD player. We threw away four bags of toys (McDonald's happy meal toys or they were broken or ruined) and we donated five garbage bags of toys to the Family Missions. Hopefully kids who have nothing will benefit from my children's ungratefulness and selfishness. So I told you how much they were allowed to keep and how much was tossed or donated and I wonder why they acted selfish and ungrateful? Because they are spoiled beyond belief. It stops now though, every Christmas and birthday they will help me go through the toys and make room for the new. No more McDonald's and Burger King junk cluttering up everything either.

I'll let you all know eventually if they learned their lessons, but so far they seem to be playing better together and handling it a lot better than I thought they would. Hopefully this will continue; we have had a couple of meltdowns when they realize their favorite toy is no longer right there, but rather packed away until they earn them back. Even then, they are not guaranteed to get their favorite back right away. I am hoping they will take better care of their toys through this and not lose so many or ruin them. Maybe they'll appreciate all they have and if they don't, my next step is ebay because really they do have some cool toys!

Sunday was pictures for all 5 of my parents grandchildren. Quite the adventure, but it's over and they came out cute. We went to Dairy Queen after and I don't know when the last time I laughed that hard was. After we got home Mike and I took the girls for a walk since it was 60 degrees (heat wave around here.) After our walk the girls rode bikes in the driveway and Mike and I dug up the flower beds in the front and side of the house; hoping to get to the back soon. We had some weeds and bushes that decided to plant themselves and some were deep and could have been expensive to fix had we waited much longer (one plant was starting to root into the wall of the basement.) It's done now and I'm glad; hopefully it'll make spring planting a little easier too.

So that was our weekend. I'm glad Mike cleaned Friday so I didn't have to, but apparently I will always find something that needs done!