We had a good weekend. It felt full, but productive and relaxing at the same time.
Saturday:
Saturday was the “busy” day. Ethan had a basketball game at 8 am at his school and had to be there by 7:30. So that was a pretty early start.
Ethan’s team had a tournament, so the 8 am game was Game #1 of the weekend. He is having so much fun playing basketball. He’d never played before this year, but that means he is steadily and rapidly improving. Being a small kid, he was a little nervous at first. But he’s really coming along with it and we can see him gaining a lot more confidence. He’s never going to be the next Michael Jordan, but I am SO HAPPY that he’s had the opportunity to play for his middle school. The competition level isn’t super high like it would be in a private league or club, but that’s totally fine and perfect for him! The boys are having a blast. And since soccer isn’t in season, I’m really glad he has practices/games for basketball to keep him active and busy this winter.
I recently finished Emily Oster’s book The Family Firm, and she had a whole section about extracurriculars and their benefits. A big one she mentioned repeatedly was that activities like music or sports create a “sense of belonging” for kids, which is very beneficial to their social development. I definitely agree!
Asher had a swim meet all afternoon (an hour away), which I took him to while Ivan stayed home and went to basketball game #2 with Ethan. I surprisingly didn’t take a single photo of either basketball OR swimming this weekend!! What is wrong with me?!? Hehehe.
Saturday night Asher was at a birthday party, and Ivan and I decided to watch the Beatles documentary on Disney+ called Get Back. It was….. interesting? For a very little while. And then it quickly got pretty boring (to us)! I hadn’t realized it would basically just be footage of them working day after day for 2 weeks to get ready for a live show in the late 60’s. So, they are just sitting around in a room, talking, jamming, figuring out lyrics, etc. It’s interesting from the standpoint of seeing “behind the scenes”, and apparently this is some pretty rare/recently unearthed “live footage”. But this was in their later days, when I didn’t really care for their musical style as much. Also, it gets very, very repetitive and just not that exciting! We ended up turning it off. Maybe for a serious, hardcore Beatles fan it would mean more.
Sunday:
The main focus of Sunday was taking down Christmas decorations!! I spent some personal time in the morning blogging, catching up on my journal from Saturday, etc. But then we lugged the boxes down from the garage and spent several hours packing away decorations, cleaning up, and storing everything. I kind of enjoyed just puttering around, and we had the Packers game on the TV at noon.
I LOVE having my Christmas stuff up, but I had reached even my breaking point. I was just done with the extra “clutter” of all the decorations sitting around. It was starting to feel a little stifling to me and I was ready to go back to a little more simplistic look in the house again. (I miss the twinkle lights, though.)
Ivan went out to buy a new drill (ours broke a while back) and then hung Asher’s new curtains! So now his room remodel is officially “done”, I think. (Minus…a new desk chair. I guess that’s the last remaining item.) But otherwise, it’s DONE! He absolutely loves it and is so excited.
Asher spent a while reorganizing his book shelf. He brought some “unread” books up from our basement shelf that he still wants to read and cleared out others that he no longer wanted in his room.
Ethan had his final BB game at 2:00, which we all went to watch (even Asher came along). When we got home, we finished taking down the Christmas tree, Ethan practiced piano and then I did a home workout (Fight Club- Morning Meltdown #28). Ivan made homemade nachos for dinner (Ethan’s request). To close out the weekend, we watched the 2012 movie Here Comes the Boom, with Kevin James on Netflix. I’d seen it before but the boys hadn’t, and it’s a great family film. Rated PG, lots of really funny parts and a good message of self-sacrifice/ service to others!
Gratitude Challenge Day 10:
Name 3 things you love about your family.
1- I love that everyone is generally very open minded about “doing things” together. As in, everyone loves to travel, explore, etc. The boys are happy to go pretty much anywhere, even if it means waiting in lines, going to museums, doing so-called “educational” things on trips, hiking, whatever. I have talked to other people who have said things like, “oh, my kids wouldn’t want to do XYZ, so we would never travel there.” And that always kind of blows my mind! I can’t really think of a place my family wouldn’t want to go.
2- I love that everyone in my family is kind. Everyone, from my parents to my sister to my husband to the boys, is what I would definitely call a “good person”. They do the right things (most of the time/ best effort, anyway!).
3- I love that I can talk through issues and problem solve with my family. We are a family that communicates well and often, I think. We’re close, and everyone tends to take on the others’ problems or concerns as if they were their own. I like that a lot. I don’t really have many very close friends, but I know I can always turn to my family.
GRATEFUL KAE 
That bedroom just looks…so nice. Cozy, inviting, yet very much a reflection of personal taste, too. Love it. Both our kids need serious room makeovers! We haven’t painted or done anything to their rooms since moving in (OVER 4 years ago). Hopefully over the winter we’ll pick away at these tasks. The kids don’t seem to mind, but I think they’ll love getting to make their spaces more their own.
Also – seeing bookshelves in kids rooms just makes me so happy. Abby has huge built-ins and we recently colour-coded all her books and I still get a thrill every time I see all the books lined up.
I’m so glad your boys love family time; our kiddos are great adventurers and it is one of the things I’m most excited about as they get older. They love to explore new places and are every pretty open to other cuisines. At this point we just do a lot of adventuring close to home, but maybe 2022 we can all get on a plane? Here’s hoping!
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You’ve got time….my kids are older than yours!! We just finally got to the real “pre-teen” years/ early teen stage this year, so it was time. I wasn’t even really planning to do this yet, but we needed new carpet, and it seemed like it made sense. I’m actually really glad to have that out of the way though! My older son still might change up a little decor too eventually but he got new carpet, new furniture but did NOT need a paint change. So that made it much easier. They should be mostly set now through their remaining years of living in our room, assuming we stay here and everything. With your son, you might as well just wait since he’s quite young! Whatever he wants now at 7 might be different from what he wants in a couple more years….maybe just wait til he’s really ready for the “big kid” room and save yourself the trouble.
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The bedroom looks so cozy! Great job!!
A has had the same room layout and design for years. She has a Disney Princess mural that fills one wall and it’s seen better days, but she insists we can’t change it!
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Aww…that’s cute. Yeah, it’s hard when something is not easily replaceable! Ethan has awesome blue and white stripes in his room, but there are some holes and such that could use touching up. But there is no good way to really easily “redo” his stripes!! Can’t just slop a new coat over the whole thing, you know?? So we are just living with the imperfections because overall he loves the stripes.
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Oh, wow! His bookshelves are so organized. It looks like quite a cozy room to curl up and read in!!
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I know! Sometimes I think I might go and read in there someday when he’s not home! Hahaha.
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I love your family too! hahahha… I agree on the first two for ours as well. We love doing things together and very close to each other. I think we can work more on to be kind. sometimes siblings rivalry makes me wonder if they are kind girls.
Agree with NGS on how organized is his bookshelf, I’ll show it to Sofia. hahaha
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The bedroom turned out so great! I love the pop of color from the mustard curtains and throw! It looks awesome!! I think we have the same or a very similar white cube storage unit in our basement. We store the boys toys in it and it has really helped with the organization down there!
It feels sooo good to get the house back to normal after Christmas. I would have done it on the 26th if it was up to me, but I let it linger until the 30th and then took stuff down. I love our tree but I love the return to normal after christmas. I’ve been working on organizational projects here and there when I can fit them in. I’m following “The January Cure” through Apartment Therapy although I will probably do maybe 1/2 to 2/3 of the tasks? But it’s better than nothing! So far my focus has been on organizing the drawers/cupboards in our kitchen. That is the kind of organizing I love because the before and after can be so stark! Phil watched the kids so I could do this and I kept telling him to come look at a certain cupboard. He was not as enthused as I was but did appreciate the work I was putting into getting us more organized!
I have The Family Firm but haven’t read it yet. I think I will try to in 2022. Paul turns 4 in March so he’s hitting the younger end of the age group that book is most relevant for (from my understanding). I am a huge Emily Oster fan and loved her last 2 books so I expect to like this one, too!
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