Spring Cleaning

It's going well...and yes, I'm still at it. Man, there's lots to do around here. Of course there are the dailies (what my friend calls the everyday chores...laundry, dishes, kid stuff), but then there are things like reorganizing closets and cleaning out junk drawers to do. The closets are done and all the laundry is put away (major achievement). Now I have to do junk drawers and organize all of the kids' "homeschool" material (no, we didn't buy a curriculum yet, but we have TONS of stuff that we've accumulated over the years or has been given to us that I need to go through and see what we're going to do with it all). Plus, I need to work out a new schedule. Things are going to be changing pretty significantly here in the next 2 weeks (more on that later), so a new schedule is in order.

That's it for our little blog blip today. Here, though, are a few pictures of the cleaning and also just some fun pics from the week. Oh, and I obviously can't get happy and satisfied with a blog template, right? But, something is in the works and hopefully it will be just what I want. We'll see. And you'll see it soon too, hopefully. Alright, now for the pictures...

You've seen the playroom before, but I just love a clean playroom. :) Now that my sickly, tiresome, can't-really-move-around-all-that-great end-of-pregnancy days are over, we are not only getting the house in order, but also our children. :) We have some major fussiness/disobedience issues to deal with with Eissa (no, it's not the new baby syndrome...it's the normal, gotta-nip-it-in-the-bud 18 month old syndrome/behaviors) and we are full-fledged in training the children how to keep their things in their proper places. It's going really well...all of it. Lots of work though, that's for sure.
Boy, do we need that book display.
Isn't that a cute little baby doll swing on the toybox? That's the gift that Eliane (our house help) and her daughters gave Hadley on her birthday. I love it.
Sweet little sleeping baby.
Ahh, so nice and serene. Funny how it's so nice and peaceful to not look at the "big picture" sometimes.
THIS is the big picture. And now let's play a game...WHERE'S CASS? :) Yes, this was the pile of laundry that had accumulated. Nice. So yes...this is just one little glimpse into the week I've had. :)
We had a churrasco here last Sunday. Some of Joel's friends from high school days came over. The little girl (6 months) that came brought her walker. Eissa cracked us up...she was loving re-living her walker days I guess.




The guy in the stripes is Fabio, Joel's friend. The rest of the people are Fabio's family...they all went to church together back in the day. Really fun. We loved having them over. They are so much fun. I really like them all, but something about Fabio's dad, Philemon (probably not how you spell it in Portuguese, but it's the equivalent...he's on the end there in the picture)...I really like him. Oh yes...and look at Grady making fun of me again. I had only taken this 1 picture at the time, thank you very much...geeze.
Our friends that came over the other night (Kleyton, Cristina, and their daughter, Ana Liz), brought this gift. Cute huh? This was on our way to church the other night. The outfit says "Mommy loves you."


This and the following pictures were taken yesterday. Love Eissa's face here.
This little girl was 3 weeks old as of Tuesday. She is doing great...what a great, calm, sweet little baby.












Hadley, on the other end of the couch, was so not into taking pictures at the time.
But, after a little tickling, she was good to go. ;)