For several months, the plan has been in place for the kids to visit Papa and Nana's house starting this coming Friday through Thanksgiving day (My husband and I will join up with them on Thanksgiving day, don't worry!). Anytime I have a planned timeframe like that, I start thinking about what I want to accomplish without kids around! Lets face it, it is always easier to accomplish big tasks in less time without "helpers" :-)
After much changing, re-thinking, planning, and changing plans again this is what I'm planning:
1. Organization - I have big plans for the boys room, the play room, and our school supplies which may or may not include such things as new toy storage shelves, playdough playing tables and shelves to hold the big trucks. Plus clearing off bookshelves (and taking the books to a used book store) and setting up a storage area for craft and school supplies in the basement.
2. Shopping - Saturday is reserved for some shopping! I have some Christmas Shopping to do for the boys, clothes shopping (thanks to a gift to do so!), and an open house a friend is having for new scrapbooking supplies.
3. Cleaning - This goes hand in hand with the organizing - those three rooms will get super cleaned while the organizing is happening.
4. Planning - I want to prep all of our December activities from our Grinch countdown to our books to read to the crafts to do. To be honest, some of this will happen this week as I need to go through the Christmas books I bought a few years ago and see if I have 15 I really want to use :-) I might also start looking for and printing craft ideas so I can pick up some supplies at Hobby Lobby.
5. Decorating - My kids love to help decorate for Christmas BUT I love to have things up a certain way so I plan to do some decorating for Christmas. I will leave things for them, don't worry, like their room with their trees, and even a box of decor items that they can put out anywhere they want. I also want to get our Christmas lights/outdoor decor put up. For the first time, we aren't cutting down a tree - my husband's health just won't make it happen this time so I picked up a decent fake tree to use this year (it may get moved to the boys room next year if we do a live one at that point again). I want to have that put together and the lights on that as well. We'll wait to decorate it until the boys are home :-)
I know that seems like a lot but in reality, I have 5 1/2 days without the boys here and I have 5 things to get done. Here's the overall plan.
Friday (1/2 day) - Work on that planning - specifically to have a list of anything I might need at Hobby Lobby. I also want to get all of the books packed up to take to Baker Bookhouse so I can drop them off while in town.
Saturday - Shopping
Sunday - Start with the organizing/cleaning. My main goal today, inbetween Football watching, is to get stuff put together like the shelving units, storage things etc. I might try to get the boys room put together/cleaned as well as that is the easiest of the rooms to work on.
Monday - My husband has a doctor's appointment that I may or may not need to take him to depending on how he is feeling. Otherwise, I will be working on two things - 45 minutes working on Organizing and Cleaning, (a 15 minute break), then 45 minutes working on that planning and putting everything together for our activities (followed by a 15 minutes break).
Tuesday - I will finish up everything for the Organization/Cleaning part that is not done (if anything). Then I'll finish up any planning. Finally, I will start with the decorating!
Wednesday - Today will be all about Decorating. :-)
That's the plan - we'll see how it goes ;-)
