GSD Weekend

I declared it GSD weekend on Saturday morning.  GSD is, pardon the profanity, Getting Shit Done.  I busted my tail all day Saturday cleaning the house, as the budget does not allow for the housekeepers to come this week.  Husband spent the day on a geometry problem that involved figuring out where the most level place in the yard is for a 12' kiddie pool.  As it turns out, there is no such place.  But never fear, swimming did occur.  The pool was on clearance at Target, and we just couldn't say no.

I'm heading out of town tomorrow afternoon until Wednesday evening, which will have me back in town in time to keep the kids occupied while Husband has to go through fasting, etc. to prepare for an outpatient procedure Thursday morning.  With Boy starting preschool tomorrow and us trying to shuffle Girl around to the appropriate places, I worked on a couple of projects to hopefully make Husband's time a little easier while I'm gone.

We did our usual meal planning and shopping today, plus got Boy's haircut.  He is such an angel when he is getting his hair cut.  When we got to the store, it dawned on me that Boy's class is already having a birthday celebration on Tuesday and I'm not prepared to bring something GF/EF for him to eat instead.  I was already planning to send snacks for daily use, but a sweet treat is a must!  So we grabbed a bag of Pamela's Chocolate Chunk cookie mix.

While I was tackling cheerleading practice and taking the kids to play in the kiddie pool, husband made dinner for tonight (hamburgers and fried okra [from my neighbor's garden] and salad] and tomorrow night (which is an awesome homeade chicken noodle soup recipe).  He might even get two night's worth of dinners out of it!  He also prepped our smoothies for tomorrow and his for Tuesday.

In the meantime, I was working on a clothing organization system for the week:

I put a sign for each day of the week.  Then I made cards for each of the specials Girl has.  Husband put velcro on the back, so we can change it every week.  She has her entire wardrobe for the week picked out, and Husband can see what types of shoes she will need given the special she has.

Beyond the organizational aspect, we have some behavioral challenges to work on.  With Girl, we need to work on some general reward-based incentives.  She wants an American Girl doll more than anything.  I even tried to get her into the cute generic ones at Target, but she was pretty firm on it.  So Husband and I sat down and talked about what would make his life easier when I'm gone since she tends to be the catalyst to things going downhill.  Then he assigned values.  She has to earn 40 stickers to earn the doll she wants.

Additionally, Boy has been having a hard time going to sleep at night.  There is a lot of stalling and then, eventually tears.  He ends up staying up too late and is tired the next day.  He really, really, REALLY wants a Zurg toy.  I just happen to have one in my closet.  But no freebies at this house.  So he is being introduced to the performance chart.  We tried to explain it to him before he went to bed, but he's lost.  Hopefully, it will make more sense to him when he starts putting stickers on the chart.  Four stickers = Zurg.

 So wrapping things up for the night, we learned Girl lost another tooth.  I sure hope the Tooth Fairy comes through at the last minute.  I finished baking the cookies for Boy's party on Tuesday and ran a load of dishes.  Finally, I found some websites Girl might like, so I left her this note on the computer monitor:

Hope she enjoys them!  Thanks to the hard work of my family, I believe GSD weekend was a success.  Now off to OKC!