Photo recap of the last two months

I finally downloaded a ton of photos from the Nikon tonight. We've done some pretty fun stuff in February and March. And we've got the photos to prove it. We had a photo scavenger hunt in which Jack got to take some pictures. Jack and Dad fixed the Altima. We escaped the snow and cold with a visit to the Chicago Botanical Gardens. We colored and painted and played. And now that the spring weather has arrived, we even got to celebrate Easter outside today. So enjoy the pics :)

Reid waking up from a nap - Photo by Jack


What starts with B? Barretts - Photo by Jack


What starts with C? Car - Photo by Jack


Fixing the car


Botanical Gardens








Playing




Easter

Where is the mummy head?!?

I've known for a while that I am a perfectionist. And thanks to many books, articles and websites, I also know that this is the root of many of my problems (such as cleaning, and getting motivated, and hosting parties, etc).

This week, after being trapped indoors for way too long, the perfectionism has reared its ugly head again. I'm finding a little fun with it too though, to be honest.

See, Steve and I are brainstorming ways we want to fix up our house. On the short list of projects we would like to tackle soon are our master bathroom and our basement. Let's focus on the basement.

If you have ever visited our home, I'm sure you have seen the playroom that is our basement. If it was a particularly good day, you were probably able to walk around without hurting yourself. Sorry if it wasn't a good day. This last week, the state of the basement was pretty bad. Steve started to rearrange things to get some ideas for the room, but he stopped because the clutter of toys was just overwhelming. So I set out to clean up.

Enter perfectionism. Over the last six months to a year, we have collected quite a few new toys, many of which are "sets" of some kind. Like Trios, or Lincoln Logs, or puzzles. You get the idea. And when they get played with, pieces usually go missing. So I decided I would try to find all of the missing pieces.

And I was fairly successful too. I found the ship and bus pieces missing from one of Reid's puzzles. I found every piece of the three Superhero Trio sets we have. They are all nicely organized into plastic containers now. I even found every one of the 66 single Lincoln Logs. And the basement is now "organized".

So I decided I would tackle the Legos. Jack received some pretty cool Lego sets for Christmas and his birthday. There's the Batman and Joker set that includes two cars and a bank. There's two MonsterFighter Lego sets. There's a Mars Rover. And these are just the ones we've opened so far.

I decided that Reid's naptime was a good time to sit down with Jack and build and organize Legos. We started with one of the MonsterFighter sets that we hadn't opened. We had lots of fun. Jack would find the pieces based on the instructions, and I would put it together. Fun for both of us.

Now it was time to face the challenge. Most of the Legos are in Jack's room. On the floor, scattered in the closet, under the dresser. So I collected every Lego I could find, and the set out to separate them based on the instruction booklets. Can you see the perfectionist tendency here? I even had a pen to mark down the missing pieces.

Well, it's about right now that I am so focused on "completing" toys that I am ignoring the laundry, the bathrooms, and grocery shopping. We can always order in, right?

Yesterday, we finished the second MonsterFigher Lego set. I used finished loosely. The darn mummy head, the mummy-fighter lady's hair, and a little black piece are missing.

Today, we might try to rebuild the Batman/Joker set. Keep your fingers crossed. And if you see a Lego mummy head anywhere, could you please send it over? I think that's the only hope left for getting the laundry done.