Cathartic Cleaning in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

May the force be with you!

Our Star Wars Marathon Madness was a giant success! I think we had over 16 teenagers throughout the day. We started off the day at 7:30 AM with a big pancake breakfast. There was much debate as to which movie should be watched 1^st, and the order that won was 4,5,6,1,2,3. I took a picture at the beginning of each movie to document the day. We also played the Imperial March when people arrived and Tyler greeted them in costume at the door.

(Star wars/Easter)

(pancake breakfast)

(Alyssa, the winner of the costume prize)

It was amazing how many memories those movies brought back. I remember the shock of learning Darth Vader was Luke’s father! I remember my brother Jonathan trying to be Bobofet. I remember the star wars figurines my brothers had. It was fun watching with the younger generation and chuckling at their responses. There were some pretty funny youth in our group who made comments through the whole thing. One even showed us a place where a storm trooper hit his head on a doorway and we all died laughing. We (ty, Alayna and I) also attacked everyone with silly string during the 3^rd one. We had to keep everyone awake right?

(1st movie –episode 4)

(2nd movie- episode 5)

(3rd movie-episode 6- notice Austin with the cookie princess leia ears)

(4th movie- episode 1)

(5th movie- episode 2)

(6th movie- episode 3)

Have you ever seen those traveling ants or beetles that consume everything in their path within seconds? Well, I witnessed the human version of that yesterday. We served sandwiches for lunch, pizza for dinner, and cupcakes and ice cream for dessert. Each time a movie ended the herd of “human beetles” came up, ransacked the food, and disappeared. 6 pizzas gone in the blink of an eye. It was hilarious! They also brought more junk food than I have ever seen I my life and it was all gone! They are now debating what the next marathon should be. But I think we need a place with more room. They were packed like sardines.

(I put a sign on the door in the morning. I wrote it in blue.  At night when I took it down, i found that one of the kids added the last part)

(The entrance to our “movie theater”)

(Taking a jog around the block to get the blood flowing)

Here is an awesome youtube video we found. Warning: It is hilarious but will get stuck in your head for days to come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk5_OSsawz4

Cathartic cleaning

My friend worded it beautifully this week when she said that there is “healing power that comes from going through all the rooms and decluttering.” It really makes me feel good even though by the end of each day I am so sore I can barely move. My goal/theme this year is “Simplify, Simplify, Simplify!” I feel like we need to do that to our home and family life. Life gets so busy and we tend to let it overtake our lives.

Anyway, this week we got a ton done. I even attempted some interior decorating and thanks to Kayla’s gifted aesthetic eye, I am pleased with the things we came up with. I still don’t love the exercise room, but as Bob pointed out, it is functional. How do you make an exercise room “aesthetically pleasing?”

(Wall next to bookshelf downstairs)

(took 2 hours to organize all the jewelry in the house- not easy when you have 4 girls)

(The shoe nightmare- Marisa is no longer allowed to buy any shoes.  Most were hers)

We have the big 6 still left to do this week: shed, storage room, kitchen, garage, laundry room, and the bathrooms. AND we will attempt our first garage sale ever this summer.

More stuff

*Tyler had a choir concert on Monday and he even had a solo! He did such a beautiful job!

*Kayla gave a beautiful talk today in church about the importance of education. She did a wonderful job. It was surprising that we were all up and on time considering the girls and I went to bed at 2 AND we had stupid daylight savings. The things we will do to support our children, right?

* SPRING BREAK!!! HALLELUJAH!!!

*Alayna won some “gold medals” at the winter Olympics night this week for activity days.

* SPRING BREAK!!! HALLELUJAH!!!