Reading Nook

I have been working like crazy lately to try to get our house cleaned and better organized.  Organization is NOT one of my strengths... and that's putting it mildly.  I've never been a tidy person.  I'm terrible, TERRIBLE with clutter.  I have no idea how to organize the house and then keep it clean and organized and pretty.  But I have been trying so hard lately to turn that around!

This weekend I tried to tackle the playroom, but it was quite frustrating.  It's a pretty small room, and we just have too much stuff.  We also have this weird little open space in our hallway where our laundry room door is, and I've been trying to figure out how we could use that space to our advantage, instead of either having it empty and wasting it completely, or just using it to store stuff that doesn't have anywhere else to go, which is what we've been doing.  And that of course looks horrible, but like I said, I'm so bad with organization and clutter! 

I finally decided last night that I wanted to turn the little hall alcove space into a reading nook for the girls!  This would free up room in the playroom since it would get the bookcase and a couple other things out of there, and it would force me to stop using that hall space to store things. 

I think I'd like to get the girls some better chairs, probably for Christmas.  Something cushy and comfy that I can plop on the floor in that corner, like bean bag chairs or something.  And someday I'd like to frame my mural poster thing that's above the bookcase, but it's a funny size (like 29 inches by 10 inches) so I haven't been able to do it yet.  But for now, the reading nook is done! 

Oh, the tears!

Well, it's official.  Naomi is in kindergarten!  She got on her bus today, forgot to give me a hug and a kiss, and didn't so much as wave goodbye.  She was SO ready for school!

We had orientation last night where we met her teacher.  I really love her teacher!  I'm pretty sure we got the best one. :)  Naomi wanted to make her a card and a little gift, so I found a bunch of ideas online and let Naomi pick the one she wanted to do.  We made her some "pencils" (from Rolos and Hershey Kisses and construction paper).

Naomi at Orientation

The "pencils" we made for her teacher.

Since yesterday was Naomi's last day with us before she started school, the girls and I had a "Girls Movie Day" and we rented the movie Paddington and painted our nails!  I got a few new nail polish colors the night before, and the girls were so excited!  They both wanted "rainbow nails", so we did a different color on each nail.  I forgot to take pictures, but you can see Naomi's cute fingernails in some of the pictures below.
 
Of course I had to take the typical "First day of School" pictures, so here are those from this morning!

You can see her pretty nails here. :)

Waiting for the bus!

Naomi didn't cry at all when she got on the bus.  She was nothing but excited for school.  No nervousness or worries at all on her end!  I wish I could say the same for myself!  As I was walking away from the bus, I was actually doing pretty well--just tearing up a little. But a man in one of the cars waiting to get out of the neighborhood rolled down his window and said, sympathetically, "First day, huh?".  So I said, "uh huh" and then started bawling.  It was a rough morning for me!!

I can't wait to pick her up from the bus stop this afternoon!  Happy first day of Kindergarten, Naomi!

School Clothes Fashion Show

Naomi wanted to do a Back-to-School Fashion Show to show off her school outfits for Daddy.  I figured we'd just do a simple thing--dress her up in a few outfits and then show them off in the living room or something.  But as soon as I said the words "fashion show" Naomi had a vision in her head of music and stepping out from behind curtains... she must have recently watched something on TV that had a fashion show!  So I rigged something up with some yarn, our old living room curtains, and the command hooks that are on our living room walls (to help us make sheet forts... we go ALL OUT for sheet forts in our house!  Our sheet forts encompass our entire living room, including the television, and we usually blow up our queen air mattress to put inside so we can be comfy.  But our sheet forts really deserve their own post, so we'll talk about those another time!)

Here is Naomi playing with the curtains--she was pretty excited.

Anyway, after I spent like 2 hours cleaning the kitchen and living room and rigging up the fashion show curtains, Naomi helped me pick out her favorite outfits from her clothes.  We really didn't do any school clothes shopping for her--I let her pick out one new outfit for the first day of school, and she picked out one new shirt, but that was it!  Thanks to my mom, however, Naomi is pretty much set for school clothes!  My mom is always shopping yard sales and consignment shops for clothes for the girls and sending us big boxes in the mail.  It's always exciting when we get a package from Grandma!

Naomi even wanted to accessorize with hair bows and hats, so I got out what we call our "hair bow hanger", and she chose headbands and bows for her outfits.  We used to not have any cute hair things, but somehow we now have a ton.  I didn't realize how many we had, and I bought a couple packages of bows last week for Naomi to wear for school.  Then I made our hair bow hanger and organized the bows on ribbons hanging from a hanger, and I realized how many hair accessories we really have!

Our hair bow hanger

In our "backstage" area, I used our drying rack to help us hang/organize her outfits.

I guess having just our family as guests wasn't enough for Naomi, because she covered the couch with her stuffed animals who she said wanted to watch.  I tried to move a couple so I could sit down, and she got so upset because I put 2 of her animals in front of the others and they were blocking their view.  She is so funny.  Jacob saved the day by moving 2 of them to the "special seats" (on top of the couch).

Our audience!

Pinkie Pie and Pig got the special seats!

Here's a video of the beginning of the Fashion Show.  Naomi came up with her little intro 100% on her own!  (Please ignore the fact that I sound like an idiot in this video! Just watch the girls because they're adorable!)

Here are some videos and pictures of the girls' outfits:

This is the outfit Naomi picked for her first day of school.  Aleta wanted to be in the fashion show, too, so she decided to show off her new coat.  (I got it for 5 bucks at a consignment shop!  I love it, it's so cute.)

Her first-day-of-school outfit without her backpack on.  I might try to convince her to pick a different headband for school, but she insisted on wearing that one for the fashion show.

She wanted to show off her pencil case with her outfit.  She LOVES her pencil case... probably more than anything else we got her for school.

One of her new hair clips.

She was wearing a cute white cardigan with this outfit, but she took it off before the picture.

I told them to pose... I guess that was Aleta's "model face" or something?  Funny girls.

I guess Jacob got bored during the outfit changes, because I found a ton of pictures like this on my camera:

This is what our backstage area looked like at the end of the show... it took us a while to get everything cleaned up!

We're going to have to make this an annual thing... the girls had so much fun!

Family Pictures

Way back in December, when we were visiting Jacob's family for Christmas, his parents got family pictures taken of everyone.  It was quite an accomplishment, considering there are now 30 people in the family!  The photographer was pretty awesome... she somehow got the kids to smile perfectly for the pictures.  I really love the ones of our family!

This is my favorite!

The entire Romney family!  All 30 of us.  Although Kalie had twins in January, and then Jen had a baby in June, so there are now 33.  And Rachel is pregnant, so in another 9 months there will be another baby!

Daddy-Daughter Dance

I haven't blogged in a very long time!!  But I've had some requests from some of the family who don't have facebook to post some of our new pictures.  I am working on a big blog post about our summer vacation, but it's taking me forever to finish!  So until I get to post that one, here are some smaller new posts about our lives lately!

Our church held a Daddy-Daughter Dance tonight, and the girls were SO excited.  It was 50's-themed, but we don't have any poodle skirts so the girls chose to wear their tutus.  I curled their hair with my tiniest curling iron and bought them some new headbands.  They looked adorable!!!  I only wish I could have gone to the dance to get some pictures of them at the dance.

Aleta is in a phase right now where she makes silly faces for all of her photos.

I seriously love these two cuties.

All ready for the dance!

Oh, Aleta! Crazy girl.