Quickly

Just a quick little note to say thank you to you all. You guys are amazing, I love your notes, and love knowing Im not alone. 
I was tired and cranky the day of my last entry and things just really got to me. I woke the kids up that night, apologized, told them I loved them, and promised to have a better day the next day. They agreed.  
I do need a break and I do get a tiny one from time to time. My mom takes the kids for a few hours every weekend, even if its just so that I can get some homework done. I really appreciate that she does that. I just hate that all my free time is spent doing homework, but oh well. 
The kids and I did have a better day that next day, we spent more time together and enjoyed the day. I am working on trying different approaches with them so that we can all be happy. 
I usually clean the house up in the morning before Stephen gets home from work.  Sometimes I do it the night before so I don’t have to get up and get busy. So, I printed out some clip art pictures of books, blocks, cars, baby dolls, etc, then I had them draw one out of a bowl, I set the timer for 10 minutes, and they got busy. Well, Brooke did, Stephen is still a little young to fully grasp it. At the end of 10 minutes whatever was left got thrown away. Then we started again with the next round of selections. After all of our big stuff was taken care of I gave them 15 minutes to clean up everything that was left. Brooke did an amazing job, she cleaned her room, her brothers, living room, my room, and the game room. I was sooooo proud of her. I let her know that too. She was just as proud. So, when it was all said and done I told her since she did such an amazing job I would give back her toys, but she had to put them right up. She was very excited about that.
I started a new thing last week, I “throw away” all the toys. I put them in a trash bag and tell them that if they don’t clean up like they should for the rest of the week then they go out in the trash on Friday, otherwise they can have them back on Friday. So far they haven’t had their toys actually thrown away.
Anyways, I have to get back to homework now.
Oh, on a side note, we signed Brooke up for T-Ball yesterday, I am soooooo excited. 
Stephen and I also spent most of the day alone yesterday, thanks to mom having the kids. Even if all we did was go grocery shopping, it was still just us, alone, and it was nice & much needed!!!