Saturday was surprisingly ... great

By now most of you have been around long enough to know that overcast, drizzly cold Saturdays are not my favorites. With three high-energy boys, when I see a forecast like that, I know that we won't be able to play outside, all the indoor play places will be packed to the walls, and that the day at home will feel looooooooooong.

But let me tell you about this past Saturday. We began by getting up early in order to be at school by 8:00 for the holiday music program and Santa's Breakfast. You've heard the phrase "herding cats"?

It was a little hard to find Nathaniel in the sea of red during the 2nd and 3rd grade portion of the program. But I found him.

Clearly he's the cutest child on the stage. I was impressed because they sang 25 minutes worth of songs. That's a lot for 2nd graders to memorize! Of course, I can't remember all three items to get at the grocery store without a Post-it Note, so perhaps my perception of this sort of accomplishment is skewed.

I was also most impressed that Jake sat through the entire thing without a whimper, really enjoyed the music and clapped enthusiastically after every song.

So hard was I trying to have a good day that when Nicholas announced that he didn't want to stay to be a part of the Kindergarten performance to which he'd committed, I just said, "That's fine. Let's just go on to Costco." Choose your battles, you know?

Before we left, we picked up one of these cute reindeer lollipops for each of the boys.

We'd been waiting to see Santa for about five minutes and I assumed the boys were so quiet because they were eating the lollipops. Then Nathaniel sighed and piped up to say, "BOY. Whoever put these things together is REALLY good with the tape." Apparently he'd been thwarted just trying to unwrap the thing.

Nathaniel and Nicholas had no interest in talking to Santa, but Jakey did ... when Santa held out his arms and said, "Come here, little guy," Jakey ran up to him with his arms open wide and jumped right up on his lap.

They shared a whispered conversation that I couldn't hear, and then they posed for a picture. CUTENESS.

It was still before 10:00 when we'd accomplished ALL THIS, and there I was feeling like it should be 4:00 already (because I usually get to sleep in until 10:00 on Saturdays because I have an understanding husband). So we did what came naturally and went to Costco.

Their neatly stocked shelves -- even in the midst of holiday shopping -- totally inspired me to come home and commence with the annual pantry cleanout. It took a solid two and a half hours, but I took it from this:

To this:

I hope you weren't expecting paint or new shelving or some kind of ultra-cool DIY Lazy Susans, because I didn't have that kind of time. This was more a duck-while-footballs-and-Nerf-darts-are-being-thrown-like-grenades-all-around-you-for-three-hours kind of project, so I did what I could. I took it shelf by shelf, and I cleaned up the door a little bit, too. Took it from this:

To this, which just means I installed a few extra hooks at the top, moved the paper plates over there and moved the stuff that had been there somewhere else.

What I'd love to do with this door someday is replace it with a screened door painted a fun color like red or turquoise, or maybe even a French door that I could frost the glass panes on. Just anything with more character.

Top shelf, before and after:

(Anyone have any bright ideas on how to use all the excess space up at the top? Another shelf wouldn't help that much, because I wouldn't have any hope of reaching it. I'm just looking for ideas.)

Second shelf, before and after:

Yep, that's four jars of peanut butter. We love the PB around here.

Third shelf, before and after:

Fourth shelf, before and after:

I've sung the praises of that Sam's carbonated, flavored water before, but we just love it. As is evidenced by 10 bottles of it that we have right now.

And finally, the floor space, which was just embarrassing before. And now you can walk in it again!

There are just no words to tell you how happy it makes me to have an organized pantry. And this part of it was already organized, but are we the only people on the planet who have a Lazy Susan just for nuts and honey?

It would appear that we have every nut known to man. Because y'all. This isn't all of our nuts. On the other side, we have bagged nuts such as pecans, walnuts and slivered almonds. Nope. Not kidding.

Sometime during my pantry mission, the boys took a break from launching projectiles at each other to have lunch and more of this:

The little impromptu rainbow cake I made Thursday night has held up well and been a raging success with everyone.

They're already making flavor requests for the next cake of its kind. Which is funny because I don't think I've made a cake other than pound cake since any of them were born ... but this one they love.

After a little quiet time Saturday afternoon (the big boys watched more Harry Potter DVDs and Jakey and I rested in my bed ... bliss!), we ate supper and then they started "casting spells" with magic wands (Tinkertoys).

All of a sudden they all want to be Harry Potter.

Well, true to form, THIS one wants to be Malfoy, which is no surprise because he also always chooses to be Darth Vader over Luke or Anakin.

Jakey just wants to be included.

So I stamped Christmas card envelopes while they cast the wands about ...

All by the light of the Christmas tree.

I love how it casts a glow around the room at night.

And as we wound down for the night, I said a little prayer of gratitude that a day I had anticipated with apprehension turned out to be a complete pleasure.


Linking up to Life Made Lovely at Blessed Little Nest.