Garage Woes

Nathan is turning 10 in about 10 days. I can't believe it! A few days ago, I decided to give him a birthday party. Not only does he want a party, he wants a sleep over. So I thought it over and came up with a lot of great ideas to make a fun party.

First, I'll have ladder golf, lawn darts, and the basketball hoop set up for the boys to play with. After about 1.5 hours, we'll eat dinner. Then we'll split the boys into two groups. One group will make tie dye shirts while the others play a game of basketball golf. When they're done, they'll switch. Next, the kids can have more free play with ideas like sharks and minnows, freeze tag, relay races, and a water balloon fight. Then it'll be time for cake and presents. After that, we'll have games in the garage like party bingo, limbo, hot potato, Chinese telephone, and a mummy wrap contest with door prizes. Finally, I'll set the kids up with popcorn and a movie.

Although I'm really excited to give Nathan his birthday party, I know there's a lot of work that needs to be done. The most important task is cleaning out the garage. I worked for about 5 hours today with Nathan's help to clean it out. It may not look great yet, but there have been great improvements.

Here's the garage after all of the hard work. Everything is much more organized than before. We killed about 50 spiders over the course of the morning and I sprayed for bugs like crazy.

This pile is going with us to my parents' house. It is garbage that I'm sticking in their dumpster. Thankfully, it will be out of here in a few days.

I put the legs on the couch and cleaned it out. Now people can sit on it and I don't think they'll be attacked by creepy crawly things. I'll probably clean it out once more to make sure. All of the boxes behind it are waiting to be taken to the dumpster as well.

The rake, scooter, and basketball hoop are staying. All the rest is garbage waiting to be taken away. Yes, both bikes are broken. I think I buy Nathan a new bike every year because he's so hard on them.

Here are two of the tables that we'll be using for the party. I have one more that I'll set up later. All of the garbage bags are for the donation truck that comes around once a month. Hopefully they'll come before the party so we can get rid of them.

This is Katie's sand and water table along with a box of sports balls. These are staying.

I was able to put more stuff on our shelves. Most of this stuff is holiday decorations.

Nathan worked really hard, but he did complain toward the end. I explained that it was important to finish the job that was started. I was proud of his willingness to help. After the job was finished, he and Katie went out back to play in the water.