All About A to the J

I've been waiting to do this post for way tooo long. I have some wonderful things to share about our sweet AJ.

Here is our little 4th grader on the first day of school. She HAD to have this shirt. It says, "No Pictures Please". I know, (Wendy yours is in the mail Happy late-Birthday hehehe) I told her I had to have a picture and that someday she would thank me for it!

The day before this sweet picture AJ and I had a run in in the bedroom, hers to be exact. I went to tuck her in and noticed all the half full water bottles sticking out from under the bed so I decided to investigate. I am certain that she wished that had not happened for what did I discover? Well, here is a list: 8 half full or empty water bottles, dirty socks, dirty clothes, clean clothes that never got put away, shoes - none of which matched one another, toys, paper, garbage, 5 rolls of tape, 3 pairs of scissors, pens, pencils, markers, etc.... That night I did all that I could do from kicking and screaming. I grabbed a black garbage bag and began picking up things and sorting them between the garbage, my black bags, and items that don't belong in the bedroom pile. I filled TWO black bags and one kitchen garbage bag. The next day I went out to buy some organization items and when AJ came home from school we had a little lesson in house keeping. This is a few after photos:

Doesn't she look so happy? Good Job AJ!

We made a deal that I would post these to the blog and that in one month I would take After-After photos and if they are exactly the same or better her black bags would be returned if not they would be donated to the DI. (She can blame my mom for this idea because I remember when she used the same one on me. That was the day my life changed forever I knew I never wanted her to secretly photograph my room and submit it to Seventeen magazine unless it was BH&G perfect.)That was August 22nd. I know that if the deadline was today I would be taking those little black beauties for a ride.

AJ watched her dad create another cake masterpiece and decided the next day that she too would like to bake and decorate one herself. With the guidance of Grandma G. and her dad she came up with this cake all on her own. She designed, baked and decorated. I sense a family business in her future! If you browse our blog then you would know how much the kids like Webkinz. AJ got a new one earlier in the summer and I told her that she would have to work it off. Again if you browse our blog (I wouldn't know since no one ever comments Jeez -except you Megan, Alisha, and Rebecca hugs and kisses go out to you for making my day!) you may have heard of a little thing we do to save money called Grocery Smarts. And you would have probably gone to my Obsessive Shopper website to find out how you can too. And if you would have gone there in July you would have seen a funny little post about our food storage situation. Well, to earn her new Webkinz I assigned AJ the job of sorting our food storage. She had a great time doing it as well as helped our family ton's. Here she is hard at work.
AJ is the best little mom and friend to us all. I love her to death. Please leave her some love notes to read about how much you adore her to! Enjoy listening to her favorite tunes over the next little bit as we celebrate our darling AJ.