Schedule and Play Dough

The last couple months have been helter skelter and I decided yesterday I have got to get myself back on a schedule. I used to be so good but ever since the Olympics I stay up until midnight or later and then not getting out of bed until 7:30 or 8, whenever the kids come screaming for breakfast. It's killing me. My goal is to be in bed by 10:15 and asleep by 10:30 and get up by 6:30 and be showered and dressed and ready to go before the kids get up. That way there is no reason to turn the tv on. They get to watch tv while I take a shower and get ready but lately we've had a hard time turning it off. Last night I was in bed by 10:30 but Neil and I stayed up talking and reading until 11:15. Now he is part of the problem but I can't get rid of him. Ususally the only time we have time to really talk is in bed so it ends up getting late. This morning I woke up at 6:45 with Conner screaming in my ear that his throat hurt. I did get out of bed at 7 and got showered and dressed. I then made the kids pancakes, a favorite and they were dressed by 8:30 which is a feat because lately they haven't gotten dressed until after naps really only because dad would be home soon and I didn't want him to think I'd been a slacker all day. We've been upstairs playing all morning. The boys really wanted to play with playdough. Oh they love it but they make such a mess with it because they cut it, roll it, mash it, stir it, bake it, cook it, etc. I don't mind because I just vacuum it up afterwards but the room was already such a mess I couldn't deal with it so I told them we had to pick up all the toys before we could play with something else. I gave Conner the job of picking up all the food and putting it in the bin and Sam had to pick up all the balls and blocks and put them in the right bin and I cleaned the rest. It took about 20 minutes to get everything put away but the boys were so focused in cleaning and Sam was singing the Clean Up song. I wish it was always this easy to get them to clean up.