All in a days work

It took way longer than a day for it to end up looking this bad.........but who wants to put shoes away after playing in the snow, or in the forbidden dog water that was used to make a mud fortress. You know, it's all convenience based after all.

Just how did I get ALL 5 of them to help clean it all up without bribery or offers of money (I guess that's still considered bribery), or threats of any kind? I turned on the hose and told them they COULD pummel all those shoes with water. Throw in some IKEA scrub brushes and I had 5 kids in compliance and on the job.

Here they are in action.....

Of course, screaming at the occasional spider that scurried out of a waterlogged shoe provided a lot of entertainment as well. After nearly an hour of scrubbing and hosing and dumping and rinsing, this was the result....A whole lot of clean(er) shoes, snow boots, flip flops, helmets, roller blades, knee pads, elbow pads and a few lone shoes without a match. Oh, and a patio that looked a whole lot cleaner too!Sorry to say that after staying clean for a couple days, the patio no longer looks like this. Stinko! Oh well. I sure wish I could hose the boys room out...now that would be fun.......