STOP PLEASE!!!! I wanna get off!

CHAOS: a state of utter confusion

That sets the scene of our house every morning getting ready for school.  Here's how this morning went down...
Jia wakes up early and wants a bath.  Then she wants her hair blown dry.  Last night she busted her chin open (another post) and her steri-strips come off in the bath, so we had to re-apply those.  She yells "momma!  momma! momma!"  from the kitchen table where she and Jory are eating cereal.  I go in there and she say's "Jory touchin' it."  I have the kitchen table strung out with stuff to make Jia's birthday invitations and they had strict orders not to bother it!  She is quite the tattle tale!  Finally, though, I think we have Jia ready and she wants a sippy cup of tea for the road.  Ugh.
Jory.... I make him lay his clothes out each night for the next day because he does NOT like to get up and around.  So clothes and back pack are ready to go.  But this morning, right as we're fixin' to go out the door..."One of my shoes came off in the water hole at Camden's last night."  I ask... "is it still wet then?"  "I don't know, it's still in the water hole, I couldn't get it out" says Jory.  Now this is the kid that the school called me about last fall and asked me to bring him a different pair of shoes to school, because the ones he was wearing were not safe as the sole was 1/2 off.  Talk about embarrassed.  He has other shoes, those were just his favorites and he wore them out.  He was so mad when the school threw them away.  I made sure to take his brand new sketchers so the teachers could see that he did, indeed, have nice shoes... he just chose not to wear them.  We always have shoe issues.  Those sketchers now have no laces, so he couldn't put them on.  He picked up a pair of red hi top's (his 2nd favorites) to wear, but they had a knot in them.  I got the knot out and sent him to the van.  We get in the van and one of the laces are missing the end, so it's come loose and won't lace back up.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!! 
Also, on the way to school, Jory mention's it is library day.  Well, guess what.  His library bag is hanging on the coat rack at home.  I explain to him that that is why we get things ready the night before.  No book exchange for him today.
So I ask you, blogger friends... how do you stop the chaos?  What is your morning routine, or rather, your 'evening before routine' to make the morning go smoother?  I know what the answer is... get up earlier.  I am so not a morning person.  I would love to be, but I just can't drag myself out of my nice warm bed any earlier than possible.  But I'm gonna have to, aren't I?
Yesterday, I was watching Beth Moore and she said something I had heard a hundred times before... "You can't keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results."  Those words just went round and round in my head this morning as I was taking kids to school and clocked in at work 15 minutes late.
Next week I'm out of town the first couple of days with work, but the next week, I'm ready to try something new.  I'm ready to be on time.  I'm ready to stop the chaos.  So you, my friends, have a week to help me!  Tell me what you do.  Make some reccomendations.  Give me tips.  Whether you have kids at home now, or yours are grown and gone, or if you're just one of those people that do not have kids, but you can tell everyone else how to do it.... HELP ME!
I look forward to hearing from you and sharing with you what we try and what works for us!  Who knows, maybe you'll pick up some good information as well!