Organize! Organize!

Well...I figured since it's summer and there are moments that the kids actually play nicely together...I figured that I should start organizing the unorganized! :) This morning I was going to make a list of the areas to clean and organize (because...it feels good to check it off!) but as I began to think about the areas I realized...IT'S MY WHOLE HOUSE! The toys in that corner, the toys on the shelves, the toys in those drawers, this closet, this cupboard...the list goes on. So, I didn't write the list...and I decided to start with what bothered me the most (and what people can see! ha!).

So while the kids (all three!!!) were napping Jason and I tackled a few things in our living room. We have a train table with two drawers under it. Somehow :) all kinds of toys ended up in the drawers and it was driving me CRAZY! We emptied both drawers, cleaned them and in one drawer we put the wooden train set and in the other drawer we put the GeoTrax trains. Imagine! Trains stored in a train table! Who knew! :) It looks great! Once the kids woke up I gave them the lecture about what goes where. :) We'll see how well they listened.

THEN...we went to our shelf in our family room. It has 6 storage boxes and a drawer on the bottom. As we went through toys we made a variety of piles:

1. This pile was organized so the kids could take the stuff back to their room (where if belongs in the first place). For these piles, after Elijah woke up he took his CARS to the CARS box, the costumes to the toy chest and the Toy Story stuff in it's box. :) That helped them help me! Fabulous! They have hands and feet-why can't they help clean? ;)

2. The second pile is a SELL (translation JBF) pile! I see $$ when I look at this pile, do you?


3. The secret pile: TRASH!!!!!! I did the best I could to throw away stuff...who needs those McD's pieces? I kept this on the counter so no little eyes would see it.

Once all of that was finished I made some tags for the storage bins. Some might say I have a bin problem...and maybe I do...but if it makes me a happy mom, why not?

The tags I made with shrinky dinks. I happen to have some almond color shrinky dink paper so I made tags by writing what is in each bin. Once they were shrunk (is that a word??) I tied them on the appropriate bin with ribbon. If you know me I'll put ribbon on anything. It makes everything so much cuter.

This is the finished shelf. No, I didn't forget the top right bin...there's nothing in it yet! I have a tag ready for when it gets filled...don't worry.

And that's that!!! After the kiddos went to bed we also put away and sorted all of our DVDs and CDs. I didn't take pics (lucky you!) but it looks fresh and clean. Hmm..what's next, I wonder.