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Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Organization....it's my thing!

I have a confession, I'm an organization junky. I love to organize and find new ways to organize. I am actually known among my friends circle for being extremely organized. They have even asked many times for me to organize their houses, haha.

I like things neat, I like things minimal and would prefer my rooms nearly bare, both of these I have had to give up since having kids. Today, however, I thought I would give some of my organization tips and tricks ;)

First, I love tea. I was introduced to loose leaf tea a couple of years ago. Now, loose leaf entails more then just a box in the cupboard. So, the best I could come up with was to use my turntable cupboard in the corner. I moved the spices that were in there to a drawer, and it was now the perfect cupboard for tea tins!(note: the tins are 2 rows deep)

We don't have a lot of movies/CDs compared to a lot of people, but instead of spending more money on a DVD or CD shelf, we just bought a $50 bookshelf from Walmart and use that.

I had a really stressful time dealing with our front entry way. Coats everywhere, hats, mitts, sunglasses, raincoats, etc. I started with a coat stand, but the kids couldn't reach and they only hold so many. Then, tried hooks on the wall, but there was always too many items and snowpants hung too far and fell off because they were resting on the floor, and there was no place for hats or mitts. This past winter, I finally came up with a solution:
They just throw their stuff in and I put the lid on! Another tip: if your house is like ours, you can never find one of the mitts, they misplace them constantly, so, this past winter I went to Dollarama and bought a bunch of their mitts/gloves (not for playing in the snow) and threw them in the bin - this worked because my kids hands are close enough in size. There were always mitts/gloves to go out! The inside of the bin is a disaster chaos not pretty, but I can handle it because there is a lid and because the kids can access it themselves to get and put away their own stuff. The inside:

Books!!! Books get everywhere! The shelves never stay put together, the kids pull one book off and 6 others come with it. My solution that is working, so far, is book bins. I sorted the books by category, made laminated pics and labelled the bins and put the bins on the bookshelf and it stays organized! The kids take a book and return it to the bin, it works great! Our bookshelf (I should mention, the green bin in front is for our church library books):

Hats! My husband is a hat man. He always wears a hat and has several hats, I couldn't figure out what to do with them....My solution was an over-the-door hook "thingy" haha. It is on the outside of the laundry room door, right by our side door and his wallet and keys. It's hard to see in this pic but there are 4-5 hats per hook.

While we're by the laundry room, I have a few tips for organizing in there. The laundry room is where I keep my cleaning stuff. Long before Pinterest came around I had a few things in place. My most used cleaning bottles are hanging on a towel bar, really accessible to me.

Behind my door in the laundry room is a shoe pocket hanging organizer with all my other cleaning supplies.

Lost socks. I will never understand this phenomenon, but there are many. My solution? A "wanted" board beside the dryer:

Lego, Dude has TONS of Lego. We use the Trofast system from Ikea. It was sorted by colour at one point.

Clothing, don't you find that if you don't see it, you don't wear it? I do. I put our clothes in the drawers so that everything can be seen when you open the drawer. Everyone's drawers in our house are like this:

I also find the best way to store my pants is hanging in the closet, otherwise they take up too much space in my drawers.

With 3 boys, I store a lot of clothes for the next boy to wear. I have tried many ways...bins, but some sizes have more then others, bags but they were hard to stack... Finally, I found an idea that worked! I went to Dollarama and loaded a basket with "under the bed storage bags" they are cheap and some have ripped a bit, but even ripped a little they work great. They stack great in the closet!

A little tip (not life changing at all) I found worked in my bathroom was that rolled towels took up much less space then folded towels:

Lastly, I just want to be clear, I owned this before Pinterest (actually surprised people didn't realize this before Pinterest) I store bed sheets in the pillowcase for that set. Just grab and go! (middle shelf)

Just some of my little notebook tips, enjoy!




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Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Spotlight: Linebacker

I know it's been awhile since last posting, but as usual life has gotten in the way, but I'm back and ready to tell you about Linebacker.

Linebacker is the 3rd child, 2nd boy and our big little man. He is completely different from the other kids and is so unique it is amazing. He is a much larger body build then the other 3, he is pale skinned and has orange hair. He is our true little ginger boy. He is the funniest and craziest kid I know.


He is constantly smiling and that giggle just melts your heart, and you can't help but stop and laugh no matter what the situation. He is strong-willed, and very independent. He plays well with his siblings, but also is happy to play all by himself. He marchs to the beat of his own drum, he has a different "walk" everyday (strut, backwards, stomping, marching, etc). Dude and Strawberry are always saying "what a crazy kid" and laughing hysterically at him.

We refer to him as our class clown. He loves to make people laugh. He enjoys cars and trucks, but his true passion is sports! He plays baseball 75% of the day, with his siblings and also alone (he has just figured out how to "self-pitch"). He asks for the "Vee on, me watch baseball, Bue Jays!!!" Atleast 6,834 times a day I hear "Me hit ball, Me run". I think it's fitting he is named after 2 All-Star baseball players!

His other favourites are his blanket (a fleece Mickey blanket I made him while pregnant with him) and his thumb.

Part of the reason for my hiatus is that we had a health scare with Linebacker at the beginning of the month. He had sudden onset of pain, difficulty breathing and they couldn't figure out what was going on. We spent a week in the hospital with him, with Daddy sleeping there with him and Me (with Boy Wonder) spending the days there and coming home at night. It was a long week with lots of tears and prayers but in the end, it appears everything is rectified and his surgical scars have healed amazingly. Daddy had an unexpected week off, which is not a good thing when you're self-employed, but BFFs to the rescue and we were able to get by.

I don't know what our lives would be like if God hadn't given us this little man, but I bet they would be a whole lot more serious! I seriously love the joy this kid brings to all of us everyday!