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!




For His Glory!

I'm linked up with:

Our Journey

It all started many years ago, Daddy and I are highschool sweethearts! We started dating at 16 years old, we got engaged after highschool and married the following summer when we were both 20 years old.

The 'odds' (and the world) were against us, being so young. But that didn't matter to us because God was for us! We knew it wouldn't be easy starting out so young, but we placed our trust in God to lead us in our marriage and to be at the centre of it.

In the fall of 2003 (1 1/2 years into our marriage) we decided to try to start a family. You'll soon find out why I said "we". Well, we're both 21 almost 22, this shouldn't take long, right? We're in our prime, right? WRONG!

Month after month of nothing! We had friends who started dating, got engaged, got married and had a couple of kids all during the time we were trying to have 1. It was heartbreaking. We never went to the doctor about it, I think out of fear of what we'd hear.

Anyway, spring of 2007 (yes - 4 years later) Daddy calls me on his way home from a friend's house to see if I want anything. "Sure, salt and vinegar chips and rootbeer, please" I said. These are things I never liked before, and I didn't catch on to that. Daddy arrived home a short time later with my snack and a pregnancy test! Apparently this wasn't the first odd thing to make him wonder. I was shocked, but obliged.

POSITIVE!!!! what?!?! positive???? How can this be??? We found out I was already about 10-11 weeks along.

So, back to the "we" issue. In 2003, when we decided we wanted to start our family, we didn't consider God's timing for our family. So, in 2007 GOD decided it was time to start our family. We were thrilled! We didn't understand the timing than but I am starting to grasp it now.

Our little Dude entered the world in December 2007. He was our greatest miracle!

Now, here is how I now understand God's timing (but didn't until even a few months ago):
Dec. 23, 2007 - Dude is born.
Jan. 2008 - My Dad is diagnosed with advanced cancer.
Mar. 2008 - Daddy and I sell our house (after only 6 hours on the market) so that we can move in with my parents and take over the house expenses.
April 2008 - My Dad passes away.
May 2008 - we move into my parents house.


Now fall 2008, because of our budget being in a really good place, we decide that I will not return to work and instead will become a stay-at-home-mom. This is something that could not have worked had we still been at our house. Now, we have the entire house for us and my Mom and brother live in the granny-suite Daddy originally built for us.


Now, because I was at home, Daddy and I were convicted to homeschool our children. I now realize this was all part of God's Will for our lives and His timing is everything! If it were up to our timing, we would not be able to homeschool our children, or even be home with them everyday.

This has been shown to me even more so since Strawberry and Linebacker each came about after a single month of trying.


And now...another single month of 'trying' has us here:

Baby 4.0 is due March 2013!




For His Glory!