More Cleaning!!

Well, I guess the nesting is continuing! Yesterday was my last full day at home with only 2 kiddos! I took advantage and cleaned out the kitchen cabinets that were a MESS! You know the tupperware overflowing and kids sippy cups falling out when you open the doors. Of course i didn't think to take before pics of the sippy cup caninet but lets just say it wasn't pretty :) Here it is in all it's glory now:

The "tupperware" cabinet was a big mess. It was all just thrown in there. The top shelf houses often used spices etc. I actually reorganized it some more after this picture and made room for the crockpot on the top shelf where the corelle bowls are. I use the crockpot all the time but don't like it sitting on the counter. I had housed it above the fridge, but figured I should move it where it is easier to put away!

BEFORE:

And After:

It is hard to tell in these pictures but everything is stacked by shape and I threw away a ton of lids with no bowls and bowls with no lids! Much easier to find things!!

If this baby doesn't come soon, who knows what I will organize next!

Still Nesting....

Well, if you wondered what I meant when I said we had been doing stuff around the house....

Grayson moved into Caroline's room at the end of January to get ready for Baby Grant. That left us 2 rooms to re-do. First here is Grant's room. We left the paint the same and the bedding but moved a dresser for a changing table into the room. I organized his closet and had to go through all the baby things that were in the attic. Here it is...

Looks like we are ready for a new baby!! This made it very real!!

The cradle will be going in our room but we are keeping it in his room for now. Thanks Ma for the pretty bedding for the cradle. We got this cradle for $50 at Once Upon a Child. We love it!

Next, we had to get Caroline and Grayson's room done. Sorry no before's but it had flowers and her name. Really cute but too girly for Grayson! We painted and hit up IKEA for some new bedding. Here is the finished result!

With moving them into the same room, we had to put both of their things in the same closet. WHOA! Big Job, but I think we got it pretty organized. It seems to be working well so far.

We had to move more toys into the playroom because they no longer have their own rooms. WHOA again! Toy overload!! We got some more shelves and here is what it looks like now!

Lastly since I was organizing all the closet's I had to move on to the pantry. Again, sorry no before's I had good intentions but started tearing into it and forgot! Here it is all organized with room for baby stuff (bottles, binky's etc.).

Well, we had to show our house today and so the whole thing is clean and organized. It would be a great time to add a baby!! Hopefully soon, but not before Saturday...I am going to an all day crop and plan to finish Grayson's baby book.

Nesting

Well, I guess I am in that nesting phase of late pregnancy. I have been cleaning out closets and cabinets and trying to get organized. Maybe it's just because I am not normally the most organized person nor do I enjoy housework. I am so tired of everything seeming overwhelming though that I guess i figure I better get some routine before Baby #3. I took some pictures of the closets etc. but my camera is taking fuzzy pictures :( Last night we added shelves to the toy room and organized it. Then I attacked under my bathroom cabinets. I am so bad lately about taking pictures and I didn't take any before pics. I can tell you that I threw a whole garbage bag away from under the sink of lotions and potions and makeup that was like 10 years old. Yes, I said 10 years!! It feels good to have it all out. Here are some pictures of the afters's. Labels will be making their way to the fronts of the baskets! I will re-take pictures of all the other organizational projects and post later!

DVD Organization

Here is my post for Pretty Organized Palace and Shabby Nest's Conquering Kid's Clutter Party.
Hope you all get some great ideas on how to organize all the "stuff" that comes with kids!

We had so many kids DVD's in our TV cabinet. There were too many to all fit in the cabinet and the kids were always getting into them and wanting to play with them. We have had several casualties to the kids stepping on them or scratching them etc. Well I decided to ditch the cases and store them in sleeves.....Here is the pile of empty cases....
These are the sleeves I found at The Container Store. They can go in any 3 ring binder and I had several empty ones around the house. $9.99 for 80 sleeves (Well 80 slots really). Here are all those DVD's in one binder.....so much less to store!!

I hated to get rid of all the cases but I knew we should. Half of them were broken anyway. I didn't want to get rid of all the covers though. I took the covers out and punched holes in them and put them in a seperate binder. They are in roughly the same order as the DVD's. I thought that way the kids can look at the covers and pick the movie and then we will get the DVD. It is hard for them to pick the movie without seeing the cover. All those DVD's, over 90 of them fit in the pink binder and all the covers in the blue one......Much better!!

New Look for the New Year....for the Closet!

There is a walk-in closet in our 4th bedroom. It has become the junk closet. Everything was thrown in there. Mark uses it to store his Patrol uniforms and stuff. He gets dressed in there in the mornings. It also holds all of my craft/scrapbooking stuff. It was TERRIBLY disorganized! After Christmas it got so bad that you couldn't even walk in there. So, I took everything out....first time in 4 years it had been completely empty! Here are a few before pics....

Here is the closet EMPTY!!

I can't believe all this stuff was in that closet!! At this point I was regretting my decision to drag all of it out...I was thinking I would never get through it all.

Ahhh....Finally done! Everything has a home and a labeled home at that! We will see how long it lasts :) I hope we can keep it up!







I love my ribbons all organized and waiting to be on a package or card or in a scrapbook! And look, you can still see the wall....it's not covered with junk!

I even have room for a little desk space and a chair....Can't wait to use my new space to create. The best part is it is in the kids' playroom so i can put the gate in the doorway and be in the same room with them. Maybe I will actually get some scrapbooking done!

And look what else we did....A friend of my mom's GAVE us this playhouse! They had it in their basement and we decided it was to nice for the backyard. We moved things around in the playroom and made room. The kids LOVE it!!! Caroline asked us to get her a bed in her house. They will have so much fun in there!