I went straight out in my pjs and had pulled Paul's car out the night before so I could go through some 3T and 4T stuff in bins. I buy stuff the year before on clearance at the outlets with coupons and also have friends who are generous with their hand me downs. I organize everything by size/gender in Rubbermaid 14 gallon bins which fit 3 perfectly on my Gorilla Racks I got at Costco when I lived in a 740 square foot house with 740 square foot unfinished basement that needed to store pretty much everything. Most sizes are 1-2 bins. Then I made a spreadsheet (I'm not kidding, I'm really that Type A) of all the clothes V has in her bins to figure out what we are light on (I've got a list for the boys-once the kids are potty trained, they need a lot less clothes!) and anything above what I need got donated.
Then I went through other bins (I try to do it once at new years and once in summer) it didn't take long since I purged a ton of stuff last summer, but I had bought 6 bins and found 2 others I wasn't using that I promised to my friend who runs a Garage of Blessings (think free garage sale/thrift store so people can get stuff they need FREE) the bins for her shelving she had donated and my goal was to fill as many of them with donations as possible.
Between the clothing, random items around the house, going through the bins and organizing the pantry for the most part the day before (and getting rid of a few things I never use and making things fit better!) I think I got 4 or 5 filled :) I also made labels for things that didn't have labels and moved V's 3T stuff up to her room in her closet and one drawer under her Captain's bed since she'll most likely need them next summer since 3T starts weightwise at 30 pounds and she's 27.7 now (Sidenote: Henri just had his 4 year checkup-only 2 shots then none more until he's 11! He's 3'1" and 33 1/2 pounds. By comparison, Carter at THREE years was 36 pounds and 36 inches-Henri's a tiny kid!) I'm almost ready to give up her 2T summer stuff that we used last summer and then I had stored in the suitcase for our trip, but want to be sure she's ready for 3T plus, no one else will need summer clothing now.
But the clothing bins and pantry were yesterday. Today besides going through the garage, I moved some shelving around to accomodate the fact that we are now a 4 bike family (Carter used his Toys R Us gift certificates to get a 2-wheeler) and make the shelves more bin friendly. Then I vacuumed out both our cars, swept the garage (no I did not mop---a line must be drawn somewhere...)moved Paul's back in and made some offers to get rid of some other big items that we no longer use.
Oh, also took down the Christmas tree, vacuumed and put the furniture back. Putting back the tree was no easy task since for about 4 years now I can't get the two bottom parts to separate!
All the beautiful bins!
New bike storage area. Well, we were always using it for bikes, but I took the shelf off the storage rack so now you don't have to pull all the bikes out just to get the one you need! The green one is Carter's new bike.
Above there is some scrap MDF and I screwed some pieces of pressure treated wood into the studs to make a shelf for our tree (not today... last time we put it up there-I can't find a bag big enough for it, so an old sheet goes over it.
Look, the strollers are on a different wall! I can walk around the car now without tripping!
I also organized a few things in the back of the car, but I'm waiting on some new totes to complete it.
As a reward (I know, it's a sickness) I took the pantry I organized yesterday and put in my new baking supply bins. The pantry stays pretty organized, but I have been baking more and supplies are dirt cheap at Costco, but then I have to store it and that poor shelf makes me crazy every time. I got these Modular Rubbermaid containers that hold just as much as the old glass cracker jars (that's their actual name...) but are taller and squarer.
Now to get 50 pounds of bread flour into smaller containers... use a rubber silicone mat as a funnel, easy to make the size you need and smoosh until it's the right shape to get it in the container...
This tip is your reward for looking at all my friggin' organizing pictures which probably are pretty boring to anyone who doesn't get too worked up when the silverware is in the wrong spot in the drawer.....
Seriously.. how beautiful is this baking shelf!
Yesterday it was busting at the seams!
Gratuitious pantry postings...
paper products and stuff to transport food on the top (kills me all the wasted space that is up there!) then pantry extras (basicly my in home shop for things I run out of or my backup items) then storage containers, foil & stuff in the scrapbook paper holder, next down are lunch box things like reuseable bags and lunchbags, papertowels and baggies, basket of our cloth napkins and a magazine holder with appliance manuals. Then my nice MDF to try to hold up the shelf above it. I probably will have to so something about that sooner than later as it's just making the lower shelf sag now! OOhhh, maybe a pantry remodel? Be still my beating heart! Oh, wait, got sidetracked... bottom is the heavy appliances I don't use every day... ice cream maker, ice tea maer, bread maker, stand mixer
The other side...
Top shelf is first aid kit and the liquor/wine cabinet as well as food transport items we rarely use because we never leave the house-we have 3 small children! Then my incredible baking shelf, the snack shelf below that and below that is breakfast and cooking shelf bottom is oversized items and some storage of large items,like 50 pound bags of flour put into 2 gallon bags, Costco animal cracker jars and those cracker jars. And, why yes, those are Blackboard contact paper labels I cut on the cricut so I can label what type of flour are in the containers. :)
So then I we had dinner (cornbread from a box for the kids and almost the last of the two hams I cooked up on Saturday and made 15 ham casseroles with and 12 ham, cheese & broccoli quiches all for the freezer (using my new 1/2 gallon bags-love the idea, but about 4 of them had to be thrown out because they were leaking on the seam :( There will be an e-mail to Ziploc, I assure you. But I did like making quiches in them because you need more space than a quart size, but using a gallon size is wasteful and the fact that all you have to do for the quiches is put in the ingredients and smoosh them, the flat bottoms make it easy to do quickly.
Then I cleaned up the kitchen since small children had been running loose, it looked like woodland creatures had eaten crackers and cereal all over the floor and about 1/4 a pound of my 50 pound bag was on the counter from trying to lift the full bag up to use the funnel I made.
Bath, bed & blog... whew.
Oh, other random pictures...
Our 15 minute walk through Bellevue Botanical gardens because it was raining...
Henri showing off his new Hot Wheels helmet he got with his Christmas gift cards. Maybe we'll take the cardboard off before riding.
Seriously, if I'm this productive every day WITH THE KIDs here at home... we'll be bored by June. I'm sure someone will start going through a stage that will keep that from happening, it's never boring around here :)
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