Don't peek....

As many of you know I spent the entire month of January in deep organizing.  Also many of you know that I have seven kids so the organizing can only go so far.  Try as I may --- I just can't keep up with everything 100% and be a happy momma so there are things that I avoid purely for my sanity.  Here are just a few:

           *  I DON'T venture downstairs to the kid's play
               area unless absolutely necessary
           *  I avoid taking children with me when I'm going
               grocery shopping
           *  I RARELY look in the kids' drawers

People often ask me for tips on how I do it (handling 7 kids and remaining happy) - this is how.  I have discovered things over the years that trigger a little mom grumpiness in me and these are some of them so to remain a happy positive mom I avoid things that might turn me against the kids.  It isn't 100% fool proof as I still have my days but it definitely helps a lot.

Anyway, today the kids are taking some skiing lessons so after they headed off to school I had to venture in their rooms to find the right clothes for them to take to the mountain.  Needless  to say this was going to require me to hold my breath and dive into the kids' drawers.  You may be wondering what is so wrong with looking in their drawers -- I'll tell you why.  I don't really love doing laundry.  I know it may seem like I love it because I do it almost every day but the truth is sometimes we do things that we simply don't love.  The part I don't like about laundry the most it putting it away. 

I don't mind folding it, although I wouldn't pick it to do on a Friday night.  I have a ritual I follow.  I set up on the couch and turn on a show and fold the night away.  Everyone has a pile and then they each have to put away their own laundry.  As I hand them their pile I always remind them, "Please sort your clothes and put everything away in the right spot".  The "right spot" meaning the drawer or cubby where the clothes go.  Everything has a place when I organize their drawers for them (when the seasons change).  If they'd just keep putting their clothes away as I organized for them things would stay organized.  Right?!

As you've probably guessed, things don't run this way.  I wash, fold and hand them their pile of laundry with the friendly reminder and then they run upstairs and stuff their clothes wherever they please so when I open their drawers I get angry.  I see everything all mixed up.  Dirty clothes in the drawers and clean clothes on the floor and I usually start emptying their drawers and yelling at the kids that they need to come and re-organize their drawers the way they are supposed to be.  There you have it!  I don't enjoy being that kind of mom so I just keep their drawers closed until it is time for me to come in and go through sizes and switch winter for summer and vice-versa.

Today I started in the girls' room and it was pretty easy to find what I needed.   The drawers were sorted as they were supposed to be.  They weren't folded but at least their was some sort of organizing.  Then I opened their sock/underwear drawers and they had placed one of my organizing baskets in their for the undies and the socks were on the side of the basket.  They also had a little piece of notebook paper taped on the edge of the drawer with socks/ underwear scribbled down (they aren't allowed to play with my label maker).  I was very proud of them and it made my frowny face turn upside down.

The boys room was another story.  I looked vainly for what I needed without success then I ran out of the room and shut the door.  I will spend the remainder of the day trying to forget what I saw in there .... at least until Saturday and then they'll get it!  Want to venture a guess at what the boys will be doing with their Saturday????

Been out of the groove...

It's been awhile. 

I've been waiting to blog until I felt inspired with some funny little quirk about my life but nothing's coming.  I decided that I better just write.

Today I was thinking about how great my life is --

I've got THE best husband and 7 wonderful kids.  Having a big family is a lot of work but I wouldn't trade any minute of it.  It helps that my kids are so great.  I know they aren't perfect, can be pretty silly, sometimes they talk back ( ... I know, hard to believe ;P), and they are messy but they are mine and I love them.

As I was sweeping the kitchen and thinking how unbelievable it is that there could be that much stuff on the floor, it crossed my mind that if I only had one or two kids it would be so easy to keep up with the mess.  Then I remembered that even as newlyweds I didn't really like to clean so the chances are that I would still have a large pile going into the dustpan, it would just take a lot longer to fill it up.

I am also grateful that (so far) my oldest is such a GREAT example to his younger siblings. (Except for the incessant teasing to his baby brother.)   We grounded him last week - can't even remember why - and I lifted the grounding today because he is just going out of his way to have a good attitude.  Even before I was married or had any kids I was so worried about raising teenagers.  I would look at the world around me and the constant barrage of evil influences and worry about how I could possibly help navigate children through this life.  I am officially the mom of a teenager and I am much less worried about it than I used to be.  Granted I still have the most pivotal years ahead of me but I think I can do this.  I know it will not be smooth sailing, there will most likely be arguments and disobedience possibly even heartache but I'm not doing this alone and that makes all the difference.  I'm not scared anymore!

Now I have to brag just a bit.  We pride ourselves in the fact that we are raising nerds and not athletes.  I have nothing against sports (in fact I think they're great!) but most people don't grow up and use a lot of those hours and hours spent in sports towards anything useful.  If one of my kids has a fierce love of sports, sure I'll let them play to their hearts content but so far none of my kids have much interest in anything.  They've tried out different things over the years but that is not our forte'.

Anyway ... Jacob is in the Gifted program at school and they have this thing called the Math bus.  I don't know everything about it but the jist (?spelling) of it is --- they have the kids that really excel or love math get on a bus once a month.  They take a math test, have a feast and go back to school.  Yesterday Jacob had the best score out of the entire valley.  Way to go!  Also when we had his parent/ teacher class, his teacher told him that he had some more advanced math books and that if Jacob wanted to --- he could go ahead of the class and learn on his own (remember that this is already the gifted class).

I will try to conjure up something more fun for my next post...

Seriously, I have the best husband....

What kind of man does so many kind things for others?  A great one and that's what I've got.

Today was stake conference and a very special one.  Year after year we have stake conference and my husband leaves over an hour early to make sure we get cushy seats.  He does this mainly for me because he knows it is important to me, and the fact that it helps the kids to pay attention and sit quietly.

We have been caught in the back a few times and it is always a nightmare.  Loud kids who can't really tell why we're at the church because they can't even see who's speaking much less hear them because of all the action figures, barbies, and crayons getting banged on metal chairs.

We were very blessed to have been visited by Elder L. Tom Perry at our Stake Conference this weekend.  What a wonderful event this was and I got to meet him twice.  I feel so lucky.  I met him long ago but I'm having a hard time remembering when exactly.  In college we used to go sleep on the street in Salt Lake waiting to attend General Conference and that is where I met Elder Oaks as he walked casually down the street to the Tabernacle but I can't quite place when I would have met Elder Perry but I do remember thinking how tall he was.

Anyway .... back to the present.  I was asked to give the benediction at last nights adult session so Dan and I arrived early to make sure I wouldn't have to make the trek to the stage from the back of the chapel and ended up sitting on the front row.  Then today my sweet husband got to the chapel an hour and a half early to make sure that we had good seats.  I always stroll in about a quarter till but today I was good and made it by 9:30.  I found them on the second row --- GREAT seats.  Let me tell you there is nothing quite like sitting there having an apostle of the Lord look into your eyes as he gives his sermon.

 Thank you sweetie for getting such great seats for our family.  About halfway through the meeting it really touched me that Dan would get such great seats for our family.  In fact he wasn't even in there to enjoy his cushy seat but was out in the lobby with our rambouctious toddler.  That is love! 

At the end of the meeting we were able to go up and shake Elder Perry's hand.  When he saw curly haired Katie he said, "Now here's the second row crew ... what a great family!"  Priceless

I'm Done!!!!! Now that's wishful thinking....

Day 21 of the 21 day challenge has come.  The challenge for today was to pick your own challenge.  Easy enough right?

The only problem with that is I had a VERY hard time finding the inner strength to actually think of a challenge.  I really wanted to just call it good and take a break for the day.  About 12:30 I finally thought of something that needed organizing. (There is actually plenty that still needs organizing but finding something that I wanted to work on today.)

Here's my project:  Sort, itemize, bag up and haul away the donation pile

I know - not really something that will stay with me but something that needs to be done anyway.  Over the past 21 days we've already hauled away several donation piles but a big one had accumulated again.

Here's what I started with:

Then I sorted everything into piles so that it would be easier to itemize.

I made a list of everything I'm donating and the condition it is in.

There you go! All the piles are bagged and boxed and ready to drive down to the Donation Center. Now all I have to do is sit back and wait for my oldest son to get home from school so that he can haul it to the car!

I'd like to thank Kristen for joining this challenge so that I could find it and Toni from A Bowl Full of Lemons for putting this challenge together. The last several months I've really been feeling the need to get my house in order but didn't know where to begin. I often start projects and don't finish them because with 9 people in the house my days can get busy really quickly and I'll often put projects off for later.

This challenge was very motivating for me because I knew that I couldn't put things off for tomorrow because tomorrow there would be a new challenge. It feels great to have gotten so much done. I've created a mental list of things that I still need to organize. But I need a little R & R first .... is that really possible? We'll see.

Master Closet

I actually did this a few days before it was assigned ... yea me!

I've only got this one before picture. I already had my system in place but things needed a little tidying up. Hailey and Katie were more than happy to earn a little money helping me in here.

Some new finds ---

I found this at Bed, Bath & Beyond a week ago and thought I'd give it a try. So far, so good!

I found this belt hanger in the dollar section at Target only right now not very much is actually only 1 dollar. I think it was $2.50 but I wish they had more! We took the last one and I haven't seen anymore since then.

I also found this scarf hanger in the same section. I bought one for each closet but haven't gotten that far yet.

We got these shoe cubbies at Costco a few years ago. It has really help keep things organized. The girls loved helping me put away my shoes. We emptied them all, picked the ones up off the floor and re-loaded. I moved the summer to the back of the closet and put the boots closer to the front.

We started buying these milk crates at back to school time when they are on sale. I've stacked and zip tied them to the shelves to create cubbies. Cheap and easy fix. I have to sort them a couple of times a year to switch seasons.

ALL DONE!!

Desktop & Keepsakes

Have I ever mentioned that paperwork is my nemesis??? Well ... now you know. I have many flaws as I am far from perfect, but I would have to say that paperwork is right their near the top, if not at the top!

If you've come over and their has NOT been piles left around for later that means that it was stashed away out of sight. Not dealt with but successfully hidden. All you have to do is open a few desk drawers or some cubbies and you are bound to find many stacks of paper.

Or as these pictures show, just look at the desk! Embarrassing, but true!

For all of the above reasons I approached the assigned tasks with great trepidation and fear. Can I really conquer paperwork? That has yet to be seen but I'm certainly willing to give it a try.

I'm not gonna lie and say that I've finished this task but I've gotten an excellent head start. Since I started the challenge late I never did the desk top so I figured I'd start there. We have a very large table so I made that my command center and moved everything off the desk on to the table so I could give the desk a good dusting. I put everything back in the office (minus the paperwork) with a master plan in place. How can I create a space that will make paperwork easier for me? I found these paper boxes at Walmart and decided I'd make a box for things that I need to keep track of that wouldn't involve me filing right away.

I have 5 total for right now:

1. Taxes - We get my husband's W-2, and then lots of 1099's for my Internet business. Not to mention all the statements from the mortgage company, banks, property taxes and such. I can put them all together and file them after tax season. We wait until April 15th because who wants to send money earlier than needed.

2. Donations - I itemize everything! Therefore, before I take anything to Goodwill or DI it involves an itemized list and a note of it's condition. This way I can create the list, put it in the box and then attach the receipt when we finally take the load.

3. House receipts - I'm going to put a few files in the bottom of this box for different years. When we get home from Home Depot or do any renovations, we just drop the receipt in the box. If it gets full I can file it away but at least everything will be in one spot.

4. Business expenses - We have an online business so this box is for any receipts or paperwork involved.

5. Medical receipts - this isn't for medical bills but all of my out of pocket expenses. Prescriptions, co-pays, etc. We have a flexible spending account and anything over that can be put on our taxes.

It took all day but I got task #2 complete! The Desktop

As I said, not completely done putting everything back into place but the table is only half full still. We ate in shifts today. :)

This doesn't fall into a specific task but I'm excited about it still. Along with the desktop I cleaned out the cabinets over the desk. I temporarily took out all of the DVDs & Cd's and ordered some new holder's for them. This was an idea I got off of Toni's blog at A Bowl Full of Lemons.

With these containers from the Container Store:

I will take all these movies, music, software & games -

And fit them on this shelf!

We already have a version of this system in place for the kid's movies. There's are in one of those big notebooks but I think this will be better. It will be kind of like the library. I will make a chart inside the cabinet door that tells them what number slot each movie goes into. They should easily be able to get out what they want and put away what they watch. It will take some training but I know my kids are capable of doing this. I just need to lay down the law!

I'm excited for them to arrive!

On to Day #18 Keepsakes --

I don't actually have this done because I don't have all the supplies yet but they are on their way and I created a space for them.

Over the years I've tried many different versions of this but I'm excited to try a new one. Maybe this one will catch on especially with my new found determination to conquer paperwork.

My last system was the file cabinet and cubbies and since we all know how good I am at paperwork I have stacks of papers to put away and the kids end up getting into them before I'm done. The cubbies were supposed to be where they put their paperwork from school and every once in a while we go through them and pull out what we really want to keep and file them away. The kids have taken ownership of their cubbies and it is where they keep EVERYTHING including unfinished sandwiches. (Yes I have found a baggie with a half eaten sandwich in my 4 yr old's cubby)

Anyway we tried and failed so I'm gonna try Toni's system and see if I do better at it. I ordered a paper holder that has eight slots and conveniently fits on this shelf where these plastic ones are:

I know your probably thinking why not just stick them in the notebooks in the first place but I've come to realize with me that is just not going to happen. I love this idea because it gives me a place for my "stacks" of paper in an orderly way and it gives the kids something to do when they are bored. It's a win - win!!!

Teenagers & Buffets!

So last Tuesday the kids were out of school and I took them down to a local fun center ----- you know the places with arcades, laser tag, mini golf and SNACK bars. My oldest was slightly grumbling about going so I told him to invite his two best friends along also.

After we were there a little while the teenagers started to get hungry. (The bag of pretzels I'd brought along just wasn't cutting it any longer) After talking to an employee of the joint they (the teenagers) came to me with a plan. There was an all you can eat price of $10.95 for anything on the menu and they would share. Well since a thing of chicken fingers was about $5 it seemed like a no brainer. So I go up and order the buffet and then I am presented with "the rules".

1. NO SHARING!
2. Food MUST be eaten inside eating area - a.k.a. "we're watching you!"
3. If any rules are broken you are banned from getting any more food.

Their marvelous plan was foiled ..... at least until the friends decided to purchase their own also.

Let the Feasting Begin!!

Do you know how many Dippin' Dots one teenager can eat? Let alone three teenagers? My one son ate about 10 servings at about $4.50 a piece. He definitely got his money worth. Not to mention the corn dogs, pretzels, pizza, cheese burgers, churros and unlimited sodas.

I was nervous as we traveled back up the canyon home that we would see all that beloved junk food once again but luckily my mom-sense was wrong ... this time.

It made the boys day and we're wondering how long the "all you can eat" will be around once they do their books. At least for now I've got three boys in "hog heaven!"

Still plugging away....

I'm still working on my organizing challenge. This week has been a lot less challenging but still I somehow managed to get behind. Oops!

The kids were out of school Monday and Tuesday so I did what I could in between taking them to some of their favorite places.

Monday I took Savannah and Katie down the canyon with me to make some returns and then have some fun. The rest of the family was going to meet up with us later. After some fun at Chuck E Cheese we met the rest of the family at a Trampoline Fun Center. My kids LOVE this place but it was the most crowded I've ever seen it ... not so much fun. A few of the kids and I left early in search of thee PERFECT bathroom organizing things with a bribe of dinner at their favorite taco shop. Six stores later we still couldn't find exactly what I was looking for (shelving for under the bathroom sink and an over the cabinet hanging basket). It was very frustrating but I bought different shelves that I found in various sizes in hopes that something would work. We got home and hauled in my load. Of course NOTHING worked right. Aaagh!

I continued to work on the bathrooms but everything that I put together just didn't seem to fit right. I felt like I've been playing Tetris all week trying to find the winning combination without much success. Tuesday I was gone all day with the kids again (I'll catch you up on that later) and then Wednesday was back to school and a dentist appointment for me.

The dentist is right by Bed Bath and Beyond so I thought I'd give that a try. We looked around and found nothing and mentioned to an employee what we were looking for. He told me that I'd have to have it custom made. I told him I've seen them online at Amazon. He was no help so we kept looking and FOUND exactly what I was looking for. HAPPY DAY!

Day 14: Under Bathroom Sink - I don't know why I can't just focus on one area at a time but they all seem intermingled so this took me several days because not only did I organize under all three sinks but I did all three bathroom vanity tops and drawers too. Oh yeah ... and the master closet.

Before

After

 

Here's under my hubby's sink:

Before

After

And here's the kids: (no before shot but it was pretty bare.)

Kid's Bath

The girls were especially excited to set up their own hair space.  I have four girls and do most of the hair in my bathroom but the oldest two are great at doing their own hair so it was time.

Day 15: Medicine/Vitamin Storage - Done!

Day 16: The Fridge - Luckily I did this the same day as the freezer so it was done! I was so happy because the kids were out of school and our days were filled with fun.

Day 17: Mail - This is the first day that I didn't get my job done! Bummer! The bathrooms took me a few days. I know sad ... right? Tomorrow's Today's job is organizing keepsakes so it looks like I'm going to spend the day in the office and get three tasks done at once. Mail, Keepsakes and Desk top (from day 2 before I started the challenge). We'll see if I can get it all done.

Next stop ---

Day 13 DONE!

Before:

After:

I'm gonna backtrack a couple of days because I've been able to get a lot done and my house is starting to come back together.

Thursday was Freezer day -----

That morning I spent 2 hours at the elementary school helping in two of my kids classes. I came home and did the freezer, did my preschool carpool duty, then I organized the fridge, the spice cabinet, upper corner cabinet (stores mixing bowls & such), 2 cup cupboards, took care of kids, helped with homework, read scriptures, said prayers, and tucked the kiddos in because hubby had to work late. Not bad for a days work!

I was glad Toni gave us a hint that the spice cabinet was Friday's task because it gave me a chance to get caught up on a few things.

Yesterday Dan let three of the kids miss school and he took them skiing. It was Hailey's first time and she LOVED it & did great! I'm typing this on my phone so I'll post pictures later.

While half the crew was on the mountain the little ones & I put away Christmas. FINALLY! I had been waiting until the kids went back to school and then came across the 21 day challenge and it didn't happen. As mentioned in an earlier post my preschooler cried when I told her I was putting away the Christmas decorations. I kept them up another week and then yesterday while we were taking down she asked if we could at least keep the tree up until the snow melts. That might not be for another 3 months! But I can at least give her another few days. I finally figured out why. The kids missed the last day of school because we were gone over Christmas so she didn't give me the ornament she made at school until the beginning of January and she told me she wants us to be able to see her present. So sweet and pulls at the heartstrings just a bit. So there you have it. I'm leaving up the tree just a little bit longer.

Spice it Up

Day 12 - Spice cabinet

I got a head start on Friday and already did the Spice cabinet so that I can finally take down Christmas. I was waiting until school started and then I came across this organizing challenge and haven't had a spare minute since. Besides that my 4 year old cried and asked if we could please leave it up longer so I told her one more week.

Before:

After:

It's not quite done because I am ordering one of these for all of my little spices.