Yet another closet!

Take it from me, when you spend a week or so cleaning out and organizing closets, under beds, and in other various little spots, your house is inclined to look like a PIT, even though you are exhausted.  :)

Yesterday was a school day for everyone, and I didn’t have my extras, so I knew I HAD to tackle James’ closet while the house was almost empty.  Natalie ended up home “sick,” but she’s typically super easy to care for all alone.  And she was totally fine; Monday was a mystery fever (thank goodness!) 

She watched some television (she LOVES TV) but also played and played and played!  It was so wonderful to be in the next room and listen to her play.  One of my favorite things to do is watch and listen to that girl play.  It’s FANTASTIC!

Anyway… James’ closet is a walk-in, so there are three pictures instead of one to get the same effect.

Again, I pulled out everything and spread it all over the room.

I quickly labeled the tops of the bins to make sorting the pile of clothes easier.

It doesn’t look so bad all alone!

A couple of the bins got to go to the attic (yay!) since James and Natalie had outgrown their contents.  I sorted everything, put things that belonged elsewhere away, and filled my car to bursting with more donations.

Then I put the keepers back in!

There are quite a few things in here that may end up being moved around or relocated, but it works for now.  The little bookshelf if full of baby things and toys from when I was little.  {Awwwww…}  The green bin has cloth diaper supplies.  The blue bag is my breast pump.  The crates have shoes waiting to be grown into.  They may get spread out across the shelf so they’re easier to get to; we’ll see.  For now, special clothes (think Baptism) and costumes are hanging on the rack.

The little white basket holds training underwear because James isn’t ready for them, but I didn’t want to store them so well I forgot where they were.  :)  The blue thing is a baby toy Miss Laura will be ready for in a couple of months or so. 

The green bag is a bouncy chair that folds up – wahoo!  The blob next to it is a space bag (that you vacuum the air out of) full of baby blankets that were made for my girls and the Boppy pillow.  The stacked bins hold outgrown socks and tights.

It’s a wild assortment of things, but it works!  James has very few clothes that I like to hang up, so the space works very well for short term/transitional storage… for now.  :)

I ran across Natalie’s crib bedding lurking at the back of the closet, and I think I’d like to pass it along.  Does anyone have a baby girl on the way and need some pretty bedding?  I’d be happy to take better pictures.

Now I’m off to not clean out any closets today.  Four children under four is simply not a situation that lends itself to that kind of work.  :)  So I must go play! {and fix food and sweep and stuff diapers.}

Declutter and Organize!!

I’ve had a serious desire to declutter and organize the last week or so.  The only thing holding me back are my sweet angels.  :)  It’s just plain HARD to do this kind of work with kiddos in the house!

On Saturday I focused on getting Christmas decorations down and put away.  I also started (a tiny bit) thinking about some decorations for Valentine’s day.  This is not something I usually do, but the house is so drab after Christmas, and I’ve seen a few things I love on Pinterest, so we’ll see!

Anyway, I reeeeally wanted to work on my “craft” (also office supplies, wrapping stuff and miscellaneous other things) closet that’s in our master bedroom.  So I started in on that after church on Sunday.  I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without my super wonderful husband, who really helped wrangle the kids while I worked.  I still had 9, 742 interruptions, but I got it done!

I had only emptied a few drawers when I remembered to take the “before” picture.  you can just imagine they are full.  :)

I have a serious addiction to empty shoeboxes.  :)  They are all now GONE, except for what I used to corral supplies.

I took EVERYTHING out of the closet except for the containers.  I left what I had in there (it was pretty much working for me); I just rearranged a bit.  I also grabbed the wire cubes (top shelf) that were in the girls’ closet to use here.

And you can’t even see it all from this angle…

I thinned it out, organized it, and put it back in!  I also pulled some things that fit well here from other areas of the house.

I even have a few empty spots to fill!

After the pics were taken, I labeled all the boxes and bins with what’s inside.  I also added a bin I have of construction paper that was at the bottom of the girls closet.  It went in the empty spot you see on the floor below.  Now maybe we’ll actually be able to get to the paper!

I keep going past it and smiling.  I think I want to remove the doors and use a curtain instead.  It will be much prettier!

Today I was really on a roll and decided to tackle the girls’ closet.  It was MUCH MUCH harder to do without Matt around!!  I definitely couldn’t have done my closet without him, but this one was easier.

I decided I want to give the girls their closet back.  It’s been off limits to them, full of off-season toys and shoes, files and many other things.  I think they need a bit more space to play and a place to put their hanging clothes (they’ve been in James’ closet; they don’t have much).

Again, I forgot to take the before picture right away, so you have to imagine the top shelf full of stuff.

The crates are shoes that are off-season or the wrong size.

{There’ the tub of construction paper.}  The toys are all “out-of-rotation.”

And after!  I moved all the “out of rotation” toys to the top shelf.  It’ll get some organization and maybe a little thinning out later.  (When the children aren’t home!)

I rescued their hanging clothes from James’ closet.  I put that little shelf bench to block the plumbing access and as a place for books.

The filing cabinet will eventually get moved out.  It’s only like a quarter full, so it really just needs to be gone through and moved to a file bin instead.  But that’s a project for another day!

I’m definitely ditching their closet doors (as soon as Matt gets home!), so I had to move all their dress-up which were hanging on the doors.  I made a little dress-up corner across the room!

That feels very good to get (almost) done, and the girls love their new space!

School starts back for everyone tomorrow, so I’m planning to tackle James’ closet.  It holds a lot of the bigger baby items/toys as well as all the bins of off-season and wrong-sized clothing.  When the kids grow out of clothes, I typically just throw them on the floor of the closet, and it is definitely time to get in there and organize!  I have to pull every bin out though, so I can’t do it when James is home.  I’m hoping to get the crates of shoes to fit in there – I think I can do it!  His closet is a big mess, that’s for sure!  Natalie is running a fever, so she’ll be home with me.  But she LOVES watching television, so I’m sure she’ll be happy to do some of that while I tackle James’ closet.

I’ve taken all of these pictures with my little camera that lives in my purse.  I try never to use it at home, but I simply could not get wide enough with my good camera for those shots.  I would have had to stand next door and use an x-ray filter.  :)

Photo Challenge–wrap it up for December!

December 28: Words

December 29: Sky View

December 30: Your Winter Wonderland {Ha!}

December 31: Fun

If you click here, you should be able to see all the photo-a-day posts in one spot.  I had fun with this little challenge, and I found the last couple of days that I missed looking at the list and figuring out what to take a picture of, sooooo I’m going to continue on in January!

Starting off 2013!

So I have several “goals” for the year, but most are a little more on the “I’d like to not publish them on the internet side of things,” so I’m not going to do a big post.  However, I have a couple that are sort of “fun” and not very deep and scary that I’ll probably blog about.  I guess they’re more like two categories rather than just two goals.  Anyway…

1. Photography: I want to continue learning new things all the time.  I’m probably not going to be terribly organized about it, but I’m aiming for learning how to do one new thing (figure out a setting, take a specific kind of picture, etc.) with my camera each month.  I also need to explore Photoshop Elements more.  I feel like I need to take a class on this, but that isn’t likely to happen.  So I’ll keep plugging away by reading and trying.  The program can do so much, and I want to figure it out more!  Along those lines, I’m going to print more pictures.  I think I’ll plan to pick 1-3 (or so) favorites each month to print.  If there’s a good sale going on, I’ll print ‘em big.  If not, I’ll print ‘em little.  :)  This will help me see what my edits look like in print verses on the computer, and it might help inspire me to learn things I don’t know about shooting and editing.  I’m excited!

2. My home: This is rather ongoing, but I’m going to be more purposeful about it this year.  I love my home, but there’s so much more I can be doing to make it really feel like a haven for my family.  Specifically, I’m going to plan to cull at least 10 items from the house per week.  I keep a bin in the garage, and when it’s full, I’ll take it Goodwill or SOSS.  I’m going to be more purposeful in making the children pick up after themselves as well as decreasing the amount of toys that need picking up.  We’re all also going to learn how to clean better.  I might as well teach the children as I teach myself!  I’ve never been very good at following a cleaning “plan” but I may try it again.  My “whatever I feel like when I feel like it” plan sucks.  :)

So, I do have a few more than just those, but since they are either very personal or involve other people, I’m not going to put them here!  Now on to some pictures!

Matt had to work today (boo!), so the kids and I entertained each other.  :)

James came up with this Lego tower he built, and said “take a picture!”  So I did!

And again this evening!

I may eventually have to cut him off, but how cute is that?!

We went to Grandma’s after naptime (wahoo!!!), and one toy over there is this big camera.  He kept coming in to the other room to tell me he was taking a picture of the Christmas tree.  Hands down the CUTEST BOY IN THE UNIVERSE!

Grandma had a few new things for the kiddos to keep at her house.  James is trying to get into the car.

Grandma did something different that the usual enchiladas since it was New Year’s.  The kids were confused.  :)

I love fried chicken!!

And pecan pie!!

I love enchilada night, but it sure was wonderful to have some comfort food.  AND we got to bring a lot home with us.  Mmmm mmm mmm mm mm!

James is so funny.  He likes to eat his ice cream in a cone with a spoon.  :)  And he simply canNOT go to Grandma’s house and not eat an ice cream cone… even if there’s pie.

Uncle Mark had a few fireworks to set off so we went out to the street to watch.  James and Natalie said NO WAY after they heard the first one, so Matt brought them inside.  Joanna toughed it out with us (layered in two of Christiana’s jackets).  I dialed up my sparker settings from last night and attempted to take firework pictures!

I didn’t know we’d be having fireworks or I would have done some homework.  :)

One series were these little ones that just shot up all over the place.  I couldn’t catch them in the sky, so I started shooting where they were starting off.

Light is cool.

It was a wonderful evening and a great way to start of 2013!

Finishing out 2012

On Sunday I decided to keep Natalie home from church and send the others.  She had seemed pretty punk the night before.  As it turns out, she would have been okay to go, just a little sniffly.  I’m glad we stayed home though and let me her immune system rest.  :)

Joanna was so super cute though I had to take a picture before she left!

When I upload pictures to my computer, I simply store them into Monthly folders, so all of the pictures I took in December are in one folder.  I noticed today that there are 1,212 pictures in my December 2012 folder – 1212 in 1212!  I mean, what are the chances?!!

I printed off some questionnaire sheets just like last year for the kiddos, and we worked on them today.  If they’re hard to read, they should get bigger if you click on them.  I’ll need to add their height and weight when I get around to figuring out how to get that information.  :)

Joanna:

Notes: This evening she added “play outside” to What I do in my free time, but I didn’t retake the picture.  I wrote everything how she told me, except for where it says “paraphrase.”

Notes:  I’m pretty sure she answered that book title because it was sitting on the couch near us.  She likes it, but I don’t think it’s her favorite.  I filled out some of the things for her like the answers to free time, what makes me laugh and cry, and best thing that happened.  She told me she wanted to be a teenager when she grows up.  With some pressing, I also got that she would like to type on the computer.  :)  We couldn’t come up with anything horrible that happened (for James either).

Notes: I completely filled this out for James, based on what I know about him.  :)  Joanna helped me though.  Next year I’ll be able to ask him the questions.

New Year’s Eve!

We went to the Vandenberge’s for dinner last night!

The little girls are not as good about having their picture made.  :)  Lisa had just wiped Emma’s face.

Lisa made quesadillas.  They were a huge hit with everyone!

I had mine open-faced (which probably technically does not make it a quesadilla, but I’m not up on all the technical terms).  The grown-ups had lots of veggies on ours.  Yummo!

After dinner Anton and his girlfriend brought over sparklers for the kids!

I think I needed about 20 more minutes to figure out the settings on the camera to get the pictures I wanted.  Alas, neither the sparklers nor the children lasted that long.  :)  We’ll have to do them again!!

I did not get any decent shots of James, but he thought those sparklers were THE BEST!!  He kept saying “another sparkler.”

I didn’t really get any good ones of Natalie either.

There were too many kiddos doing the same thing at once to photograph them all!

Joanna is just easiest to take pictures of these days, so they’re mostly of her.

And on the last round of sparklers, I finally worked out what to tell my camera to do.  And I stood still enough to do it.  {Low ISO, wide aperture, slooooow shutter speed.} 

But then it was over. 

But that’s okay; I still actually had fun even if I didn’t quite capture it. 

Next time we do sparklers I want to pull out my tripod and let the kids try to write their names in the air with the sparklers… one at a time.  :)

We went back inside and watched Vandenberge home movies!  I think Anton was looking for specific things, and Tony had been going through the old videos – had to show the girlfriend!  {Joanna made an appearance in one as a baby.}  It was a lovely way to spend the evening – thanks friends!

We went home and got the kids in bed at a pretty normal time.  And thankfully, they slept through all the madness. 

Happy New Year everyone!