Working on Organization

This week we have been working hard to get our house organized. We moved Elijah into the smaller bedroom with his brothers. We will be getting him a toddler bed soon and I wanted to get him used to the change of room before we change his bed.

In order to make it all work both the boys' and girls' rooms needed major work. There were clothes all over their floors. This hasn't been a new problem. In fact I've had to go through their clothes fairly often. I decided we needed to go through them again and see if we could get a handle on the problem.



Elijah loves it when I try to organize clothes. Piles of clothes are mountains of fun to him.

We started off with sheets and blankets. I even had them take the sheets off their beds. I put those in piles. Twin size sheets and pillow cases in one pile, baby bed sheets in another pile, towels that somehow got into the mix in another pile and crochet blankets and quilts in yet another pile. I then got a basket and had them put their favorite set of sheets in it. I started that load to wash.

Then I had them pick out their favorite blankets. Once we put the first load in the dryer, we started a load of blankets washing. I had them pick out a second set of sheets each and the rest will be either given away or stored in another location. (If anyone needs sheets let me know soon.) :-) We had sheets and blankets washing all day.

After getting that major work done, I had the kids take a break to work on their lessons.

The next day we started gathering the clothes off their floors. I'm still working on getting that organized. I have to figure out what fits them and what doesn't. I'm automatically throwing away clothes that have holes. I hope to get done with this task before Spring Break next week.



I want to share a couple of cute pictures from the past week or two. In the one above, Elijah had fallen asleep while playing in a small box. I took a quick picture before rescuing him from his cozy quarters and laying him in his bed.



And this next picture, I took after karate class last week. Hannah is wearing her new green belt and Elijah is trying out a black belt that belongs to one of the students in our adult class. Elijah liked the belt so much that he almost wouldn't part with it. :-) Maybe one day, he'll earn one of his own that will fit him a little better.

Now to get back to work organizing. Maybe next week, I'll be able to post pictures of nice, neat rooms.

Team Work

I am finally able to stop and blog a little bit. I have a hard time finding a "good" time to blog. So I'll just try to pop in and blog as best I can when I am able and the computer isn't tied up.

Yesterday, the kids and I worked a bit on our living quarters. I swept all the toys, clothes, trash, papers, etc. into a pile in their room and had them picking it up. I would love to be organized like a family I saw a website for that has 11 children. I like to glean tidbits of information from those families so that I might can incorporate a little bit of organization into our daily routines. I have quite a ways to go before I'm that organized, but maybe before I have 11 children I'll have it figured out. Until then we just have a massive clean up the bedroom of too many toys. It gets better though because they wind up breaking their toys and those get thrown away, so that makes less to pick up for next time.

While they were working on their room, I had my own challenge of clothing. There is 6 of us and a lot of clothes. So I spent the time they were working on their floor to work on sorting clothes. Winter clothes, summer clothes, church clothes, play clothes, outgrown clothes, torn clothes, for 6 people can be a bit daunting sometimes. Then on top of it being daunting I put the job off and it really becomes a disorganized mess. So that was the task I worked on yesterday and still have more to go on it. I have found though that when the children and I work together on tasks they get done pretty well. There are a few jobs that the kids wind up being "too much" help and slow me down, but if I get them on the right task then the job gets done easily and quickly.

A good example of team work was our moving a t.v. yesterday. We have a big t.v. that my brother had given us before he had moved to France. The t.v. was on our floor because we didn't have anywhere else to put it. We had been given a rolling t.v. stand and it was in the children's room. Hannah helped me roll it into our dining/ family/ bed room. Ruth helped hold the cart from rolling so that Joshua and I could lift this incredibly heavy t.v. Joshua held the back of the t.v. while I lifted the front. We had to lift it about two or three feet in order to get it on the cart. It didn't take long and we were real happy to be able to surprise Scott when he got home, instead of having to wait until he got home from work to pick it up for us. I was real proud of our team work. I couldn't lift it by myself so with the little bit of extra help, we were able to get it done.


Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
(Ecc 4:9-12)

It's amazing what we can accomplish when we all work together. Time to get back to work. Just wanted to share my thought for today. :)