Project: Simplify - Week #5

This last week was the last of Project: Simplify. Hot spot #5 was "whatever you want". We have been needing and wanting to set up a kids/play area in our house. We have realized in the last year or so that we are the most un-kid friendly house. Our family room is very large and we've divided into two different sitting areas, so we decided to make one half of it our "kids room". There is a closet on that side so I decided to make it my hot spot to get us started. It was a pretty big project so I didn't make the deadline of Friday, but I am pretty proud of actually finishing it in only eight days! I had some good helpers, too, so that made it a lot easier! Here are my before and afters:

painting...

Ta-da (I promise this is the same closet)!!!

The kids table was a great garage sale find this weekend.. perfect timing!!

Louis and Rob helped me with these great shelves and the painting.

Even though Project: Simplify is over, I am determined to continue with organizing and simplifying. Kinsley has already decided on my next hot spot! ;)

Project: Simplify Week #4 - One more to go!

This week's hot spot was the pantry and refrigerator, which I was very happy about because I have been thinking lately how much I need to organize my pantry. For those of you who don't know, I am one of those "coupon people". Have you ever been stuck in the checkout line behind one? I try to warn people that get behind me when I have alot of coupons. Have you heard about the new show Extreme Couponing coming out on TLC? It is ridiculous.. I promise I am no where near that crazy of a couponer, so please don't judge when you see that I have alot of multiples of some items. :) Anyways, I am very happy to have some order to my pantry now and a nice, clean fridge. Here are my before and afters:

The beginning of baseball

Louis had his first baseball game this past weekend and Rob got some good pictures, so I thought I would put a few up. It's a church league so they are really laid back and it's really all just for fun and not taken too seriously. They don't keep score, but, I'm pretty sure we won! :) Louis hit some good balls, too and made some points for the team!

What a stud!

Project: Simplify Week #3

The third week of Project: Simplify was kids clothes and toys. This is something that hadn't bothered me much but is definitely something that I need to stay more on top of. I only did organization for Kinsley's things. I'm not going to go into any details, but I'll just say that I've organized Louis' things at least three times in the last three months and there is just no use. We are going to see how the next couple months go and then I may try again. So, for Kinsley's things, I have to say that I was quite embarrassed when I took my "before" pictures.. I really didn't realize how bad it had gotten. Once again, it feels great to have this all done! Ok, here they are... oh, and yes, the first few pictures are very yellowy- I am still working on figuring out our new camera. :)

This is the pile that seems to grow every couple weeks with clothes that are too small.

once again, my little helper trying to keep me on task...

All done! I was so excited to have the pink basket back to serving it's original purpose of a dirty clothes basket and all the too small clothes out of sight!

Project: Simplify Hot Spot #2 Completed!!!

This week's hot spot was a big one for me... paper clutter. I am one of those people whose house fools you. You think it's all picked up and organized.. but, you haven't opened any of my drawers... and that counter top... it doesn't look like that on a normal day. I was a bit relieved when I saw Project: Simplify's hot spot for this week, and then felt a little overwhelmed. But, I'm all done and it feels really, really good! :) This is what our island looks like on a normal day at our house:

and these are the drawers that overflow with all the stuff on the counter top when we have visitors:

This is just a bunch of paper clutter (that I've stuffed away in a closet) that has accumulated over the years, including a box of owners manuals for almost everything in our house... I got rid of about 90% of this, which wasn't too hard because, as you can see, I had a little helper. :)

Here are the finishing touches on the island and drawers...

I made a "mailing center" drawer and a "processing" drawer for our bills, receipts and other miscellaneous things needing to be processed, which (hopefully) will be done weekly.

Taking a break

I am trying to finish up my nice long break that I got to take today... Louis has been having a hard time the last few days. This has led to him not being able to go to school today or tomorrow. We had a pretty rough morning. My wonderful husband came to my rescue and took the rest of the day off work so I could take a much needed break. He's so good to me! Before I get back to working on my second hot spot for Project: Simplify, I thought I would post some pictures from our new camera that we recently bought and are soo excited about! We pretty much missed Kinsley's 10th month of life because our old camera has been broken, so we are trying to make up for it. :) Oh, and we are dog sitting for my parents, in case you're wandering... we did not get a dog!

Project: Simplify

Our family has been a bit out of the loop the last few months... So, first I'd like to acknowledge how sad it is that this is my first post in almost three months and that it's not even about our family.. well, not completely, but it kind of is. For a while now, too long of a while, Rob and I have talked about how we wish we were so much more simple.. how we could make our lives just simple and not have so much "stuff". We are soo tired of all the "stuff" we have. Well, I found this blog not long ago and it has started giving me some direction in how to make our lives more simple, one step at a time. So, I decided to join Simple Mom in Project Simplify. It lasts for five weeks and each Monday she reveals a hot spot in your home to clean and organize and you have until that Friday to get it done and then reveal how it went and post before and after pictures. The first hot spot is your wardrobe. Being the procrastinator that I am, however, I did wait until Thursday to start. I actually was able to finish on Friday morning... but, I spent the rest of the day getting our house ready for my parents to come for the weekend.. so, here I am, Saturday night, finally revealing the outcome of my closet. It really felt soo good to do this and I am pretty proud of myself that I got rid of about half of all my clothes! I only did my half of the closet, so we still have to work on Rob's. I told Rob that at the end of the five weeks if his side isn't straightened up by then, I will do it. I think that actually made him nervous though, so I have a feeling it will be done. :) Ok, so here are my before and afters (not including my drawers, because all the drawer pictures together made me dizzy so I just included my closet).

My get rid of pile!

And here is a totally random picture that just makes us laugh. Kinsley, hanging with the bats at the zoo...