Spring Cleaning

We had such a great weekend.  It was so lovely and I'm not really sure why I have this feeling about it as we didn't do anything super exciting.  But even Dan remarked "what a great weekend."  And so I wanted to record all the little details.  I think though, it might have had something to do with the sunshine that we've been desperate (desperate) for, for so long.  It was SO wonderful.  I even felt happy as I was standing in flip flops filling up the van for nearly $4.00 a gallon.  Just to be outside and feel the dry warmth...it felt so good.

When we saw sun in the forecast Dan and I decided we'd tackle the garage.  The winter has been unkind to our garage. It grew to be dirty, messy and got to the point that I was more than a little embarassed when our garage door would go up. I mean really, who lives like this? Um, apparently, us.
I like things clean.  And tidy.  But that doesn't mean that I get to live in a clean and tidy house.  I have 3 little people who see to the alternative.  And life is busy.  And I want to do fun things with my family.  So there are times when things slide until I just can't take it anymore.  The garage was pushing my limit (Dan's too) and so this was the weekend.  We worked, the kids played, it was great.  There was other fun to be had as well.

And because I love "before" and "after" shots...

Here's "Before."



Drumroll please...



After!
 

There are empty shelves that won't be as empty after my next trip to Costco. :)

Here's some of the Middle....
 

We stacked everything on the driveway and it looked like the world's most unorganized garage sale.
We pulled out shelves and cleaned behind them.   It felt so good to sweep the floor.  We scrubbed the worst parts, and I'd have loved to scrub the whole thing, but Dan wasn't feeling it like I was.  :)

While we were cleaning the kids were riding scooters, bikes, pulling each other in the wagon and my favorite, above, being "slow people." Holding flags to encourage the cars to slow down. :)

They said, "People keep waving at us!"  :)

They did fossil digs and then made things from the chunks of clay they dug the fossils out from.   They had pool noodle fights, cried about bees, played on the swingset, threw balls, golfed...it was great.
Here's another "in the middle" shot. I think a lot of people drove by and were happy they weren't us. I was a happy camper though. This is my idea of fun. Here's some more Before & After...

Before...



After...



Before....



After

 

We didn't go through tubs and bins like we would have liked to but that will be another day.  We both felt really good about the progress we made.

We got cleaned up and Dan headed out with Matthew to meet Mike & Isaiah for a Portland Timber (professional soccer) game! They were kind enough to let us benefit from their season tickets and they even brought scarves and a jersey for Matthew to wear so everyone felt like a real fan. :) (Michelle, if you're reading this, we have the jersey still! We'll get it back to you soon.)


I asked Dan to please take photos with Mike's iphone and the guys promptly sent these off and made me so happy. :) They did a great job!

 

I love this photos.  Apparently there's lots of scarf waving and chanting and singing.  Matthew's favorite part was singing "You are my sunshine" at the 80th minute.  They also sing "walking in a Timber's wonderland."  Dan said the game was so much fun ~ they both so enjoyed it.

Meanwhile, Matthew, Andrew and I have been reading the first Harry Potter book.  I love this series.  I think the first few are ok for the Matthew & Andrew but they get a little dark after that, so we'll wait to complete the series, but we just finished the first book so I told them we'd watch the movie together.  The opportunity for the Timbers game popped up for Matthew so Andrew and I went ahead and watched the movie together and then watched it again with Matthew on Sunday.  Andrew was so cute and SO excited during the movie.  It was really fun to watch together and talk about the book and the similarities and differences.  I actually think the movie would have been too scary for Andrew had we not read the book together so that he knew what would happen and understood the characters.


So excited! :)   Matthew & Dan didn't get home until after 10:30 (Andrew & I didn't go to bed until later either because we started the movie after I put Katie down) so I didn't set the alarm for church and let the boys have a lazy morning while Dan took Kaitlin to church (the to doughnuts..which Kaitlin said was "a special, special time.") :)  Matthew, Andrew & I watched the movie in our PJs and then got ready to go to work in the garage.

And the second day brought even warmer temperatures and so there was even more fun!

First popscicles of the season!




Playing in the sprinkler!

 

The Bug mostly ran and squealed.

 

 I loved that they were outside in the sunshine!! We ate dinner outside and it was SO nice to fire up the grill and enjoy the weather. I don't think I've ever appreciated sunshine more in my life.

After dinner I had to run to the grocery store and Kaitlin asked to go so I put her in the van in her swimsuit and headed out.  As we were driving she was saying what a fun day it had been and then said, "mamas are always busy."  I hate when the kids say things like that, it immediately floods me with guilt and then I talk myself through the fact and reality that life with 3 kids IS busy.  And especially for Kaitlin being the youngest...life wasn't as busy for Matthew and Andrew at that age because we were able to be home more.  Our school schedule alone keeps us hopping.  And then a few minutes later she saw dandelions and asked to stop and pick them.  And I said, no, we had to get to the grocery store.  And then right before we turned in to fill up the van with gas she saw more dandelions and asked to pick them.  I said no again, and then thought, Why not?  I mean, really, why not?  So I filled up the van, drove across from where the dandelions were and walked her across the street.



And then she put her hands to her cheeks and said, "Oh my goodness, it's the land of flowers."

It was an undeveloped area full of weeds.

But to Kaitlin it was  beautiful

She picked her bouquet and then I suggested that she make a wish and blow the fluffy one before we took it in the car.
Which she did.
And then she plucked the remaining seeds from the flower and in her very  endearing dramatic way
she gently threw them in the air...

And said, "Go...be with your friends."
I'm telling you, this girl is so funny.

She is completely sappy like me and I love it.

It was a simple, wonderful weekend. 

Fish, Doughnuts & Organizing

Dan took the boys fishing today. They woke up at 5:15 and headed out. The boys were SO excited that they were immediately up and out of bed, ready to go!

They caught FIFTEEN fish! A landlocked sockeye salmon species (that I don't know how the spell the name). The kids had a great time but were not totally thrilled that the fish had to die as part of the deal.



This little love fell asleep on the way home...



And then took a two hour nap!

And what did the girls do while the boys went fishing?



We started here.











Katie enjoyed the doughnut.

Mommy enjoyed taking pictures.



We went to pick up a few things for my brother's birthday dinner and donated to the Veteran's for Memorial Day and got our poppy. I love the the ladies who do the poppies.



Just a little bit of real life.

The afternoon brought naps, Little League pictures for Matthew, baking for Mama, and then a fun small group gathering at the park for the family.  A busy weekend!

And just a quick organizing update.

(For my one friend that I know is loving this).  :)

I finished the Master bathroom!





I took a photo of Dan's cologne...just remembering Dad's "Old Spice." How many of our Dads wore "Old Spice?" :) I'll bet just reading those words made a whole lot of people smile. :)



A photo of my bridal bouquet hangs in our bathroom...Anna roses, peonies and lily of the valley.



I was giving Dan a tour of the bathroom and pointed out the container in the center of the photo holding our deoderant. I told him that I "re-purposed" a baby bottle washing container...he smiled and then rolled his eyes at my organizing lingo.

Well, I did.

:)

The Great House Clean out is taking a long time.  I've cleaned 8 bags out of our closet/bathroom so far!  I've started our bedroom but am breaking to work on birthday celebrations.  Then I'll be starting back up again.  I'm determined to make it through the whole house.  Our bedroom is next!

Have a great weekend!

Nesting

I am SO excited.
Recently I discovered this blog.  I love it.  Love, love, love it.  I have been reading past posts with little bits of time that I have here and there and annoying friends by emailing links to ideas that I think are great.  I'm one of those people who love to organize things.  It's like therapy for me, truly.  I struggle (a lot) when my environment is cluttered and messy.  I can't think clearly and I feel stressed.  When things are organized I feel like I can think more clearly.

There are times in life when it's easy for clutter to build up.  When there's a baby in the house...and just the process of having children who are continually growing out of clothes and changing developmentally to require different toys/books/stimulation.  Our house hit an all time low after my Dad passed away.  The nine months prior we spent so much time travelling to and from Richland to help with Dad, and with the demands of an infant, 2 and 4/5 yr old and recovering from back surgery/being physically limited...then grieving the loss of my Dad and just not feeling motivated or able to think clearly...things really piled up.  Please don't read that in a whining or complaining way, I don't feel that way at all.  These are just the circumstances of our life.  Once things started to settle down I tried to get on top of things and made some progress, but honestly for a long time, (until recently, really) I still wasn't able to think as clearly and make decisions about things as easily and it was difficult.  But I'm doing better now, our family has grown and transitioned out of the "baby" stage and their needs are changing ~ requiring different/less "stuff."  Add in my desire to pare down and simplify, and it's just the perfect time to tackle this task.  The blog I found is adding lots of inspiration and ideas, so I'm really excited about this.

I really want less STUFF.  I want our house to be organized so that we spend less time dealing with our possessions and more time making memories and living.  So I'm going through the whole house.

Every room.
Every closet.
Every drawer.
From top to bottom.
And I'm trying to be pretty strict with myself about what I keep.  Really asking myself do I need that many?...do I use that?  Do I love it?
Cleaning, getting rid of things (hopefully a LOT of things), and organizing what is left. And nesting in the sense that I'm making our home ready for the next phase of life.

It's going to take a while  (We STILL have some baby things lingering around!)  And I'll probably have to start pacing myself a bit, because life does continue to go on despite my agenda.  But I'm committed to really focusing on this because I just want it DONE.

And I've already finished the boys room.

I'm keeping 2 lists in my planner as I go from room to room. "Projects to complete" and "Items to purchase." So we can do/purchase as time/budget allows.

Dan commented the other day, "I haven't seen you this excited about anything for a long time."  He said he could see my old self again.  And that it was nice.

It feels nice.

It's been a long, painful road.

And I don't mean to sound melodramatic, but as I cleaned out the boys room, I just felt like I was reclaiming my life again.

It felt so good.

I took scads of photos, because I wanted to share some of the ideas of how I organized things in case it helps inspire someone else with an idea that might help them.  But also, I thought it would be really fun to have this documented for the boys.  This is their little space in the world, and some day it will be nice for them to look back and remember.  So, here we go!  And be forewarned, this could be one of my longest posts ever ~ and that's saying something!  :)



Here is the boys' room!  Matthew is at the age where he needs the ability to make a space "his."  So we've compromised with being able to hang his artwork/posters within the confines of his bed.  And the back of the door....







Matthew's artwork, and books that he loves/are special to him.



Andrew's area.  We colored the droid picture together.  He pulled his bookshelf off the wall when he was 3 so he doesn't have one.  But I added it to the "project" list for the room.  I think he can handle it now. :)



The top of the dresser holds Matthew's very special "Polar Express" snow globe ~ ALL of the kids LOVE this.  His piggy bank, and the blue piggy bank that he picked out when he was 2 at the hospital with Grammie to give to Andrew when he was born.



I just love this sign.







I just love these two photos.   The photo of the boys is one of my favorites.  Does it get any sweeter?



I finished this little project when I cleaned out the room.  I used up some ribbon I had on hand and hung these up (one was already up but I needed to add Andrew's).  They were made at pre-school.  I'm a sucker for anything with a handprint.



The kids have a lot of books.  We read a lot.  And I actually got rid of 22!  I went through them twice to see if I could pare down more, but would you believe we really read these?  Or they are special ones that I want to save.  Matthew was quite emotional about getting rid of the ones that we did.  I was really proud of him.  It isn't easy to part with things sometimes.  We still have a pile to the right that won't fit (too tall) that I need to find a container for.

I was able to clean out and reorganize things enough that the bottom two drawers of this bookshelf have become a space for each of the boys to put their "special things."  They had cardboard boxes that they had drawn on to contain their things that were making me a little crazy.  Now they have their own space that is theirs and is to be respected by the other brother.  Those would be stickers on the drawer on the left.  Forgot to get those last 2.  Someone had done some decorating. :)



The flag is Dan's step-Grandfather's casket flag.  He was very close to him.



Some artwork that I had Matthew draw when this became his room.



I took photos of some of the things that were in the boys' "special" boxes so they could see what was important to them at the age of 5 and 7.  These are Andrew's treasures.  A car, some mario cards, a silly band, a marble, some random lego pieces, a "jewel", a penny, a toy bug, some shamrocks from St. Patrick's Day, his "greenie" (mushroom) and a rubber toy.



Matthew's treasures:  a pokemon card, silly bandz, a "$50" eraser that he bought at the book fair, some shamrocks, a finge rpuppet that he got for a reading achievement at school, a red balloon (his fav color) some mario tatoos, a rock, some mini figures, a walkie talkie, and silly puddy.



and a note that Daddy left in his desk at school during conferences.



Matthew's special drawer. And a drawing that he did....



I came across a lot of precious things while cleaning out the room.  Just can't part with these sweet things...





These were the ties that the boys wore to the reception after my Dad's memorial service.  With a lump in my throat, I put them in the "donate" pile.  I usually hand down a lot of their clothes, but it would make me too sad to see them on anyone.  They don't make me happy.  They don't bring back a happy memory.  But I think I held on to them because somehow they made me feel closer to my Dad...I'm ready to let go.  They aren't my Dad's memory.



However, when I came to this part of the closet there were plenty of happy memories.  Andrew loved looking at his scrapbook and marveling at how cute he was. :)  Katie asked for "her book"....it's in process.  (Lots of guilt here).





Such sweet memories.





I kept copious notes throughout the boys' pregnancies.  I did okay with Katie's but again, not as much.  Life was much busier.





Sigh.   Andrew was the sweetest, yummiest baby.  He was so snuggly and had so many delicious rolls.  I could just eat him up.



This is the "before" of one of the shelves.  Matthew kept adding things and it was becoming quite the mess.



Here is the "after."  More handprints, and a painting from Dan's childhood that he was happy to see displayed. 



These are Matthew's treasures.  I am not crazy about this shelf.  But he is so proud of his trophies, and we can't forget that ever important "Participant" ribbon!  :) :)  He taped it to the wall himself.  Andrew can't wait for the day when he earns a trophy too.  We are having Matthew's birthday at the bowling alley again this year.  Which means another bowling pin.  I see some negotiations in my future....



So here's the closet.  Andrew is on the top, Matthew is on the bottom.  I'm a visual person and so I prefer to have their clothes hanging/visible.  The closet is a little more full than I'd like right now because both of the boys are transitioning sizes so they each have two sizes of clothes still in their closet.  The basket on the bottom of their closet holds their "current sport" sports gear.  So we don't have to go scrambling for it anymore.  We almost didn't make it to Tae Kwon Do this week because we couldn't find Andrew's belt! Not anymore....



Matthew's Little League uniform is underneath as well, down to the socks.



I "shopped my house" and moved the cubes from the guest room closet to the boys' closet and put their shorts in them.  Their swim trunks are in the basket on top and their socks are all in the red bin.  They wear the same size now, so that's easy!  Their hoodies and jackets hang above, and I found this neat little thing...



...at the Container store to help divide the rod and make it easier to quickly know where the division is and hang their clean clothes up.  But my favorite thing was this.  Their closet is shaped wierd (all of our bedrooms have weird closets.  Theirs is actually the most normal).  The side is angled and so it wastes some space.  I found this handbag holder at Target....



And it fit perfectly into that angled space!  I'm starting to put their clothes in it starting on Sunday night for the week.  It only has 4 slots on each side, so it'll hold Mon-Thursday for each of the boys, which is fine because it's smooth sailing come Friday anyway!  Matthew loves this, and we'll just look at the weather report on Sunday and do this together.  I'm very excited about this new little addition.  Anything to help school day mornings go smoothly is a winner for me.





And hanging behind that on the wall is another memory...



One of these announced the birth for each of the boys in our front yard (Sadly, they went out of business when Katie arrived).  Matthew's is hanging behind Andrew's.  They used to hang in their nursery.

And that concludes the tour of the boys room.

I'm working on Kaitlin's room right now.  I'm about half way done with her closet!  But I think I'll have to take a slight break after that and focus on Matthew's birthday, and then back to the house.  I have some big areas that need to be done that I can't wait to get to.  I'm so looking forward to having our house running more smoothly.  I feel like by getting rid of "stuff" I'm making room for other things in my life.

I'm really excited about this project and I'll be posting about it as I go.  (Although not in such detail for each room...this room just holds a lot of sentiment for me that I wanted to capture).