New Year's Resolution: ORGANIZATION!

This year, I'm really going to have a place for everything, and have everything in its place. We were all playing together, and I was explaining to the kids what resolutions are, and how you RESOLVE to do something, and I said our resolution was going to be to put everything away in its place before we start a new project/toy/contraption/etc. They all nodded, nodded, and then Mr. H. said, "that is GREAT mom.... but that isn't MY resolution!"

It IS going to be our goal, though. I started with our art supplies. We spend a lot of time with these supplies, and I had them all scattered around, and with two main plastic tubs that were overflowing. Every time someone asked me for tape, or glue, or scissors, I had to go digging through these little bins knocking paints on the floor, and finding markers with no caps.

Now I have

• all of the paints in one basket with the paint brushes in a Ziploc bag tucked in.
• All of the markers and crayons in one basket - separated with Ziplocs.
• all of the glue, scissors, and tape in one basket
• a basket of unfinished projects - right now they are decoupage creations that are all painted but not yet decoupaged.
• all of the misc. stickers and adornments in one basket.

Then I cleaned out the closet in our office/kids STUFF room (which was overflowing with stashed items from having friends over) and put the baskets inside.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE! Now the kids can reach what they are looking for, and it will be much easier to put things away because they can just drop them in. I've finished the rest of the closet since I took this picture, and now the games are organized, the playdough is organized (yikes), and all of the "projects" they got for Christmas are on the top shelf ready for the "what should we do today?" that is SO hard in this water locked season of ours.

I feel like I can breeeeaaaath. aaaaahhhhh.