Do You Wanna Be a ...?

Dress up area

Fairy? Princess? Fireman? Birthday tiger?

As I constantly said this spring, the great spring cleaning/house clean out was not simply "nesting." While on my maternity leave, I continued my pursuit of decluttering the house. We finished the upstairs with Mike putting in two closet systems before he went back to work. The one in his closet enabled us to get rid of his dresser and the one in the kids' room allowed me to get three kids in one closet. It is a thing of organizational beauty!! I'm ridiculously proud of it ... and you'll likely be forced to admire it if you come by to visit.

My cousin Lori made them tutus
Super cute - and twirly

Then I moved downstairs. Mike also built some additional shelving for our storage room while he was on leave. And thanks to Declan's awesome napping, I reorganized the whole room. And then turned my attention to the toy room. They are kind of a package deal as toys go in and out and rotate and reappear ... and there was just not enough order. While doing this, I realized how much dress up stuff the girls had, but how they didn't really play with it much. Because it was spread all over the place. So I created a dress up nook in the play room. Mike built them a hat rack with the scrap lumber he took out of the closets. And our neighbor brought over a couple of the cutest wood shelves that she didn't want anymore. The area is a hit and they love that all the stuff is in one spot. Cleanup is also so much easier!

Now that I'm back to work, my cleaning is going slower. But I am closing in on it! And it feels awesome to purge some of the extra to make room for us and find better places for the stuff we do use.