Cleaning House!

I told you that I wanted to downsize our belongings, and that's just what I've been doing this week. I love cleaning out and organizing! I'm such a wierdo, huh? My mom says that I used to organize my underwear drawer for fun. I am not kidding. I'm sure they were Minnie Mouse panties.

Geez, I'm getting sidetracked.

So far this week, I've cleaned out the toy boxes, Korban's clothes, and Izzy's clothes. I really thought that it would take a lot longer because I didn't think that I could get much done with the kiddoes around, but it actually works really well. We all camp out in the living room together while I sort and the kids play. Izzy has had fun finding clothes she forgot she had. (See "ballerina" to the right.)

I think that I have literally gotten rid of half of the kids' toys and clothes this week, and the funny thing is, I feel like I've gone on a shopping spree because we've discovered plenty of things that haven't been used in a while because they were hidden under other stuff. In addition, with it all organized nicely, I'm not going to be grabbing the first outfit that sort of matches because I don't have time to dig through the drawer for something else.

So, there you go, get rid of stuff and it feels like getting new stuff. Kind of counterintuitive, no? Inexpensive, too.

So, how did I decide what to keep and what to toss?

Well, with the toys, I just tried to only keep what we loved and had all the parts for.

As for the clothes, I took it one kid at a time - Korban's clothes on Tuesday, and Izzy's clothes today.

First of all, anything that was stained or didn't fit got tossed. I keep one box (about the size of a diaper box) of my favorite, good condition outgrown clothes for each size (to hand down to future kids) and another box of too big clothes for the future.

Then, I sorted every thing by season. Summer and winter.

Next, I sorted those piles by occasion and whittled it down to what I think is a decent amount -

• "Church" clothes - 4 outfits
• "Outing" clothes - 7 outfits
• "Play" clothes - 7 outfits
• Pajamas - 4 sets (pairs? What do you call it when its pajamas? What if it's just one piece?)
• Jackets, sweaters, etc - one for each occasion (really cold, coolish weather, dressy, casual)
• Socks - haven't gotten to that yet, but I'm thinking we're going to switch to 7 pairs of white, plus 2 pair of stocking to go with Izzy's church dresses
• Also, we have a couple of miscellaneous items like hats and bloomers, but only a few.
• Oh yes, and underwear. 14 pair, since she's new to this whole potty thing, we need a few extra around.

Notice that shoes are not on this list. Korban doesn't have any need for shoes, as he can't walk yet. I don't see the point in shoes for a baby, not in this warm climate anyway. (I guess if you live somewhere cold, you'll need to add cold weather gear like gloves and scarves and whatnot.) Izzy, on the other hand, has a serious thing for shoes. When I'm getting ready to go somewhere and she's being needy, I just pull down her massive bag of shoes and let her try them all on. It works every time. So, I may not be getting rid of all of her shoes, but I am going to get an over the door hanger to keep them in. I also need to make sure she has some basic ones, something like -

• Shoes - 1 dressy black pair and 1 dressy  white pair. Also, a casual brown pair and a casual black pair.

Izzy's side of the closet



Korban's side (notice the cute tiger costume. Aww!)

I did find that Izzy is a little low on dress clothes, and Korban needs some warm onesies, but other than that, I think we're set.

I know that this isn't really a "minimalist" wardrobe, like the one they have on the blog I mentioned on Monday. They only keep 33 items of clothing per person! This is a step for us, though!

I'm starting to wonder, is there really any point in saving the kids too-small clothes, other than for sentimental value? My kids are still small, and I have a boy and a girl, so we haven't needed them yet. Any of you readers have experience here? We get a lot of hand-me-downs, and we buy everything else second hand, so it's not like our clothes are expensive, anyway, aside from the gifts the kids get sometimes.