My Sister-in-law is a Genius

Benjamin Franklin once said, "A place for everything, everything in its place." I LOVE order and organization. I get excited every time I walk down the storage aisle at WalMart. When I go to the Container Store, I feel like a kid in a candy shop. (If it wasn't so pricey, I would be their number one customer.) I probably should have bought stock in Sterilite a long time ago because I own enough plastic storage containers to keep the company in business. As you can imagine, with seven kids, my house is definitely not as organized as I want it to be. I am always on the lookout for new and better ways of keeping things organized and for helping my kids to stay organized.

Getting my kids to keep their drawers organized has always been a constant struggle. Every laundry day, I would help them put their clothes away in neat stacks, but within a few days, they would be back to looking like a tornado had passed through. The problem was that they would decide they wanted to wear a shirt or pair of pants that was in the middle of the stack, but pulling it out would mess up the rest of the clothes.

I tried several things, but nothing was working. Then, on my mom's last visit, she told me about something that my brother's wife, Stephanie, does with her kids drawers. Instead of putting the clothes into the drawers in stacks, she turns the folded clothes so they go into the drawer sideways. This way, all of the clothes in the drawer can easily been seen and taking one item out does not mess up all the others. It is BRILLIANT! I have been using this system now for about three months and I love it!

Kaiya's shirt drawer. I fold the shirts into thirds so that they fit vertically in the drawer.

Riley's shorts and jammie drawer. Riley's drawers are not as deep as Kaiya's so I have to fold his shorts into thirds and shirts into fourths so that they fit.

Kaiya's pants drawer. Instead of folding the pants small, I fold them in half and lay them sideways.

Riley with his shirt drawer. Riley got the organizing gene from me, so he is very happy with the new system.

Kaiya did not get the organizing gene, but she is happy that I no longer have to get upset about her drawers!!

THANK YOU STEPHANIE!!!

On a somewhat unrelated note, I was "organizing" my pictures the other day and realized that there were a few good ones taken over the last few months that I never got around to posting, so I thought I would tack them on the end of this post:

Kyndall, Ryder, Kassidy, Rustin and Kaydence. It is soooo difficult to get a decent picture with all five babies. Riley helped me out on this one by acting goofy and pretending to trip, which the babies all thought was hilarious.

My mom and dad (aka "Mimi" and "Papa") were in town for Memorial Day weekend. The babies were not quite as cooperative on this picture---in fact, I think we had to resort to turning on Sesame Street just to get them to stay on the couch (hence the trance-like expressions on their faces!)

Rustin, Kassidy, Kaydence, Ryder and Kyndall at our Memorial Day cook-out.

Kaiya's Kindergarten graduation.

Ryder, Kaydence, Kassidy, Kyndall and Rustin with Kaiya. I think the babies were more interested in the balloons than they were with getting their picture taken.

My sister, Tiare came to help for about 11 days in June. One of our favorite hang-outs is Costco! (from left to right: Kaiya, Kaydence, Kyndall, Kassidy, Riley, Tiare, Rustin and Ryder)

Riley and Kaiya both participated in swim team this summer and really made some big improvements during the season. Riley came in 8th place in breaststroke at the divisional meet, which was a big accomplishment for him.

At the end of June, Kaiya had her first dance recital. We might be a little biased, but we think she stole the show!

My Sister-in-law is a Genius