Shoe Madness

Do you have this problem?

With four kids and three of them girls we have A LOT of shoes to sort through at our house.  My kids are pretty good about taking their shoes off in the garage and putting them in the shoe bin before going inside, but when it comes to finding them it's a different story.

 

The boy has the least amount of shoes and the hardest time keeping up with his.  Of course that may or may not have something to do with the fact that he takes them off in the car, in the yard, on the roof.  Who knows what he does with them all I know is that we can never find them. I tend to be an procrastinator so when I'm running late I need things to be where they are suppose to be.

Here's my solution.  Cheap and easy, I loves cheap and easy.

Take four boxes, any box will do.  I have a lot of these lying around.  Emmy and Ally get larger boxes than the boy and Parker.  They have more shoes.

Cut the flaps off the boxes.

Then take some duck tape.  We have a lot of that at our house.  My husband is not a handy man and so this is how I do a lot of my repairs.

I love all the new colors of duck tape now.  So much better than grey.  Start wrapping the boxes to give them support.  This is a little time consuming, especially when you're doing four, but it's simple enough.

 I just wrapped the sides and bottom. I didn't bother with the inside of the boxes, but you could if you wanted.  In hind sight I probably should have since my dryer is vented into the garage and it tends to get humid in there when I'm drying clothes. 

I did all four boxes in a different color and then added numbers to help the kids keep their boxes straight.

This one is Parker's because she is the fourth little one.

 And wahhlahh.  It has made the biggest difference. We've been using this system for about two months and I can't believe it took me Emmy so long to come up with this idea. 

 

Pantry Makeover

So I finally got my pantries organized this week with the help of my sweet little girl. She took everything out of pantries and organized them into piles and I put them back in. I can't believe how much better I feel just walking into my kitchen. That day after we were done I just kept opening the pantry doors and looking at all that organization. Now I can actually find stuff! Imagine that.

Are you wondering why I have four jars of opened peanut butter, so am I.

I even managed to find room for all the canned vegetables that my parents brought up for me this week. It doesn't get any better than that. Especially since I didn't have to grow it, pick it, clean it, or can it.....Oh my, I'm starting to think I might be a little spoiled.

My smaller pantry is really deep and dark so I made cards with what was on each shelf. I even wrote in pencil so I can erase when I take something out.

Lovely isn't it. Now if I can just find the strength to organize that monster of a laundry room and my upstairs playroom closet. Scares me to even think about it.

My Domestic Nightmare

This is my domestic nightmare. I ususally have an organized house. I'm not OCD or anything, but my husband and I both are pretty good about putting things where they belong and teaching our four kids to do the same.  Having said that, I can not seem to tame the clutter of my pantries. I have two in my kitchen, one large walk-in in my garage (it's very organized) but neither one in the house is organized. What can I do? I need some serious help.

All of my canned foods are behind those boxes and tupperware containers. Can you just imagine how fun it is to try and find something canned when I'm cooking?

This is a picture of the smaller pantry. It mainly holds extras. You know the 4 bottles of Miracle Whip I bought because they were on sale. We believe in stock piling food.

Anyone out there have any ideas to help me out. I'm telling you I need some.