A woman's work is never done.

 Boy, is that especially true for a mother!  I have spent all of my time off since getting back from our Christmas trip gutting this house and reorganizing it.  I have thrown away 3 full black trash bags filled to the brim just from going through the kids' bedrooms and the finished part of the basement.  I over-filled three big boxes of toys and other things to give away.  The result is a much cleaner feel to the house, but I still feel like I can't find a good place for everything and certainly can't keep everything in it's place even if there is a place for it.  Drew is like a little tornado that follows me around, undoing all my hard work.

I cleared out corners and made room for their new doll bunk beds.

I moved the square shelves with canvas boxes over here.

The girls were a big help, Hannah being an exceptional and willing helper.  I moved most of the "rowdy" toys to the basement so that when friends come over they can play loudly and not wake the baby or the two year old napping.  We kept running into the issue of the little boys napping while we had kids wanting to play with all the toys that are in those rooms.  A month and a half ago, I moved the kids' desks up to the kitchen, and I took the little table (we outgrew) to the basement for a game table.  This has been working pretty well.  I still have the major stuff for school in the basement closet, but things we use everyday are on the top of the computer desk and under the kids' desks.  Now I feel like kids can play down in the basement without worrying about the school stuff getting messed up.  

The boys room has books, and one shelf of toys for Drew's room time play.  I put the trains away and am hoping that they will want to play with them again one day OR, even better, that Judah will be a train guy.  Thomas trains are expensive!  I just can't get rid of those yet.

This bookshelf won't last long organized like this, but I had to go through the books to remove the books that had migrated from the other rooms.  I considered color coding the spines with pieces of colored duct tape, but decided it just wasn't worth it.

Our neighbor gave us this Ikea organizer and I just bought the inserts for it from Ikea.  So far it keeps the living room much cleaner.

I even went through the pantries and every cabinet and drawer in the kitchen.  I still have some labeling and final details to take care of and the monster of the unfinished part of the basement to tackle, but I almost got it all done in time to start back at school  this week.  Like I said, my work is never done.  If it was, I might actually get to sit back and relax or something.