Sorting through the clutter

One thing that I really hate is clutter. There always is clutter though. It follows you. We used to have a phone desk that was piled high with mail, coupons and things the kids had brought home from Sunday school and bits and pieces of everything that you just couldn't throw away. Or it needed sorting before it could move off the desk. Now, in this new house, we no longer have a phone desk, but we have shelves. I still have the box of things that I had moved off the phone desk, sitting in our office unsorted, and now I have 3 shelves to add to the mess of paperwork that needs sorting and dealing with. It never ends. I have managed to put one folder together of Rileys' school papers, so that I don't lose track of when library and pizza day is. I also get boat loads of his precious homework that I throw in there and eventually decide which ones will be scrapbook worthy and which ones will head to the dump. Besides the paperwork piles...there are the TOYS... my goodness, the TOYS. We have 3 kids now, and every birthday and Christmas and trip to McD's brings on another toy that gets thrown in the bin. I have given away at least 5 boxes of toys already (from moving), but I could give away about 5 more. I find that the more toys they have, the less they play with them. And/or, the less organized they are...so they can't really find them, the less they will use them. When life is busy, (and with three kids, my goodness it is!), you don't want to spend a whole lot of extra time looking for that certain lego piece or the car with the yellow numbers on it that Liam MUST have in order to sleep. So with that in mind, I picked our top favorite toys and got Greg to buy a Trofast Ikea shelf for them. See here...

I even went so far as to put labels on the bins, so that friends will know what is what and can totally help with clean-up. It is working out SWEET! It is great to be able to completely pull out the bin and play with the toys or take it elsewhere (to their room during quiet time) and then put it away. I can't believe how much Riley enjoys having a place to put his stuff and maybe it is due to it being a novelty, but he will put everything in its place when he's done playing and smiles about it. These are the only toys we keep in our family room, and the rest is piled high in deep toy boxes in the basement and rarely looked at. I have a bookshelf close to this shelf for all the puzzles and games which has been handy. Liam is finally at an age where you can pull out a game and he won't completely destroy it. Today I taught the boys Old Maid. Quite funny. Liam still doesn't quite get how to hold cards and keep the nasty maid a secret, but he's catching on.
The only other really organized trick I have is one of those roll out 5 drawer shelves (from Canadian Tire) for all their crafts. One drawer has pens/crayons, another paper, another playdo, another coloring books etc. and since it is on wheels, the boys can roll it from the front hall closet to the table when they are feeling crafty. Works well.
Anyway, it's always a bunch of work to keep things sorted, but dang it helps to be organized.