A calming mess

Usually, on any given day, I am running around the house cleaning up after my children all day long. I can not stand to live in a home with dishes piled high, toys flung here and there and everywhere, and tiny pieces of food all over the floor that we step in. I am accustomed to wearing no shoes in the house, for it is the custom here in Hawaii, and in Japan where I grew up. I actually find it a little odd when people do wear their shoes in the home because of this. So as you can imagine, I tend to feel every single morsel that is left by the babies and the dog, (and Chase since he still wears his shoes in the house) and it irritates me to no end. We do have a lot of "stuff", so it takes a lot of work to keep our home looking presentable and clean. I am fortunate enough to have a home where it seems like the layout of the house was built around the kitchen, making it a very open home. Usually, if the kitchen is clean, the whole down stairs looks clean.

One the other hand, the upstairs is always filled with some mess of sort. I have found a way to keep it (for the most part) clean and livable. I found that if I place a basket out side of each child's room (and ours), it is easy enough to walk by and just pick up the personal belongings and throw them in their personal basket (socks, pants, books, toys,). When it is time to clean each room, the basket gets emptied and everything ends up going in to their proper place. Because we no longer have a gate at the bottom of the stairs, the babies have found a new love for playing upstairs and completely destroying everything in their path. Because of this, we lock the bathroom, and all bedroom doors except for theirs.

With a one, two and seven year old (plus all Jordan's friends), you can imagine the intensity of the mess that they produce in such a short time. When the house is clean (for the most part), I do love seeing some of my children's tiny messes. These messes, I call a "calming mess". They are the simple and sweet messes that are left behind, and bring a huge smile to my face every time I see them, and carry no desire to clean them up.

(Williams baby)

(Jordan studying hard)

(Charlottes parade of people)

A few of our Organizational Techniques

We have cleaned out the play room and made it into a study. We moved all the children's toys into the living room because it is the most frequented room in the house besides the kitchen. This way, all the toys are more likely to be kept in a clean and orderly fashion. 
Ahh!!! What can I say about SPACEBAGS? They are the best thing, especially when you have a home that allows little to no storage area. We don't even have a linen closet in our home, and the small closet we have upstairs is built in such a backwards way to where the door opens into the closet space instead of out allowing almost no room for actual storage. These space bags have been a miracle in our organizing venture. 
Again, with no storage space in the home, we have to come up with ways to keep things organized in a clean fashion. Here, we used hat boxes on the top of our kitchen ledge to organize things like electrical cords, art supplies, home fixtures, and some others. We have a designated spot now for each (type of ) thing in the home. It is nice to know where everything is.

All the artwork, letters, and pictures we love have been gathered here on to one cork board to hang in our dining room/kitchen area. We may have to move it to the study before to long. I love displaying my kids art work, and lovely cards that we receive from friends and family. Such lovely work should not go to waste hidden in a folder or drawer of some sort. 
We took one of our decorative boxes and crammed it with all our stationary needs right on the kitchen counter. We are always doing up some sort of note for birthdays, holidays, or what have you. We decided it had to be where it was most convenient for us. 
We love to save our glass jars from various types of food. We wash them, peel the labels off and use them for all sorts of things.  When we move to our new home, I want to make a ledge above my kitchen for my glass jars. I want to store all my different pastas, rices, dry soups.... you name it, I want it stored in plain sight and easy access with my glass jars. 

We even found uses for the odds and ends in our home for organization. We took a file holder for a desk, and used it in our kitchen to hold all our frequently used cook books. We have two in our kitchen and we have loved them very much so far.