Day - Get back on track!

My house was destroyed this weekend as 13 little, adorable, children ran through it for two days. I have only half-heartedly tried to get it back in shape, but today I did a good portion of it. I figured we would clean for 45 minutes and thats what we did. Amazing what a little family can accomplish in 45 minutes.

This was what my garage sale money went to

This is the new bin for my diapers. All of my diapers, minus the pile I'm giving away to friends, fit in here! I was surprised! Chris doesn't like the set up as much because he can't easily see what he wants - but I was tired of seeing the diapers spilling out all of the time. The little basket on top was given to me at Anastasia's baby shower! It holds the diaper accessories, such as snappi's, pins, diaper cream, and baby powder. I have to have everything in order. It took me a long time to figure out a way to make the colors work. There is a pattern there.

Here's Chris helping me set up for the yard sale

And my sunburned face. It got much worse after this picture was taken. My whole face blistered up. After a full day with neosporin on my face it is beginning to heal and most of the blisters popped.

MAJOR raccoon eyes! See how messy this room is? It needs a good cleaning. This room is the scariest of them all.

And this is the man who makes it all work in our house. We've been married 7 years now!

And just to show the rest of them off....

The Bear

Anastasia

Anthony

David

And.... Jovi!

Yard Sale

I know I've been slacking on posting. On Sunday, the day of the Yard Sale, I was dumb and forgetful and ended up with a wicked sunburn. The past few days have been spent feeling quite sick and trying to cool my skin. My face blistered all over, but its now beginning to heal a little bit. I'll have to post a picture of my skin soon!

The Yard Sale went well. I made about $100. I pretty much gave away a lot of things too. One lady forgot her money so I gave her a whole bin of girl clothes for free. Another couple had a baby 17 days prior. I think he was in the NICU. They wanted all three bins of boy clothes - about 6 bins worth because they were all overflowing. I told them $5. They were thrilled and that made my day more than making money. I know someone will get to wear the clothes that I have so many memories of. There was another lady whose daughter was the sweetest thing and she was very sweet too. She had just found out she was pregnant and was counting change to buy things. For about $3.50 they walked away with a bunch of baby stuff, the entire Rock Band set (game, 2 guitars, and the drumset plus 6 drumsticks - and not the cheap kind), and little house knick-knacks. Her daughter was so appreciative and stunned. Another pregnant lady bought my pack-n-play that came with all the accessories, two of my slings, and my body pillow for $20. I could have easily sold the slings online for at least $30 a piece but I'd rather make someones day than make money.

Some people took advantage of us, and they make me quite angry. I won't go into it - but they put a damper on an otherwise very nice day. What we didn't sell went to donation, and now I can get back to organizing!

Day 10 of 60/300

I think I'm getting sick. This is the worst time in the world to get sick. I've been having bouts of horrible nausea. I have to prep my house for a birthday party and get ready for a massive yard sale!

Today my friend Elaine came over to help me sort the kids clothes into bins for the yard sale. Four massive bins. I figure I'll sell them for .25 a piece or 10 pieces for $2. This is what my garage looks like as I prepare for the yard sale. This isn't all of what I'm selling. There is furniture and books still to be placed out in the garage.

Finally Open Door Mission got rid of our couches for us! W00t.. my garage is looking better, and after Sunday it will be down right clean!

These are the three bookshelves I've cleared and dusted - except for the tops which I'll do tomorrow. I still have one bookshelf to go and all the books to be returned to it.

And of course I feel down right gross.

Day 5 of 60/300 - a day of little productivity.

Do you ever have one of those days where you want to get into your car and drive as far away as possible? Today was one of those days. From the moment I woke up until 9 pm tonight the longest stretch of time I had today without one of the kids crying or whining about something was 3 minutes. I was watching the clock. Of course Chris was flying, so there wasn't any other adult to give me a break. This is just a glimpse of what life will be like this fall when Chris leaves.

Soooo... there wasn't a lot of progress made today. I did make the decision to hold a Yard Sale next weekend. I hate yard sales with a passion - so this is major for me. I figure if I sell even one item it's worth it though. Whatever doesn't sell will go straight to Goodwill. Two of my homeschool curriculum books sold on Ebay today too. I'm thinking its not cheating if I add that money into my $300 fund, right? I mean - I sold what I'm cleaning out, so it's like using a coupon! So thats an additional $71 minus shipping!

Here is what I accomplished today

I didn't want to throw away my babies first bathtubs - you know the one they bathe the baby in right after birth? I still have all four of my kids bathtubs. Some even have their name still taped on it, as the hospital I delivered my last three at makes a sign with their name on it for their bassinet, so we took the sign and taped it to the tub instead. They were holding some of the baby items that hadn't been placed in their baby boxes yet, but as we are turning the boxes into shadow boxes I needed to do something with the tubs. I'm not sure I like this idea, I hate clutter with a passion, but for now this works. If anyone has a better idea, let me know! I cleaned out my stockpile cabinet and they are now hiding out in these containers - including the tubs.

My stockpile is quite large - especially my body washes. I need to donate about 2/3rds of this to the food shelter. We go through a lot of body wash in this house, though, since all 6 of us use it.

More of my stockpile. I have about 30 bars of soap.

My bathroom is normally quite clean - it's the room I'm most anal about. However, at the moment it's catching part of the closet clean up and I'm currently purging a lot of stuff in the bathroom so it's quite messy right now.

The shoe organizer is a decent idea but it looks way too cluttered for me. I HATE clutter with a passion. So, the shoe organizer is getting sold in the yard sale. The three containers on the bottom shelf in the closet will hold the rest of our meds and such. Until I can think of a better solution. Tomorrow I'm going to Target to purchase a few shelves and some tumblers. One shelf will go in this room and inside the tumblers will go some knick knacks such as q-tips, nailclippers/tweezers, ect. If someone knows a nice way to organize the millions of headbands, pony tails, barrettes, ect please let me know! I'm at a loss!

My husband swears that he is going to help me out this weekend, so hopefully I'll be able to make a lot more progress!