Another “first day of school” has come and gone.  So hard for me to wrap my brain around my girls being in 3rd and 5th grade!  I taught 5th grade when we first moved to San Diego.  I had Ellie in the middle of my last year teaching and remember taking her to my classroom to meet my students.  Such a tiny newborn with all of those big 5th graders.  And now she is one of those big 5th graders.  I cried doing her hair the first day.  She was making me laugh – saying something funny – and it just struck me how grown up she looked and sounded.  I always think I’m going to be fine on the first day of school (especially since by the end of summer I am ready for them to go back!) but then the first day comes and I’m not fine.  I come home to a quiet house and tear up every year.

This little one was SO excited for preschool to start.  He was racing out the door so fast that I only had time to snap two pictures of him and this was the best of the two.  He’s at that fun age where you say “smile” and never know what you’re going to get.  :)  So glad he has one more year of preschool.  I’m going to be a hot mess next year when he starts Kindergarten!

I’m excited to share our new system for organizing outfits for school!  It’s pretty much the old system with a minor tweak.

There are six slots so there was room for Saturday.  I love this because my girls take gymnastics on Saturday mornings and now we have a place for their gymnastic clothes to call home.

I’ve been organizing.  I’ve been organizing SCHOOL SUPPLIES!  Probably one of my single most favorite things to do.  I’ve been in a mad dash before the kids start school to get my office/kids’ homework room/craft room/scrapbook room/blogging station in order.  Yes – I’m talking about one space. :)  I haven’t shared my office on the blog yet because it has been in such disarray since we moved in.  It really is the busiest room in our house and most of the day you can find me or one of the kids (or all four of us) in it making a great big mess.  But slowly I am making progress!  One cupboard at at time.

When you walk in my office and immediately look to the right there are some tall cabinets up against the wall.  After hours of purging, sorting, organizing, and labeling (my favorite part!) here is what the inside of these cabinets look like now…

I know it doesn’t look like much, but the top of this cupboard is what took me the longest.  This is everything from the two years we spent building our new house.  I had SO much stuff to go through and a lot of it I tossed (such a good feeling!), but these are the things I wanted to keep.  Like the binder on the far left that is labeled “new house plans and designs” with all of our cabinet/built-in/room layouts and all of our design sketches.

Above those I used two buckets from the dollar store (you might remember them from my mom’s laundry room makeover!) to hold all of our paint books and additional design odds and ends like fabric swatches, etc.  So happy to have all of this consolidated in one place!  Now when you ask me where I got a certain light fixture or what color of paint is in a certain room I can find it in two seconds!  If I don’t have the information somewhere in this top cupboard you are out of luck because my brain just isn’t big enough to hold all of those details and even if it could, it secretly wants to block them all out.  ;)

Moving on to the bottom section!  I designed this cupboard for the kids.  All of my cabinets have adjustable shelves so I can move them around in a way that works best for us.  Everything is low so the kids can reach – all of their “supplies” are in one place.  Paper is on top (divided by plain white, lined, and colored card stock).

The bottom holds all of their coloring/work books.  I’ve had these cheap cardboard file folders for years!  They are from my teaching days.  I debated covering them in some stylish wrapping paper but decided the bright colors were fun for the kids.  Maybe I’ll still cover them someday if I get really ambitious but that is a low priority at this point.  :)  I gave Ellie and Addison two each because they have so many books.  Kole has one and then one extra for miscellaneous notepads, workbooks etc. that they all use.

Just like with our original craft cupboard, the kids can take their bins to the table, make a big old mess, and then easily put everything back where it belongs.

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In my Updated Time Management Binder I was just writing a simple to-do list on the first page – but not anymore!  I’ve replaced it with this post-it note to-do list and suddenly all is right with the world.