Whirlwind

What a month(s).....yup I feel like for the first time in a while I have come up for air to breathe, I know it will only be a short time until it gets crazy busy once again.

I called my mom and for my birthday I told her I want 1 of 2 things.  1) a neat desk scanner to help get rid of the bill/paper clutter or 2) a professional organizer to come help organize and get rid.....her response was......"Blah ha ha ha that was funny so what can I get you that I can afford?"....I told her "a gift card to Subway" she just laughed

What have I been doing.....I am not so sure...maybe some pictures will help with that!

To start we moved!  In the middle of moving and unpacking we have been trying to stay caught up with life....

Jeff is close to graduating.  This was the weekend we moved!  His mom bought a graduation/fathers day cake and he was practicing for graduation with the cake decoration! The weekend after we moved in we went on a short family vacation!!!

Payeton was trying to catch up on her beauty sleep in the car!

Jasmin refused to give in!

Best Friends!!!

Our family likes to be silly.....That sure do hate snuggle time!

In my family 4 generations does not happen (meaning my sibblings, parents, grandparents).  So when we went to Jeff's family reunion I finally won and got a 4 generation picture.  This is the girls Jeff, Jeff's mom Sue, and Sue's Dad, Don Meldrum (A.K.A Grandpa Meldrum).  He turned 90 this year and he is AMAZING.  He is a giant.  He stands (well used to stand) at about 6'9.  No wonder my girls are so tall.

The girls absolutely love to swing.  When we go to the park all they want to do is swing!

Jeff Graduated.  Bragging Rights - he is the only one in his program that graduated with honors and his program was had about 20-25 people in it.  He worked his butt of for 2.5 years and it shows he now has a killer job and loves it.

I am proud of him and all of his hard work

This is our new place when we first moved in.  The girls were trying very hard to help us unpack.....we are still trying to unpack!

Jasmin turned 5 and we had a small party for her!

Girls just want to have fun!

Jeff was a rock star and took the girls for the weekend a few weekends ago to the beach to see grandma and grandpa.  So I busted a move tried to clean unpack and organize.This is part of our room before!

And after

Here is our office after hours of work.  We are far from done, but it is getting there.  

Our June and start of July were hectic, I am not sure if things have actually calmed down or not or maybe it is just because I have gotten used to the pace of life now.  We have come to the conclusion that we be unpacked and moved in the week before it is time to move again. Our goal is to be in our apartment for only 1 year. 

As the girls get older we are starting to have more fun, and they are getting sillier by the day.  

I am just amazed how much we have accumulated and how much we have gotten rid of. 

How DO you organize?

Since we moved I have been on a real kick to downsize, organize, sort, throw away, donate.......I realized when we moved we have a lot of stuff.  I mean A TON of stuff.......It is disgusting. We have everything from extra unworn clothes, toys, piles of paper, listened to CD's, movies we have not watched in a few years, books both read and unread, plethora of dishes, not to mention all the stuff my mom is storing at her house, to the point that we have kind of forgotten what we have and don't have.

So since we have moved I have thrown away a lot of "stuff" that Goodwill will throw away themselves.  I have also given quite a few boxes to local donation sites and it feels good.  I think to myself "WOW I am awesome I am making so much progress" until I turn around or open another closet or box....I think someone is adding miracle grow to our stuff while we sleep.

Even though this is just a snippet of our stuff it helps to give a picture of what I mean.

There are some things that Jeff is hesitant to let go of as am I, however, it is time to start making a simplified life.I read a quote somewhere that says "The less you have the less you have to clean"  AMEN!!!! So that is my goal I would love to see us be able to have all of our stuff under one roof, which means letting go.

So I have a few questions and please leave your thoughts.

How do you organize your home?
How do you "let go" of items that are taking up space, but the mere fact of looking at it brings back a flood of emotions?
What do you do with all of you CD's that you have not listened to or that you have ripped and put on your computer?
What organizing tips do you have that are simple (I do work part time so I am not at home all day) that are not time consuming and that young children can help you with?

Please help any ideas are welcome.  I want a realistically organized house not a house where guests feel uncomfortable to be in.

Thank you for your input.