Lets face it (Project Simplify)

Lets face it. How many of us stay at home moms really like the question, "so, what to do you do all day?" Even though I myself do not like this question much at all, I have found myself guilty of asking that very thing of other stay at home moms, probably in an effort to either 1. feel better about my lack of productivity, or 2. glean any amount of good ideas from other stay at home moms. You may be wondering what the highlight of my day was today, so for your viewing pleasure I have included a picture:
What? You can't tell what that is? Well, Randy was lucky enough to receive a call from me at exactly 9:04 am just to tell him about the picture above. Are you still wondering what this most remarkable phone conversation had to do with? I measured my daughters and marked how tall they are on the inside door frame of my laundry room. Remarkable, right!!! Are you starting to see why the question, "what do you do all day?" is not a good one?
I was asked by a lady in my ward last week if I felt like all I did was clean all day long. My honest answer to her was "no, I just sit in my messy house all day long." Sad, but true. There are some of you out there who have it all figured out. Or you may be like some people I know who claim to have a talent for homemaking. Well, that is very well and good, and yes I could be spending all day cleaning without taking a break, but I'm not super human yet. And well, my kids have an extraordinary talent for messing things up.
No joke, there was this one day I seriously cleaned the living room at least 3 times before Randy came home and when he did, he never could have guessed. I know this will not always be my life and someday my young children will grow up and be a little better at contributing to the cleaning up, but for now I have to be realistic and practical. So I have decided that the easiest way to keep things clean is to get rid of stuff. Lets face it, the less stuff you have, the less you have to clean up. So I have decided to include all of you who may or may not be interested in this most exciting adventure I will be calling "Project Simplify."
Lets face it again, some weeks it is just not practical with children running around you all day long to dejunk/organize the whole kitchen. So the goal will be to do a small space at least once a week (or day if you're really ambitious and you find the extra time). I must confess I have a bit of a head start already. I have already gone through the playroom and the girls bathroom. So I will have to post those pictures for another time. My most recent project was the master closet. Are you ready for another confession, I didn't even do this with the kids around. Randy and I did this for one of our date nights while we sent the kids to the neighbors house. That's how pathetic it is sometimes!!! So get ready to see the real me. Even if you really don't want to. That's right you will be taking a quick tour through my master closet!!!!
I finally got rid of the shirt that I wore on my very first date when I was sixteen years old!! It was still in really great condition which is why I probably hadn't gotten rid of it until now, but when its time, IT'S TIME!
Here are our shirts, pajamas, and sweatshirts organized. You may notice the most embarrassing rainbow pajama pants. Almost without fail someone will knock on my door (ladies in my ward, bishopbric member, etc.) when I am wearing those pants. Maybe those should have gone in my donation pile, hmmmm maybe next time.

Confession: we still had a load of laundry to do. So this isn't exactly how empty our closet is, but it definitely isn't full. You get the idea.

For some of you this next picture will be a sin because this picture is the sum total of all the shoes that Randy and I own (minus the pair Randy wore to work today). Just remember (for those of you who may be shocked) we are trying to simplify, right?

And here is the donation pile. Now I just need to go through the kids clothes. I think that will be my next project.

So for all you ambitious mommas out there. Project Simplify is underway. I invite you to join me one area at a time. If you are interested in simplifying your own closet, blog about it and leave me a comment. Whoever shows me the most durastic change or well organized master closet. You will be crowned (recognized on my blog as) "Super stay at home mom for the week."

I feel like I should just add a little side note. Keep in mind that it takes guts to let you see the clutter in my life, for most of us out there, we feel like if we are a stay at home mom more is expected of us in the way of cleanliness. It can sometimes feel overwhelming or embarrassing (especially if you have little kids running around). So, that being said, no judgments are allowed on this blog. I won't judge you, you won't judge me!!!

What's been going on

In case you were wondering what's been going on over here.
We had a party for a special girl.

Learning to ride a two wheeler. Don't you love all the sunflowers?

We have a mutant "sunflowers" in our yard. You may think that this is a picture of two different sunflowers...

Look again. Has anyone ever seen something so bizarre before.

Randy, the sweet husband he is, painted my toe nails. He wanted to put little flowers on them so that I'd be the cutest thing in town. We had quite the fun time watching his creative energy go to work on these beauties. He did a pretty good job!!!

This little boy can now sit up like a big boy!!! Have I ever mentioned this is my FAVORITE stage!!

We styled his hair so cute!!! Now he looks like a preppy motorcycle dude with his mohawk. Randy think this is the weirdest style to do on baby's (boy or girl). I guess he'd prefer dracula!!! No, he's probably just jealous, because he can't get his hair to do such cool things because of his curly fro.

Now that summer is coming to its close, I thought I'd post a little about what our garden and yard have become. Giant randomly placed sunflowers!!! I think Katie Marie was looking at some bugs that had landed on the under side of this one.

Flowers!!

Stargazer lilies are Randy's favorite flower. The girls seem to love them too.

I believe in a hands on approach to teaching kids about the joys of gardening. Which is why the girls are my primary harvesters. The girls beg me almost every day to go out in the garden. Here they are using Belinda's shirt to carry tomatoes in.

Of course the number one thing they usually want to pick are the rasberries. It didn't take long for them to figure out which ones to pick. After picking and trying a few white berries, now they never pick them until they are ripe (even if they are red, they wait until they easily come off the bush).

We are definitely going to have to get a hold of some better tomato cages for next year. Ours fell over with the huge tomato plants.

Peppers!!

Watermelon!!

Picking a peck of purple peppers!!

It was our first year to grow a garden. We're definitely not experts, but we've learned a ton and our family has had so much fun with it.