The Great Fall Clothing Switcheroo!

If anyone had told me that I would ever be in need of fall/winter clothing in September, I would have laughed. Loudly. But now, while our friends in Texas are still sweating in temps in the low-90s, we are enjoying our first ever true autumn weather. We've got highs in the high-60s right now which to us Texans is just a bit above freezing, and definitely worthy of long pants and sleeves!

Yesterday I began the daunting task of pulling down boxes, bins, and vacuum-sealed bags full of hundreds of pieces of little boys' fall/winter clothing. Since I keep everything that isn't full of holes or stains to pass down to the next child, and since we use winter clothing in Texas for oh, maybe 3 weeks (not really enough time for them to ruin it, lol!) we have a TON of clothes to sort through ranging from baby to about size 10. My children hate the switcheroo, because I make them try on things to make sure they're a good fit. I certainly don't want to pull out all the clothes that I think are their sizes and then have to switch them again later when they don't actually fit!

After taking care of clothes for Joshua, Jonathan, and Jordan, I pulled out a big bin labeled "3T Fall/Winter" only to find that it was really full of summer toddler clothes. I looked everywhere for Joey's clothes, growing more and more afraid that I'd left them behind (we did have a huge garage sale before we moved, and got rid of lots of extra clothing)...I couldn't find them anywhere! Finally this afternoon I remembered that I had put several bins under Jordan's bed, thinking I wouldn't need them for a while. Sure enough, one of the bins contained Joey's clothes! I'm very relieved to have found them. As much as I enjoy shopping, I wasn't looking forward to replacing an entire winter wardrobe for my 2-year-old!

Now I just have to finish putting away all the summer clothes and the clothes that aren't anyone's current size. And then we have to do a major bedroom clean-up, which has me baffled as their room looked clean when I started this project. I'm amazed at how much stuff ends up under Jordan's bed. We just pulled all the toys and "stuff" out from under and around his bed about 2 weeks ago, and we've been traveling for most of the time since. Go figure.

In the interest of keeping it real, here's one of my piles.


I had to pick up Jordan's mattress to get to the bins...the sides of his frame are too low to allow the bins to slide under.


More real life here. Yes, this was all cleaned up spotless just 3 days before we left on our trip and yes, they pick up their room every morning before breakfast. Now I know how Jordan cleans up...he just stuffs everything under the bed!


I swept everything into a pile. Some of these items made sense...the toys, legos, pajama bottoms, and slippers, for instance. Some, however, were puzzling and/or incriminating, such as the candy wrappers, chewed gum (eeew! I don't even allow the boys to have gum in the house!) empty juice box, markers (another no-no in bedrooms) and my kitchen gloves. That's my Jordan!


Still keeping it real...here's what a week's worth of laundry (minus towels and sheets) looks like for a family of 7. At least it's clean. There's a bed under there somewhere. And I had no idea that lampshade was so crooked until I looked at this picture.


I did get all that laundry put away, except for matching up socks. After all, Jeremy wanted to sleep, and the couch is currently occupied. My plan is to be completely done with the switcheroo tomorrow. We'll see...