Minimalism Update

So apparently I was leaning towards minimalism on my blog this month as well. Here is my final update on my self imposed minimalism challenge.
I said that in Weeks 2 & 3 I would clean out:
Week 2:

-My bedroom

-My closet

-Toy room

-Calebs toys.

-Dvd's and Cd's

Week 3:(depending on weather)

-Toys in the shed

-Yard supplies

Cleaning our bedroom was simple because we don't spend much time in there other than sleeping so we don't keep much in there. I prefer it to be a clean space so that I don't need to spend time making my bed and tidying in the mornings.

 I cleaned out my closet, as I do every spring, with our local clothing swap in mind. Some friends host a swap where we can donate our gently used clothing and they display them like a cute boutique.  They have games and treats and usually a quick devotional. It is a good time and I look forward to it every Spring and Fall. I did finally give up some shoes that I had to admit I'd never be able to wear again. Pregnancy grew my feet by a half size.

I ended up going through the toy closet and Calebs toys on week 1 so that was done.

DVD's and CD's were hard for me. I feel like they are so tiny, who could they possibly bother by keeping them? But I did get rid of a couple of them that have never been loved here. My husband got rid of most of his CD's years ago after switching to MP3's but I am old fashioned. With the era of Amazon Prime and Netflix, I feel like we are inundated with media options so those chincy little dvd's that come in cereal boxes or happy meals were ditched as well as "Special Holiday" edition cartoons.

I did get into the shed and get rid of a couple of toys that were outgrown but we kept most of them. We spend a lot of time outside in the summer(by we, I of course mean them. I watch from the window) so the water table, scooters, bikes, balls and sand toys are all well loved.

Most of the yard supplies belong to Jared. And he does not like me to get rid of his stuff.
Ever. There were some broken things we tossed and since we ripped out the old fence and rid ourselves of 40+ fence panels and 50ish posts, I still felt like we transformed and cleaned our yard. We spent a long day ripping out fence and cleaning up debris from the winter storms.

My last job for this month is to clean out the cobwebs in our house. Nobody needs this many cobwebs ;)

I hope you were all inspired to make your lives a bit simpler and clean with this challenge!

Week 1 progress!

Update on the minimalism challenge.
For Week 1 I said I was going to clean out the:
-Tupperware cupboard

-Craft cupboard and random craft crap

-Daughters closet and toys

-Hall closet

-Upper cabinets and refrigerator

-Pan cupboard and dish towels

I successfully cleaned out the craft cupboard on Monday and it was pretty easy since I had just done it after Christmas to fit in all of their new craft crap. They love coloring, painting and crafting so being able to access it more easily is a great thing for their sanity and mine.

Today we ventured into the toys. I had actually planned to do the toy room next week but since I was doing the girls', I decided to tackle every toy in this house. My son, doesn't have that many interests. He likes things that go vroom or boom so it was easy to clean out his room. We took out all of the baby toys(cue the tears! for mama) and made room for all of his toys to fit nicely in his toy box.
The girls room was tougher. They have dolls. Lot's of dolls. But Emily plays with EVERY.SINGLE.ONE! Molly isn't really into them but Em spends most afternoons playing Barbies/Ever After High Dolls/My Little Pony games. So we decided that at this point, we are not going to take any away. We did remove some broken dolls and ruined clothes but mostly I just organized them.
The play room seems to be the room where the toys my kids don't actually like, end up. Since I do in-home daycare, things don't always last long in there. When you put 6 kids in a room together, things get a little wild. So today we removed broken toys and Happy Meal toys. ..side note.. I hate happy meal toys. They make me grumpy. Runza has the right idea.

After cleaning out the toys, I decided to jump into the project of the girls' closet. This also wasn't as big of a job as I thought it would be because I had done it earlier this school year. I sort the girls clothes by the size I think they will be in at the next season so we went through their closet and removed the too small clothes and then opened the box of spring clothes and had the girls try them on. We always have a few hand me downs which saves us a lot of money and this year, neither girl has grown much so they don't need much for this next season.

So it's Tuesday and the back of my car is filled with 3 boxes of toys. I took out a small box of broken toys to the trash and my living room table is covered in clothes that need a new home.

Week 1 is off to a good start!

Home-free haircuts

I have been sharing ways that our family saves money and this is possibly one of my favorites!
Last year I watched a couple of YouTube videos on how easy it was to trim little girl hair. My girls have very long hair and don't want short hair so it seemed like it would be easy. I bought a pair of scissors from Walmart and did some research. I found a lot of videos on the subject but my favorite was Hair 101 with April. I thought she was very comprehensive and not annoying to watch at all. She is a mom as well so she had some great tips for dealing with kiddos.
This is the cut I did with Emily, and with her slight curl, it was amazing. I thought it was easy and fun.

Molly's was a little different. I did box layers on her and they framed her face so well! After trying both methods, I decided I liked box layers better and have since done them on both girls.

And the finished product after the first time.

One of the best things about it was that it was 20 minutes completely alone with each girl. I banned siblings from the room so I could focus and what that meant was that we had a lot of time to talk.

I have also ventured into men's haircuts. I cut Jared's every 6 weeks or so but every 3rd or 4th time, he goes to the barber to get a really polished cut. His hair is very thick and I haven't mastered it yet. Caleb is much simpler. I took him into a stylist and asked for a crew cut but what we came away with was a poorly done buzz cut. He has such beautiful hair that I really don't want to buzz it. Tonight I did a crew cut on him for the first time. He sat really well but once he saw the hair falling, he kept shouting, "Hey Mom! Ma hair!"

It's certainly not perfect but it is better than the last 2 I paid for.He has a funny little cowlick in the front that is hard to work around but I think it went well. It took about 10 minutes. I used the Wahl Color that I got for Christmas. It is so easy to use and is a great value.

I figure that cutting my children's hair saves me around $200 a year and I really enjoy it.The best thing about cutting their hair is that it grows back. With very long hair, the girls can afford to lose a little extra if the cut isn't right and Caleb is 2 so he really doesn't care what he looks like. This is definitely something I would recommend for all families to try.

March Minimalism Madness

I'm sure most of you have been seeing the 40 bags in 40 days challenge on Facebook. Remove 40 bags of "stuff" from your home in 40 days and donate it. It coincides with Lent and I think it is wonderful! But, 40 days is a long time for me :P I like to really dig in and get things done quicker than that. So here is my schedule.
Week 1:
-Tupperware cupboard

-Craft cupboard and random craft crap

-Daughters closet and toys

-Hall closet

-Upper cabinets and refrigerator

-Pan cupboard and dish towels

Week 2:

-My bedroom

-My closet

-Toy room

-Calebs toys.

-Dvd's and Cd's

Week 3:(depending on weather)

-Toys in the shed

-Yard supplies

I think I may add more as they come to me. I would encourage you to make a list of the areas in your home that are getting a little out of control but don't schedule it too strictly. Life happens, and sometimes you don't get stuff done and then it piles up. Allow yourself some grace.