"She was kind, loving and truthful."

Clockwise: me, Colin, Grandma Betty, my mom.  Photo taken Thanksgiving, 2010

My grandma Betty's funeral is tomorrow.  She lived a long, full life, but the later years were not kind to her body.  Lots of pain and discomfort marked her final years... so her passing is a blessing.

But.

I miss her terribly.  She was one of my favorite people.

She was kind:

My grandma always made me feel special.  She always looked the other way whenever I sneaked a butterscotch pudding from the pantry.  She knew exactly which toys to have out, at-the-ready, whenever we came to stay.  She would get after my grandpa if he was got upset with me for not doing something properly (a common occurrence, bless him).  I can just hear her voice in my head, "Oh, papa, she's a good, helpful little girl."  She let me spend copious amounts of time playing with her jewelry and lapel pins.  She was a music teacher, and had an extensive pin collection.  I would organize them all sorts of ways...by holiday, color, order of preference, glitz factor, etc...  I can still picture the way her treasures and pictures were arranged atop her dresser, where she kept those pins.  Fast forward through the years to when I became and adult, and struggled with adult-sized problems.  She gave me comfort, advice and refuge when I needed it.

She was loving:

Whenever grandma took me around town on errands (a small town, pop. around 3,000) she would greet every acquaintance and introduce me (if they didn't know me already).  I always got a certain thrill when she did that.  It was the way she said it..."This is my granddaughter, Kirsten".  It felt exactly like a warm hug.  She knew how to make you feel good about yourself.  She was also firm, but in such a way that you didn't feel like she was.  I couldn't ever imagine misbehaving for grandma - you just didn't do it because you always felt content and that your needs were being met.

She was truthful:

Ten years ago, while I was going to school, I took an upper-level anthropology class about recording Life Histories.  Grandma readily agreed to be my subject.  That was one of the best things I ever did and I will forever treasure the experience.  Every two weeks I would make the drive out to see her as soon as I was finished with classes for the day.  I would make it in time to relax during her last piano lesson for the day, and then we would go get dinner.  Afterwards, we would come back to her cozy little house, set up the tape recorder, and talk for two or three hours.  We talked about politics, religion, family history, children, marriage, death, the Great Depression, WWII, teaching... everything under the sun.  She didn't gloss over her life - she gave me a very honest assessment of how she felt about each of those topics.  The next day I would drive back to school in time for my first class.  Then I would spend the next two weeks transcribing the tapes and weaving the conversation together into cohesive units that would later become chapters, and finally a book.



Here are some memories and pearls of wisdom from those conversations that I want to share...

"There is a master plan for our lives, I feel.  It's up to us to develop it, even if we make bad turns or bad decisions.  God sees us through and helps us find ways to correct it."

"I feel we are here to grow spiritually.  I feel that there are certain lessons we need to learn.  I believe that if we don't accomplish those things that we're supposed to do now, I feel we will be back to do it later.  I know a lot of Christian people don't believe in reincarnation, but I do.  I think we come back.  I think we have to come back until we reach the ultimate, whatever it is.  We have no idea what the ultimate is, because we cannot fathom that yet.  I feel that a lot of these things that happen to us are pre-ordained.  There is a reason for everything, yet it's our decisions that affect our lives.  I think some of our suffering we bring on ourselves.  By our willfulness, or our unconcern.  Suffering probably helps us to grow to reach those heights.  God has set up certain natural laws.  If we thwart those laws, then we can experience suffering and pain."

"As a child, I knew that I wanted to be involved in music, but I also wanted to be a schoolteacher.  I would play school all the time.  When I was by myself, I would entertain myself by playing school.  Dad had a ladder leaning against that front porch that he built, and the roof of the porch was almost flat.  Not quite flat, but flat enough.  So I moved all my stuff up there and played school up on top of the house.  I would do that for days and days.  I'm sure my parents worried about me being up there.  They were probably more worried about me making holes in the roof and causing a leak.  I don't know why I chose to play up there, I just did.  As a kid you do things without knowing why."

And my personal favorite:

"As a little girl I would imagine lots of things.  I had imaginary playmates, companions, even an imaginary husband.  His name was John.  I would talk about him with my imaginary companion, Doonan.  We were ladies, and we had our own homes, you see.  Doonan and I would discuss our husbands.  I had a lot of "ladies" that I would visit on our farm.  There was Mrs. Calfpan, Mrs. Chicken House, Mrs. Icehouse, and Mrs. Barn.  They were all of my 'playmates'.  I was around six or seven at this time.  I'd write up minutes because I was secretary of our 'club'.  I'd write up minutes about what Mrs. Chicken House said or what Mrs. Cow Shed said. (...) I did have a notebook that I had kept for a long time that contained the minutes of our 'meetings'."

So what did grandma want people to say about her after she was gone?

"She was kind, loving and truthful."

I miss you grandma. 

Love,
your Stennybug

Karate Kids

Last November, Jordan and Rylan began taking karate lessons.  We heard about a fantastic homeschool class that was offered by a karate studio in Loveland, so we tried it out.  Loved it!!   Northern Colorado Karate offers a class for homeschoolers on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, as well as another class on Saturday - so the kids go three times a week.  It is a lot of driving back and forth, but boy, is it worth it.   The class attendees span three different class levels: Tigers, Eagles and Youth.  That means that the class structure handles multiple ages: from roughly age 5 and up.  I think the oldest student right now is about 11 or 12, and the youngest is 4 (Rylan).  There are typically about 20 students in the class.  The class begins with everyone doing warmups and basic stretching together.  There are 4-5 instructors that then split the class up into the different levels, and if there are a lot of students in a particular level, they then split that class into subgroups based on belt heirarchy.  So the student:instructor ratio is roughly 4:1, which is really nice.  Here is a picture walk through what our experience has been so far....

Rylan began in the Dragons class.  Dragons is for 4-5 year-olds, and is considered "pre-karate".  They learn the basics of Universal Karate/Kenpo as well as work on self-control, courtesy, sharing and kindness.  You can see me in the background taking this picture - ha!  I was taking a picture of our reflection in the mirror to get a shot of Rylan's group as they sat on their bench getting ready for testing.  They all look so cute in their Dragon uniforms.



The first thing they do is stand at attention and shake the instructor's hand as he greets each student in turn.  The Master Instructor/Owner is Mr. Keith Schuett (shaking Rylan's hand).  He is just awesome with the kids!



Attention!



Every class session begins with warm-ups.  Can you guess what they are doing?  (ahem)  Jumping Jacks!



These pictures are from the first testing session that Rylan and Jordan took part in, in mid-January.  One of Rylan's fundamental skills was called the "ice cream punch".  Really, it is a portion of a move called "The Lion".



Crane stance



Rylan earned her yellow tip!  At the Dragon's level, each succession of rank means an additional color on the belt tip.  It is customary for the students moving up in rank to remove their old belt, put it around their neck, and the instructor ties on the new belt.



Rylan's group, after testing.



Then it was Jordan's turn.  Jordan is in the Youth class, and they progress through the junior ranks first.  Jordan is currently going through the basic course, that goes through the ranks to the purple belt.  Then he must decide whether or not he wants to join the Black Belt Club (he does).  Again, this pic was taking during January testing.  Jordan is testing for his advanced white (a belt that is half white/half yellow.  They begin by focusing on what they are about to do for testing.



After warm-ups and basic drills, Jordan is demonstrating a defensive move with a partner.



Jordan earns his advanced yellow!



Jordan's group.  The students with red gis (g-eez) are members of the black belt club.



Now on to the next round of testing, in mid-March (each round of testing is a 9-week cycle).  Rylan is still wearing her Dragons Uniform, but she is testing with the Tigers.  Tigers is the next age group up from Dragons.  The age group is 5-6, and Rylan is almost 5, so we made the switch.  She was mature enough to handle moving up and the instructors thought it was a good idea.

 First, stretching.  Rylan has improved so much in the past two months!



Colin sees his twin!!

A hug and a kiss from Daddy

Now back to the show... Colin watches his big sister as she prepares to do her Star Block Set

Rylan earns her advanced yellow belt!  This belt is a lot different from her Dragons advanced yellow.  The week after this testing round we got a new Tiger  gi for Rylan.  They had to order a size 000.  :)  Rylan is also thrilled to be in Tigers because she is no longer the only girl in her group- her friend Brick is standingto Rylan's right.

Group shot of the Tigers

Jordan's turn.  He is demonstrating the Deflecting Hammer

Deflecting Hammer

Yellow belt!

 

Group shot











The kids are really enjoying the experience.  Some days Rylan complains that it is hard, but I think she has a lot of fun - especially if other friends are there.  It is a lot of driving, but because this is really our only outside activity, I really don't mind.  Some factors to consider:

Pluses:
* It is reasonably priced: $60 per homeschool student, per month.  That is a GREAT deal!
* They provide the (first) uniform (gi). (When you progress to another class level, you need to buy the next uniform.  Which is a reasonable $30 or so)
* They run on-time, and don't mess around - I love that!
* They have high expectations for behavior from students.  Again - they DON'T mess around.  LOVE it!
* The instructors are all talented martial artists and really good at working with kids.  - Many have kids that attend the academy as well.
* They are up-front and transparent about what the program is all about, how much it will cost, what it entails, and what the expectations are  - which is great for a person like myself who has virtually no working knowledge of what the martial arts are all about.
* All sorts of students attend, including special needs.  Awesome!
* There is a nice stadium-style seating area for parents (just wish it was bigger)
* There is a play area for the little ones

Minuses:
* I have to wash white karate uniforms 3xweek.
* Class time on the weekdays is 1:00 - 1:45.  Sometimes it's okay, and other times it falls right during naptime for Colin, or that we are in the middle of an activity.  I wish it were a morning class time instead...
* Each new belt is $35.  Per kid.  Every 9 weeks (if they get approval to go ahead for testing).  That gets a little expensive.
* Saturday mornings are now dedicated to karate.  Sometimes I wish we could sleep in.  But then again, it's a good excuse for Dazbog coffee, which is just down the street from the studio.

What I love most is that this is an activity that the kids can do together.  They can grow with it, and will be constantly challenged for years to come.  Karate is also one of the few activities where they can make strides on multiple fronts: physically, emotionally, intellectually, and yes, even spiritually.  All we want for our kids is for them to be strong, confident and courteous kids.  I think this fits the bill perfectly!

Can you spare some change?

Note to self:

Jordan needs to work on making change.

Case in point:

At Target tonight, Jordan chose to spend his saved-up allowance money on the Tangled DVD movie.  Price with tax: $32.46.  Fumbling with the bills and dollar coins, Jordan managed to count out 32 dollars.  He still had several quarters, a nickel and a penny in his coin container.  He just stared at his remaining money, not sure what to do about coming up with the remaining 46 cents he owes.  C'mon!!?  Really?  It's moments like these that I feel like I have TOTALLY failed.  Sigh.

We're fickle folk...

Last month we took a break from our homeschool gymnastics class.  We knew we would be missing at least one week, and we would have had to pay for 5 sessions x 2 kids anyway... and it was just too much strain on the pocketbook - right after losing the Subaru and not knowing how/when we would be purchasing another car.  So we bagged it.  Apparently a lot of other families did too.  So many in fact, that they cancelled the class for the rest of the "school year".  I must of missed "The Memo" the owner sent out, because I showed up today, got three kids (Owen was ready to give it a try) changed and ready to go have some tumbling fun and then found out that the class was permanently cancelled.  And I was EARLY for once!!  The owner lamented that the turn-out just nose dived in March.  Well duh... ever heard of Spring Break??  She didn't seem to understand my point.  She was just focused on the incompatability of the bottom line with our group's fickle attendance.

We have issues within the homeschooling community of families just randomly showing up for events.  RSVP's don't really count - people still pull the no-show thing.  I think that we have all earned a bad reputation for this behavior, and some businesses are leery of taking down a reservation.  I just wonder about the mentality that brings this sort of behavior out in people.  It's like they make a personal declaration: "We will be in attendance if it suits us on that particular day.... and if little shmootzie-poo is in the mood to participate."

My only issue is making it on time and having enough snacks and diapers with me to make it all the way through.  Or just remembering I have to be somewhere, period. 

It's Muffin Tin Monday again (part doux)

Here is my second effort with Muffin Tin Monday.  With the exception of making the jello earlier this morning, total time to put together lunch was 12 minutes.  *nice*!  Owen and Rylan are still eating (25 min. so far), and Colin is napping, so that gave me time to share it here.

I began by making the jello earlier this morning...

I have about 101 ideas for ways to use little plastic baby food containers.  Using them to make jello cups is one of them.  First I add the fruit - in this case, chopped pear, fresh from the can.  :)

Then I add the jello and put on the lids.

I have a pull-out shelf in the fridge that is nice for just this size of container.  I made it at 9:30 this morning, and it was ready to go by 12:30.

Here is our lunch today:



Clockwise from top: steamed broccoli (leftovers), watermelon jello with pears, clementine with a Hershey's Kiss, beef stroganoff (leftovers), sliced red bell pepper, and vanilla yogurt with sprinkles in the center.



Owen was very pleased with his lunch.  He ate everything but the stroganoff...which he didn't eat last night either.  :(

Here is an idea that helps speed-up the lunch-making process.  I **try** to get the grocery shopping done on Saturdays.  On Sunday, my goal is to do all of the food prep for the week: food prep like chopping, dicing and so forth.  So yesterday, Dean sliced up the red pepper because he uses it for lunch and snack during the week. (Dean takes all of his lunches and snacks into work with him on Monday, and keeps it in the fridge/freezer outside his work area.)  He put some slices in a separate container for us to have this week. (thank you honey!)

I, however, did not get any food prep done yesterday, because I cleaned out our hallway closet instead.  I am going to stock it with our daily ingredient boxes, since we have no pantry to speak of.  (Post is forth-coming...)

The rest of the items for lunch today were easy left-over items to reheat, or spoon out of a container.  I like looking at all of the fancy cutwork that some moms do to their vegetables, meats, cheeses and so-forth.  Most of the time I am just looking for the quick, easy-to-slap-together option.

Please Don't Poop in my Bathtub

Colin pooped in the bathtub tonight.  Well, more like diarrhea.  Every kiddo has done it at least once now... It was just really, really, really something that I didn't need to deal with tonight.  But, it capped off a really crappy week, so it seemed fitting.

We were supposed to have Spring Break this week.  Jordan was off to Oklahoma, and I had plans to some fun things with the little ones.  Instead, we all got sick.  I've been wiping noses, wiping up vomit, washing clothes, towels, etc... all week.  All week.  ALL WEEK.  Crap.

Then, I finally got to feeling a little better today and thought that maybe we could salvage this crappy week by doing something fun.  The first Friday of the month is a hiking day for our homeschool group.  That sounded like fun.  But first, I was convinced that I needed to get in to see the Dr. ASAP because my lymph glands under my jaw were swollen and hurt -  I've felt it before M A N Y a time.. it almost always means an infection.  Made my appointment, with time to spare to get to the hike, and let the morning unfold.  By the time the appointment rolled around, I was tired.  I had tried to get caught up on the all of the dishes that had piled up during the past few days, and I ended up wearing myself out.  Showed up late for the appt.  I thought it was 10:30.  Nope.  10:15.  On the way up to the appt. Owen got into the elevator before me, and started pushing buttons.  The 'Help" button to be exact.  Crap.  Not so helpful.  I get to wait in the waiting room for an extra 10 minutes while they find a way to squeeze me back into the schedule.  The nurse shuffles all of us to the examination room.  I can already tell she is irritated with my children.  She begins with the basics: Weight.. (crap).. moving on.  Blood pressure 122/84.  Pulse Ox.  good.

She leaves.  The kids are opening drawers, pushing buttons, pulling levers.  At least they are not screaming or jumping up and down.  Yet.  I look up.  There are two pictures of flowery meadows on the ceiling.  And a picture of Hugh Jackman.  Another of Brad Bitt.  In a male Dr.'s office.  Ewww.  That's just wrong.  To be lying there getting a pap test done by a male Dr. and look at a sexy picture of Brad Pitt?  Ewww.   Dr. comes in.  Strep test.  Negative.  He recommends Lidocane for the pain, faxes the prescription.  We're done.

We drive to Subway to get some sandwiches.  We've missed the beginning of the hike, so it's on to Plan B.  As I order our food, I see a friend come in that I haven't seen in years.  I'm in the midst of paying, but we say 'hi', admire each other's children, and say goodbye.  I leave the store, get to the park, and as I am unpacking and divvying out the food, I am missing the apple slices that were supposed to come with Rylan's and Owen's meals.  Crap.  Stupid cashier - I asked the cashier if I needed to grab them - he said 'no'. (of course I was also distracted...)  We hang out at the park and have a relatively nice time.  I got Colin to drink from a straw - yay.  I guess that would have to be the highlight of the day.

We left the park to do a dreaded shopping trip to Target.  We are running out of everything.  This was going to be expensive.  I go to pick up my prescription.  The pharmacist kindly informs me that she has never dispensed Lidocane as my Dr. prescribed. (a gargle??)  "If you ingest enough of this, it can cause heart failure."  Nice.  What kind of crap did this Dr. expect me to take?? With children in the house?  I said thanks but no thanks.  Hopefully the sore throat will go away with time.  But I ask myself this: What was this Dr. thinking?

Get home for a few minutes of downtime before it is time to pick up Dean.  I check Facebook.  Mistake.  I made a comment earlier in the day about my disgust with the Republicans in the Colorado House that vote down Civil Unions (in committee) from going on to a vote in the entire house.  I didn't mince words.  I am pissed.  Equal rights for all, damn it.  Several friends gives a thumbs up, but one in particular calls me down.  Not only calls me down, but downright chastises me for expressing my opinion.   read: **my** opinion.  Please Don't Poop in my Bathtub.  My Facebook wall is my platform, as is my blog, to express (as I see fit), my joy, heartache, anger, happiness, fear, confusion, etc.  If you don't like it - Don't Read it.  Don't take a public crap on my words and my opinion.  If I offend you, Don't Read it. 

Don't Poop in my Bathtub.... and Please Don't Eat the Daisies either.

The Family Closet

This post has been over a year in the making... I am so excited to finally share the concept of the family closet with you and let you know how much our family has benefited from it.  The basic idea of a family closet is to consolidate all of the family's clothing into one closet - ideally using the largest closet or maybe even the smallest room (if you have a lot of clothing!) in the house.  All of the laundry comes and goes to one location, cutting down on needless trips back and forth to other bedrooms to retrieve and put away clothing.  It will take serious mettle to make the change and do all of the purging it will most likely require (it is not for the organizational faint of heart), but boy, is it worth it in the end!

Why did I do this??

A little over a year ago, I was in the later stages of pregnancy with my third child, soon to bring the total number of members of our family to six (me, my husband, my stepson, and our younger three).  I was already fighting a losing battle with clutter, housecleaning and most definitely laundry.  I would empty the dryer, and make five different piles of clothing on our bed that would then (ideally) go off to 3 - 4 different locations.  Lots of traffic back and forth to get the job done (not to mention time), so most of the time the clean laundry would sit, in a pile on our bed, only to be relocated to the floor on a nightly basis because I was just to tired to do it.  We would routinely go to the pile instead of our closet to find something to wear.

I bought baskets.  Lots of them.  I labeled each one with a different family member's name.  So the BIG pile was sorted into the different baskets, with the idea that each basket would be emptied (ie. PUT AWAY).  I was an organizational genius!.... with about 7 different laundry baskets, FULL of clean clothes, on the bedroom floor.  Day after day.  Lots of tripping and subsequent yelling was involved.

Something had to change.

Enter in rain gutter bookshelves.  Huh?  Well...Kimberly, over at Raising Olives, had a fantastic idea for a way to organize books.  So fantastic that one of the moms in our homeschool group (THANK YOU Gail!!!), was inspired and shared a link to the rain gutter bookshelf tutorial with our group.  I followed the link to the Raising Olives blog, and I was fascinated with how easy and creative these bookshelves were!  I wish we had the wall space for these!  Anyway, I can never seem to leave a new blog without exploring it thoroughly (remember the Rabbit Hole??), so I spent the better part of an afternoon learning a little bit about everything this mom (Kimberly) does to organize her large family.  We are secular, so I glossed over the religious aspects to the site, and just focused on searching for a more efficient way to do homeshcool and household stuff.  Then I came across her post for a family closet.  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  The clouds parted, the sun came out and I distinctly heard trumpets blaring in the background.  My laundry problem was solved!  Now, I just had to get my husband on board.

Dean was not convinced that all of the reshuffling of clothing was going to create the desired change I was searching for.  He thought that this was just another lame attempt by me to create a huge mess under the guise of making an 'improvement' in our household.  He was right.  The process did create a huge mess.  It took about two months to sort it all out. 

Disclaimer: Anytime I come up with a project, I routinely fail to remember the fact that I have approximately 12 minutes of "free time" during the day.  So therefore, any project I take on takes a ridiculously long time to complete.

I began by designating which portion of our closet/soon-to-be the 'family closet' the kids would take over.  I have probably moved things around at least a dozen times since the initial go, (driving everyone crazy), but at last we have what works for us.  Don't forget, we had a new family member to work in as well, after it was all set up.  I was determined to make the closet totally accessible to the little kids so that they could take on the task of dressing/undressing themselves totally on their own.  So the lower clothing rods were for the little kids, and the lower shelves were theirs as well.  We are lucky in that the closet came with four rods at various heights, and one wall had floor-to-ceiling built-in shelving.  It was such a bonus to not have to factor in purchasing any special shelving to make this project work.  We did end up purchasing one organizer, a unit that hangs from the rod and goes down to the floor.  I think the intended purpose is for storing shoes, but Dean and I use it for our socks and underwear. 

Then I took every last bit of clothing out of each of the kids' closets and sorted EVERYTHING.  This meant all of Jordan's current clothing, a massive pile of his older clothing that was to handed down to Owen (and Colin), everything in his dresser, all of Rylan's clothing and all of Owen's.  I dumped out and reclaimed all of the clear storage boxes in the basement (creating another mess, for another time).  I sorted out every piece of clothing by size and put what was to be kept into its designated box.  Everything that was of current size was hung up/folded and put away in the family closet.

As I mentioned, each child got a shelf (about 4 feet long).  A small bin is there to hold socks and underwear/diapers, and then all of the items that would routinely go into a dresser (pjs, shorts and pants).  By stacking them on a shelf, each item is easily seen and you can find what you need quickly.  I always hated how small items could get buried in a dresser drawer and then get forgotten about. Since the dressers were cleaned out, that meant that they could be repurposed or gotten rid of.  Jordan's dresser and nightstand were sold in a garage sale, thus freeing up a ton of floorspace in his room.  This meant that he could now have a bigger bed and pass his twin bed onto Rylan.  The dresser that housed some of Rylan's things is also the changing table, so it wasn't going anywhere.  We could repurpose it though, and it now holds all of the children's bedding and baby blankets (thus freeing up a lot of shelf space in the linen closet). 

Initially, I put the clothing storage boxes into neat stacks in the now-empty closet in what was Rylan and Owen's room.  It stayed that way for the better part of year.  Also in that closet were their baby keepsake things and baby stuff that would soon be put in use when Colin arrived.  In Jordan's closet I left behind a massive pile of clothing that he was currently growing out of, all of his keepsakes, extra bedsheets, and about 10 thousand household odds and ends.  One of the important benefits of clearing out these closets is that you are freeing up that space to store other things, or creating a new purpose for them.  They could become a private hide-out for the kids, a place to keep their special things, or a place to store their toys.  I have other ideas for these two closets.

My goal had always been to get every piece of clothing, either in current use or soon-to-be-used, into the family closet.  I wanted the clothing bins in the family closet so that they would be easily accessible.  The final push came just after Christmas when we started to clean out the basement.  The kids had swapped rooms and roommates, so out came all of the nicely-labeled clothing bins from Rylan and Owen's closet.  Piles of clothing that needed to be added to those bins had grown over the previous year, and were located all over the house.  And I mean all over.  A pile sat on the kitchen counter for the better part of two months.  For whatever reason, it was just too difficult to drag out the bins and put stuff away when it was located in a different closet.  The newly removed bins sat in the upstairs hallway and in our bedroom for about 4 weeks, waiting to be sorted through again, as I added stuff.  When the clothing bins got the boot from one closet, it was only natural that they should go into the family closet.  They are now up and out of the way, but totally accessible when I need to get in them - AND there is a step-stool available at all times, so no excuse for random clothing piles anymore! 

As for the newly-emptied closet in what is now Jordan and Owen's room, every last bit of Christmas stuff was brought upstairs from the basement and sorted, purged, organized and stuffed into that closet. (we are currently emptying out the basement so that we can finish it)  The closet is now full from side to side, floor to ceiling with Christmas stuff.  This means two things: 1) Since it is full, I can no longer ADD any more Christmas paraphernalia, unless there is room in an existing storage tub.  So, for items like ornaments, there is still tons of room in each child's ornament box.  2) It is an excellent use of space that we only need access to once or twice a year.  This means that furniture can go in front of the closet doors, adding sorely needed wall space in that room.  Currently, Owen's bed, nightstand and bookshelf are in front of the closet doors.  This could definitely be a future post topic!

Jordan's old closet (which is now a part of Rylan and Colin's room) still holds some of his mementos, and the random household items.  We had initially brought up all of the ski gear to store in this closet.  It became apparent that this wasn't a good idea when Dean was preparing to go skiing earlier this season, and realized late into the night that he needed to retrieve his gear and the kids were already asleep.  So...Now, everyone has their own bin/drawer to put their ski gear in -in the family closet.  Snow pants are on hangers, and extra hats, face masks, mittens and gloves are now in these drawers.  We also moved all of my sewing stuff, fabrics and craft supplies into this closet (again, to empty out the basement).  It is in total disarray though, and needs to be sorted and organized. - at some undesignated time in the future.... when I have some free time.  ;)

The last of the transformation came in the past few weeks.  I moved all of the suitcases and duffel bags (from the basement) into the closet.  Packing/and unpacking can happen right inside the closet, on a folding table.  I also moved in (just yesterday) all of my and Dean's memento-type clothing (wedding dress, suits, Dean's late-father's Naval uniform and pea coat, etc..), and about a bazillion coats - I'm not thrilled that they are there, but there is really no other place in the house that makes sense - and the basement is off-limits.   We do have a minuscule coat closet just off of the garage door, but it isn't really conducive to holding coats - it is for storing all of Dean's commuting/biking gear, the vacuum, diaper bag, and small cooler(s) for picnics.  Dean mounted 2 rows of coat hooks (six each) for day-to-day coats, but really, this only works if there is 1-2 coats on each hook.  Add the 24 different coats that we could potentially use on a daily basis (in the winter time) and the whole ease-of-use concept just breaks down.  It doesn't help that Rylan's dress-up princess dresses take up almost the whole lower row of hooks.  (We really need a child's-sized coat tree for the playroom).

Well, anyway, I can now call this project OFFICALLY complete, and I can present my video to you to show the finished product:  Enjoy!