new arrangement

It's tough being in a small house, but we've been pretty successful at organizing things.  Last month, we came to our senses and made our baby/guest room much more functional.  We had a full size bed in Weston's room, which made the room mostly unfunctional.  We took out the guest bed and shoved the mattress into the closet.  The closets don't have doors or anything anyway.  They're completely open.  The dresser and contents of the closet sit right in front of the mattress.  It doesn't look very pretty, but it's more functional.  We put up a bed for Owen and moved him out of Nathan & Jared's room.  Owen was just on a mattress on the floor in their room.  He loves his new real bed and has done well with Weston.  Weston likes having a buddy and actually doesn't cry when we put him to bed since Owen is in there with him.  I was skeptical about the new arrangement, but they do sleep through the night and nap sometimes in the same room!  

Another advantage of the real bed is the storage underneath.  I can put some of my things along the wall and then have room for their toys.  It's very convenient to have their toys in containers under the bed and easy to clean up too.  Ideally everything is organized into different buckets, but we can throw everything in the big tubs in a hurry.  I also got a shoe organizer for the door in hopes of helping with the problem of missing shoes.  It seems like we're always looking for shoes when we're trying to head out the door.  I think some of the times when I'm the most frustrated or stressed out is trying to get out the door in time.  Organization has really helped with that (as long as we remember to put the shoes and things where they belong right?).  I have already breathed easily several times knowing the shoes are hanging right behind the door.       

Nathan and Jared like the new arrangement too, because they have more room for their stuff.  Besides the train table, we separated all the big kid and little kid toys into their respective rooms.  Nathan & Jared like being able to have their legos everywhere.  We can mostly shut the door to their room while they're at school.  Owen's dresser is still in their closet and O & W play with the trains on the train table, but other than that, they have their own room and their own toys.  Some day we might be able to paint, decorate, and fix things up to look nice, but for now we just have to go with functional.