There's a fine line between conserving and hoarding...

If you hadn't noticed, I have four daughters. They wear lots of clothes. Every day. Lots and lots. While I would love to buy them a new wardrobe every year, that is not realistic for us. I try to take good care of their clothes and shoes so that we can pass them along to the next girl. I dread the rotating/storing process, but it is a necessary evil. We are blessed to have plenty of clothes and shoes for our kids and I want to use what we've got. (I know sharing shoes is frowned upon. We chuck the worn ones, but some of their church shoes and other shoes are hardly worn.)

During our months of selling our old house, being in a rental and finally moving to our new home, off-season and out-grown clothes got dumped into totes and all the sizes were mixed together. Snow boots and shoes ended up in diaper boxes and a random suitcase. It was disaster and I could not find items I knew where there somewhere. Time for an intervention!

 Armed with a Diet Coke, a sharpie & some tape for labeling, my laptop and Netflix, I headed downstairs.

 These totes look harmless enough, but each one had at least 3 different sizes of clothing inside. No bueno.

 Eliza thought I should be holding her instead of organizing her next 8 years of clothes. Seriously.

 I spread a sheet on the floor and dumped out most of the totes. (I still have 12mo- 3 T to go through.)

 I lined up the totes, which are labeled with each size from 3T through 10-12. Eliza was never far away.

 After the sort, everything was neatly folded in the right tote. (Thanks, Court, for helping!) I feel much better about the whole mess. I know there are clothes in their closets that need to be rotated, but it is not so overwhelming anymore. Organizing helps me take the crazy down a notch!

 Ta-da! Pile gone!

The shoes are next on my list!

(And off camera, there's a whole separate box for yard sale/ donation items)