Ways to stay more organized with children

KIDS ARE CHAOS. 

Having one child can turn your world upside-down, but then you bring multiples into the equation and yeeeesh. 

My kids are 4 and 2 years old and trying to maintain a certain level or organization in our house is key for me. I am pretty cool under pressure with the inevitable chaos that my littles throw at me, but I have my own organizational secrets that help to keep me sane. 



In the kitchen:

We have a medium sized kitchen in our house. It’s not small, but it’s definitely not big. 
I chose to dedicate one of the upper cabinets to the kids' dishes. Cups, popsicles making stuff, mats, bibs, cookie cutters for sandwiches, etc. It helped keep the insane amount of cups these children need contained and away from our cups that can stay nicely organized in their own cabinet.

And those aren’t even close to all the cups. My 2 year old’s favorite cups were all sitting on a drying rack next to the sink when I took that cabinet photo. Who needs this many cups?!


Snacks:

MY GOD THE SNACKS. 
My children’s lives revolve around snacks. Especially my two year old who will probably be six feet tall based on how much she needs to eat. 

To keep their snacks from completely taking over our pantry (which is also medium sized), I made two small sections for them. 
The first is an easily accessible plastic container that holds some of their everyday “at home” snacks.

The other section is on the top shelf which holds their “in the car” snacks. 

We have a 30 minute commute to and from work/school during the week so I make sure to have snacks for them in the car. This is mainly for after school when they are ravenous little monsters that would probably eat my car tires if I came empty handed. 

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I even have a small section in the fridge for their cold snacks.

For me, organizing their snack foods like this allows me to see when I am getting low on something and can add it to the grocery list.


Which is the perfect segue into my next topic.

Generally household organization:

On our fridge we keep two magnetic “organizers” that help us maintain the façade of being perfectly sane members of society.  

The first is a grocery list. 
When something gets low, it goes on the list and I grab it on the next grocery pick up.

The second is a calendar which allows us to keep a full 6 week view of what is coming up in
our lives. 
Both of these are dry erase magnetic boards so you reuse them over and over again.

I swear by these! 

We have another small dry erase board for "things to do/get around the house" and also use it to write down which kid has had what medicine and when so we don't accidently give them anything twice. 


The Bathroom:

 I found this wonderful shower caddy at Walmart ages ago and it holds the soaps, wash cloths, and other miscellaneous bath time items. 

This next little gem was found recently at Target and holds their bath toys, but the best part….

It has holes in the bottom so the water can actually run out!

The Car:

Toys, books, shoes, OH MY!
The inside of my car certainly isn’t in Kansas anymore. 


I have the most wonderful organizer in the car that sits in between both car seats and holds toys, books, more toys and books, and honestly God only knows what else because who knows what they throw in there. It is within reach for both of them and once a month I will “refresh” the books that are in there to keep it interesting.

On the floorboard in the backseat sits another glorious Dollar Tree plastic bin that holds all of their shoes. We don’t wear shoes in the house and this keeps their primarily used shoes in the car and away from our carpet.
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Hopefully you will find some of these helpful in your day to day routine.

Please feel free to comment below with other organizing tips you like to use at home and help parents everywhere fight the battle against children's clutter!