OH How I Hate This Chore

Every spring and fall, we do our clothes rotation.

You know, having all children of the same sex is really the most economical way to have kids. That is why we chose to have three girls. (o:

We really get our money's worth with the girls' clothing.

And if you add to that the fact that my awesome aunt had three girls too and passes all her clothes that made it through her girls to us - we are really doing a lot of recycling for the planet.

Some of the clothes Angela wears has been worn by 5 other girls! It's pretty cool when I think of it. I am very sentimental and LOVE that she is wearing the same outfit that Hailey, Lindsay, Carly, Sarah and Natalie have all worn too. (And sometimes my cousin Mary too!) Most of these items that made it this far are dresses and shirts. And now when Angela outgrows things - they move on to her younger cousins. Maybe a future daughter of Sarah will end up with something she wore if we keep it going and in the family long enough! (o: Ha!

Anyway, every time the weather changes I cringe because I know it's time to rotate the kids wardrobe. With fall and school approaching, it was time to pull out those fall/winter clothes and put away the spring/summer clothes.

And it's not even that simple. Here in Oregon the weather fluctuates a lot in the fall and spring. So for example, in September I can't put away all the summer clothes, I always leave a few out because we inevitably have several summer weather days even through October. But there's not room for all the winter clothes AND some summer clothes, so I leave the coldest weather clothes in the attic until the end of October when I know we aren't going to need shorts/capris anymore. Then I do another day of shifting to the complete winter wardrobe. And the same goes for switching to summer.

Then there's the organizing and rotating sizes for the girls - going through what is worn out, needing mending* or needing to be donated or thrown away. AND the fact that I have TWICE as much laundry to do for the week. Ugh. The picture above is what my room looked like for a week. Piles shifting, growing, shrinking, moving so we can sleep, etc.

*funny side note - the things that need mending often go on this shelf in my closet and spend about 2 months or more waiting for me to do something about it. Hmmm. Just like everything else in my life, it seems.

But this is the lovely closet in Natalie and Angela's room after all my hard work. Ahhh. I LOVE an organized closet. And it really is a rare thing - thus the Kodak moment. I had all the church dresses, play dresses, skirts, sweaters, etc. hanging together. If only for a day or three.