Four children in one room, that’s right.

The kids’ room is some variation of 10’x10′.  Might be 10’x11′.  It’s been a while since I’ve measured it.

The view from the door.  Yup, that’s maybe two feet of clearance from the door to the foot of the bunk beds.

View from over in front of/in the closet.  Sorry, it’s blurry. 

More of the room.  Yup, fan in the window to cool down the room in March (we heat with wood, it happens).  One dresser per child.  That tall one by the window?  Is the first of four.  Have another I need to stain and assemble, then need to take a trip to Ikea and get a few more.  If the kids’ clothes don’t fit into their dresser?  They have too many clothes.  Hence why we need different dressers – the small ones are beginning to be old and busted, and the kids’ clothes aren’t getting any smaller.  The 10yo has the dresser farthest away, the 7yo is the middle, 5yo is the low one.

The hamper is between that short third dresser and the wall.  Every inch in this poor house…  Then the left side of the closet.  It’s where sweatshirts/light jackets/occasional church shirt/dresses are hung.  Tub is shoes in non-current sizes.  The gray bins up top?  One has double sheets, one has twin sheets.  I have a laughable linen closet in the hallway.  Thinking of putting the kids’ suitcases from Grandma up there instead of that blanket to free up more space in the basement.

Right side of the closet.  The door’s basically behind those Legos.  I have no idea what’s in that rattan basket, I should probably find out.  Then it’s the wall of Legos.  The special sets that don’t get thrown into the giant tub (that we take to our homeschool co-op since I teach Lego class there).  And because my house is never Martha Stewart perfect, random barstools and bedding the kids have left lying around.

Despite the snug quarters?  This is what we find half the time.  They adore cuddling much of the time.  This was tonight, after all was quiet in the bedroom.  I think the 4yo’s in the trundle, the rest are in the double.

My own complaint logistic-wise is that after having this for years, I would’ve preferred twin/twin/trundle – less sheet sizes to deal with.  And changing bunk sheet suuuucks.  Until you make the kids do it, and the boys discover a novel way of getting to the far corners.  They move out the trundle a little, the 7yo gets under the double, and kicks up the mattress to make it easier to get the corner of the fitted sheet on.  Smart little buggers.  😀

First off, let’s start with some down home goodness.
Three guesses as to which retail establishment this vehicle was parked outside of.

Yup, that’s a ratchet tie-down cable (or whatever they’re called).  From wheel well to wheel well.  Ah, at least the spirit of DIY is alive and good.  And giving me a bit of a giggle. 

Along the same lines, you know much of a pain in the ass it is to find little bins like these?  Well, I found some, but not in the cheery white.  Ah well, nothing’s perfect.  I called half a dozen stores, looked it up online (Sterilite model #1622 in case you were wondering), and hunted through a few other stores in person.  Ugh.

I also managed to make my first little I-Spy jar.  Well, ornament.  I figured it’d fit into my purse or wherever much easier than a bulkier water bottle/jar.  Plus it’s just cute.  Now to glue the top on semi-permanently so the 3yo and 2yo don’t go hog wild dumping rice out in places.

My laundry monster.  This is my king sized bed, btw.  There really is *that* much laundry on it.
Recent discussion at my house:
My mom:  Ah, laundry, the gift that keeps on giving.
Me:  And giving and giving and giving.  *snort*

Made these for the 5yo, 3yo and 2yo the other day (8yo wasn’t feeling well).  They were enthralled, it was cute.  Hey, whatever it takes to get them to eat the good stuff.  Plus those are really cute.

Homemade cheesy crackers.  There’s 5 ingredients, they taste like cheezits.  But without some of those pesky ingredients like dyes or whatever.  And these are much more unique – none of that all-square nonsense.  Teehee.

Tonight’s dinner was cheesy broccoli rice.  Sigh.  I thought it was good.  The kids… turned their nose up at it.  Grrr.  How annoying.  The 8yo wants the cheesy broccoli rice from packets.  He’ll just have to deal with the change, or have an empty tummy some of the time.

So with the leftovers I made these adorable little guys.  Individual side-dish servings of the rice.  We’ll see how that works.  Yes, I know they’re funny looking, but I didn’t feel like trying to put muffin tins in the freezer to IQF.  That takes up valuable real estate!

In fun, putting-the-house-together-finally kind of news, I got two quilt covers to try out.
This pretty floral number…

And this stripey tan floral number.  I’ll let you guess which one I prefer.

Waiting on hubby’s opinion before I officially keep one to use.  I know, some folks change their bedding every time the wind changes.  Only reason we’re doing something else is that our current one we got for $9 from JCPenney has schitzo batting that keeps bunching up in bad places and going flat in more important places.  So we’re going to be looking at whatever we choose for a good decade or so.