Hats and Mittens

Keeping track of hats and mittens for five little boys is a real challenge. Actually, I'm surprised we don't lose more mittens and gloves! Earlier this year when the winter gear went on clearance I went and bought several sets of gloves, mittens, and hats.

The problem is multiplied by the number of people we have and the fact that we have to keep track of more than one pair of gloves for each person. We have lighter weight gloves for when it's not too cold and super thick, waterproof mittens for playing in the snow. Each person has at least two pair plus a hat. Except for me, I don't have a hat... I look silly in a hat. I only wear one if I'm shoveling (which isn't often) and then I'll only wear it if it's dark!

We've tried storing these items in a basket but then it's a pain to find the matching sets. If it takes each person 2 minutes to find matching mittens we'll always be 16 minutes late wherever we go! Sometimes, when we're out and about especially, we just stuff them in the kids sleeves, but that's not a very good long term solution. One of my friends, who also has six kids, custom built lockers in their back entry. Since we don't have lockers, I had to come up with a better storage solution for our back hall. I considered my options all summer then last week I found one of these plastic shoe organizers on clearance.
I already had two of these in the house, but one is Roz's and holds her shoes and the other is in the front hall closet full of homeschooling supplies. I think this will help us keep track of gloves, hats, and mittens this winter. I especially like that you can see what's in each pocket and it doesn't take up any extra space in the closet! And look... we even have some empty pockets!! I put the boys stuff down lower so they can reach to both retrieve and put away on their own. Having the clear pockets was helpful so I didn't even have to label the pockets with names.

Now if I could only think of a better way to organize the boots than to just line them up outside in the garage!