Outer wear for 11

That could actually be for 13 because B. and A. I'm pretty sure have not collected their coats and such yet. Today was the day. The temperature is the in the 30's and all the gear was still stowed away in the basement with just light jackets hanging up in the mudroom.

Want to see what this chore looks like?

First of all, the gear needs to be brought up from the basement. I have boots, coats, light jackets, and snow pants sorted and tied into large IKEA bags. Gloves, hats, and scarves are sorted and stored in boxes. We brought up all that, plus we gathered all the coats that were currently in the mudroom and added them to the pile. I find it easiest to work in a large room, then we sort each person's supplies into separate piles. Anything outgrown, with no one left to grow into it, gets put in another pile. 

Here is the beginning.

Then item by item, we empty the bags and boxes. First people find what they used last year and try it on. We had good news in the coats and snow pants categories, as everyone's still fit from last year. (Well, except D. I'm afraid he may need all new this year.) If someone's didn't fit, then we search through what we have and look for the next size up.

This is in the middle of the sorting process.

Finally, everyone gathers their stuff so it can be put away and I make a list as to what each person is missing. It wasn't too bad this year. A couple of pairs of boots, a hat, and some good mittens.

This is the sorted piles that people are beginning to gather up.

While all this was going on, TM tackled the mud room for me. He completely emptied it, then cleaned it, and sorted  and organized things back in. In the picture below, each person has two assigned hooks for their coats and snow pants. (I still need to put my coats as well as J.'s coats on the hooks. That's why it looks so empty.)

Mittens, gloves, and hats are always a problem. What do you do with so many of them? Each year I seem to come up with a different system. Here's this year's. Each of those black bins holds two people's hats and gloves. (Adults keep theirs someplace else and probably P. will, too.)

Then I wrote each child's name on clothespins. The top of the bins will hold the clothespins when they are empty.

Then the clothespins get attached to each child's items to both keep them together and to identify it. I have no illusions that this will work at all, and my winter will be spent holding random single gloves and asking whose it is. But I can try.

On the other side is a basket that will hold people's scarves. (Underneath are larger baskets where adult items live.)

So that all looks good. However this is still all the stuff to put away elsewhere which came out of the mudroom, and all the adult coats to put away, and all the gear which is not being used this year needs to be repacked and put into the basement. It's a long process.

Here is what my kitchen table looked like after TM was done organizing. Most of those items came out of the mudroom and now need new homes.