A Bundle of Myrrh

 

You got kids, you got toys, you got toys you got mess. The mess we had was driving me to fits. I try to stay on the babies to pick up and we were doing okay with this, at least in our living room, but the downstairs and bedrooms were chaos. Pieces everywhere. I’ve been getting much better at taking toys to Goodwill after we’ve played with them enough and this has helped and I attempted to put some away “for later,” but I forget to get the “later” toys out and the “now” toys just kept growing. I needed to come up with something different. Kids and life create enough mess and stuff without the toys adding to it. I had to simplify and really getting rid of ALL the toys did cross my mind, but probably wasn’t the best plan.

Then I found it, a way to control the crazy that toys can create. I didn’t come up with this on my own. I searched and searched and have been so glad to have discovered this great Toy Rotation System!

I bought some 58 qt sized bins, sorted the toys into what we would keep then divided them between the bins.

I wanted to contain the toys that had lots of pieces so I’m just using what I have on hand for now. Don’t ask what a 4 qt container of Vanilla ice cream is doing in my house and how it managed to be empty. I’m sure I had NOTHING to do with that.

I don’t have enough containers (or space to store them) for each day of the week, so for now one bin comes out 1-2 days a week, then another one the next day etc.. The kiddos play with whatever is in that one bin for the day, then after supper we pick up (clean up has become easier too since everything goes in ONE place!).

Then the bin goes in the hall closet. I’m glad we have one big enough for all of them.

I’m also using a smaller bin for the girls to keep all of their art supplies. I used to have all this up high but got really tired of being the only one who could reach it. So now this bin stays on top of the toys bins up high enough that Esther can’t get in it, but low enough that the others can. Way better for all of us!

 

I’m on a continual search to simplify other things around the house but I’m so glad this one area is off my plate…for now at least.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2012 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Figuring It Out, Organizing or Agonizing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.