Mission: Reorganization

The bug bites me every few months to reorganize. We do a daily cleaning of the house, mostly the lived-in areas, but it still gets crazy. After the party last weekend, and the boys' amazing haul of cool birthday presents, I decided it was time to move less-frequently-played-with toys to the basement. (Note I say "less frequently played with because hubby fought me saying that, "they still play with this", "they use this", "he needs things to do!". I'm a pack-rat, so purging, even moving it out of sight is a big deal for me. I told him he couldn't fight me on it, and we needed to move toys out so they could enjoy a little change).

I think a good sign of needing to reorganize is when I caught Small Fry standing in his brother's bin of Cars toys.


It helped that my awesome neighbor pointed out that there was a Cars playroom set on clearance at Toys R Us this week for only $40! It is a 20-piece-set and nicely constructed. I didn't know how I'd use all of the pieces, but it was worth it for the table and stools, toy box and storage bins alone!

I started to assemble it this morning, and the Monkey was so excited about his new table, so while I was still cleaning, he decided to color (I like how he's currently ambidextrous - a crayon in each hand!).


The big goal aside from getting rid of toys was to get rid of the baby gate. I hate it, but it was nice to keep the kids away from the entertainment center. But there was a 3'x2' space where I could easily toss toys to keep them away from the boys, but it got messy, annoying, and the giant bookshelf that housed their toys was inaccessible to them. So I wanted to make it all kid friendly.

The baby gate.

I moved a lot of books to Small Fry's room, he's really getting into books, which is so cool, because if you know the Monkey, he's OBSESSED with reading and it's nice to have it rub off on his brother. I got rid of junk, garbage, non-used things, and consolidated art supplies, coloring books, organized toys into appropriate bins, etc. The bookshelf is ready to use, and the gate has gone away! (I roped the entertainment center doors and drawers shut though, that will be nice).


I also reorganized the rest of the family room, moving around toys and making room for the table and chairs. I also filled the new toy chest with all of the Monkey's Thomas the Tank Engine trains. They are getting a little out of hand, so the organization was nice. He has all the trains in his Thomas-shaped suitcase (a Christmas present from Grandma!), and then all the track, buildings, accessories in the toy box).



Another thing I wanted to do was to sort out the play kitchen food. This is a great toy, and it's in the "living room", the boys will wander in there and we're not always right there to watch them. A few weeks ago, Small Fry got a fake scoop of ice cream stuck in his mouth. It was too big to choke on, but just the right size to get stuck in his mouth, behind his 4 1/2 little teeth. He was bright red and panicking when I found him and I freaked. Thankfully we got it out, but I put away all the food until I could sort it better. So today I bagged up all the choking hazard/small pieces and put them in a baby-proof bin. The bigger stuff was put in a bin, and I stocked the play kitchen shelves. They've already tested it out.


And last, but NOT least, I got new silverware organization! I forgot to take a before picture, but it was a typical, white-plastic silverware organizer that I hated. It was way too small to hold our silverware, the Monkey's "in-between" silverware and Small Fry's spoons. So I splurged and got some cool stuff.


Apparently though, I still need to organize the drawer next to the silverware - the miscellaneous cooking utensil drawer.


It was a great day, I'm exhausted, didn't even spend too long in the studio tonight. I'm going to catch up on Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice and crochet, woohoo!