toys, toys, toys

Last night Richard was working late, yes again, so I decided it was a prime opportunity to do some cleaning of the boys toys. We have toys in the living room, the play room, upstairs, in Blake's room and in Colby's room. For the most part everything is pretty organized, and the things in the living room are pretty much put away and almost out of sight... well almost.

The motivation this time was puzzles that Blake has been playing with, and well Colby's been dumping out. My parents brought over some puzzles that they had from my childhood. Blake has loved putting together the wooden puzzles. But, the puzzles were housed in a plastic tote and Colby would pull out puzzle after puzzle and dump them all over the floor. This meant that I then have to sort through and re-make all the puzzles.

So what's a mommy to do?? Put the puzzles into a drawer of the entertainment center (yes their toys have taken over the entertainment center too). In order to do that I had to take out some baby toys, which much to Richard's chigrin are now in the garage awaiting the yard sale we will have someday.

I then decided to move things around a bit. I try to swap things around from time to time. It's amazing how something that has been ignored in one space becomes a fantastic find when it's in a new location. It will be a lot better in a few months when Colby will be a bit bigger and can play with all of the toys. It get challenging trying to keep the little things out of his reach as his reach keeps getting higher.

Are we the only crazy parents who have toys everywhere? Do you swap things around in your house to keep things interesting? What do you do with the things your kiddos outgrow?
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16 comments:

  1. We have toys all over our house- it drives my hubby nuts. But I don't really know what else to do. We have a kitchen play set in the kitchen, arts/craft/coloring type things in the dinning room, way too many toys in the living room, toys on the sun porch, toys outside, toys in their bedrooms, - pretty much toys everywhere. I try to clean up and arrange/rearrange to make it better, but it always ends up in a mess. When I put outgrown things way, I either give it away, throw away (if broken or too worn), or pack it in a box and hopefully figure out what to do with it one day......

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  2. I rotate their toys too. Very good idea to keep things fresh and fun for them without breaking the bank.

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  3. Ah that sounds like my life. toys everywhere, Jillian getting into all sorts of things that she's not really "playing" with. (I mean I know in her world it is playing but still), and not knowing what to do with them all. I usually go through every so often and take them to the local Salvation Army type of place. I feel bad getting rid of them because they are still in such great shape but if we kept them all....yikes! Rotating does help some. Good luck!

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  4. We too have toys everywhere.. when we get our house, I hope to not do that... we'll see though.. you know how mommies are..

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  5. We have a space under the stairs with shelves and that became the "toy closet." Most of the toys went there.

    My then toddler son had a crate filled with most of his toys, and the oldest son's toys were in his room, put where he could reach them but his brother couldn't.

    We had certain designated rooms where they could play with their toys, and we had three toy pickups a day: before lunch, before dinner, before bed.

    They also had to put a toy away when they were finished before taking out another way to play with. So they only played with one toy at a time (unless the toys went together as a set).

    There is a whole post on my blog about how I trained them to manage their toys. I just couldn't take all that toy clutter, lol!

    Yes, I rotated toys too.

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  6. BTW, do you know if you assign a number to each puzzle, and mark the back of the puzzle board and then mark the back of the puzzle pieces themselves it will make cleanup easier?

    That way you can tell at a glance which puzzle a piece goes to.

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  7. Sorry, this is Nan posting here and the blog post I mentioned is on my personal blog, not the Five Moms.

    ~ Nan

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  8. Oh yes, toys all over. I really should go thru and sort out the baby stuff and other junk. We have a large space upstairs for a living area and i'd love to move everything in there but I know Wy would never play up there anyway.

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  9. We have toys everywhere, yes! DH doesn't understand that the kids are going to want to be wherever we are and they need to have toys in a few different places. He thinks that the toys should always be put away....just never gonna happen. I try to get everything put away at two times during the day: naptime and bedtime.

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  10. I'm sitting in my living room looking at toys lined up against the wall as I type.

    Of course they're in every other room of the house too...even our bedroom.

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  11. haha, nope! We have toys hiding everywhere too!!

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  12. Ugh, toys, I need to take care of some before I hit the hay...

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  13. I try to also do that once a month.. It can really get out of hand if you don't. :o)

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  14. I'm feeling the toys situations. I just dropped the girls at my mom's house to clean the our home in preparation for a bridal shower this weekend (guess I shouldn't be on the computer). I am totally overwhelmed by the plethora of toys strewn about my home. It doesn't help that Stella is in everything now so stuff gets dumped and then the dog takes it and chews it up. As for what I do with the outgrown toys it depends. If it is not high, quality worthy of saving in case I'm crazy enough to have a third I usually donate it to people less fortunate or to Madison's preschool. I tried saving stuff once for a yard sale but the yard sale never happened.

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  15. yes i live in toys r us! i try to rotate as best i can, but i don't have a lot of storage space!

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  16. i try to rotate too. and keep things some what cleaned up. but i feel i fail more than anything at that!

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