Sunday, April 10, 2011

Project Simplify Hot Spot#5

It is 2:30 am on the last day for Project Simplify results submission. I have finally had my tax return finished and could write down how we did on Hot Spot 5. 


During Hot Spot 3, I have already decided that I would work with my kids on their toys this week because this is their spring break. I was planning to do that plus the week 5 hot spot. I was thrilled to learn that we get to choose our own!


So, here it is.


It's a battle ground


It is a common scene - I started doing something in the kitchen and let my toddler roam free in the living room. Before that, her brothers left a few boxes of toys out:

Though messy, some of these toys are easy to put away: the marble race, the kitchen play things, the stuffies; you know, anything that you can put a name and group them all. It is the knick knacks kind of toys that bother me the most - never seem to find a place to hold them and they just end up on the kitchen counter, on the bookshelves, on top of a cabinet or under any furniture that has legs.


The Treasure Hunt




So, we started off on Tuesday and Wednesday with the "treasure hunt". The boys and I try at our best to dig out all those toys or missing parts from under the bed, the dresser, behind the books etc. And here is what we ended up with:


On Thursday, we went through all of these and I am proud that they are willing to gave up these:
It is not much comparing to what we kept. But, I am glad that most of the knick knack kind of toys are gone!


Here is what we kept in our living room now:
The toy rack from my toddler's room
which will soon become her dad's office
These also serve as temporary child-proof "structures"
The "sets" are those in clear boxes with closure:
From Top: Kitchen set, trains, blocks
with marble race next to them
dominos and race cars tracks

Hopefully, I could keep these boxes closed when not in use and only have one open at one time... 


Well, these are hardly all of their toys. They still have a box of legos, 2 boxes of stuff animals and another box of race car tracks under their bed! But I think it was a good start. I am especially proud of my oldest child. He got so emotional when I first talked to him about giving away toys. But in the end he was able to let go quite some of it. I hope this process will also help them (and ourselves too) to resist impulsively buying toys. The less we have the easier is the clean up!

2 comments:

  1. Awesome!! You got rid of a lot of toys!! I'm with you on hating those knick-knacky misc. toys.

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  2. Thank you. But now a few days later, it's more like - we sorted out a lot of toys... Many of them remain on my kitchen floor!

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