Explosion!!!!

So I had this insane idea the other day that I was going to go through the entire house and either donate or toss every item that we do not need. I have been going through every closet, drawer, cabinet and any other place that items have been shoved for the past 2 years that we have been in this house. Some how this plan has left my house in more of a mess than when I began. I am feeling like there is no end in sight and about ready to throw in the towel.

I have to keep telling myself how much better a clutter free home is going to be for the family. I think that with 6 people there really is no choice but to live in a clutter free and very organized home. I am so tired of digging for things that the kids can't find, searching for hours for a particular paper that has to go to school the next morning and trying to find that stupid other shoe.

In the great "Clutter Free Meinnert House" project, my biggest thing was to go through our mountain of toys. For the last year I have been really trying to make our toys more about quality rather than quantity. So this time around I have really been clearing out the plastic and battery operated toys and only leaving behind the quiet and natural ones. Over the last few days I have really been seeing my kids play more kindly with each other! I love it they are coming up with awesome games and really using their imaginations to create fun from the toys that have been allowed to stay. This was made even more clear when I opened a bin of toys last night and I found their V-Smile. They asked if they could play it so I hooked it up, even with 2 controllers and 2 kids they immediately started arguing over the game. After 3 times of trying to work it out between them and nothing was helping I walked over to the tv and disconnected the video game. I think this is another toy that will find itself on CraigsList.

Since they were so agreeable about purging the toys they had a great treat today. We went to the library and they were allowed to each check out a toy from the "toy library" that I just discovered. How awesome is that, now we can rotate toys around but I don't have to worry about storing them because they just go back to the library in 4 weeks! This toy library is awesome, it is full of wooden trucks, cars, puzzles, ride on toys and so much more!