Sep 29, 2009

Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere

Last night I asked the boys to empty out the toy bins in the den and start making some hard decisions.

They know what THAT means. We do it every year, the week before Nicholas' birthday. They have to say goodbye to lots of toys in order to make room for all the new ones they'll receive for Nick's birthday in October, closely followed by Nathaniel's and Jesus's birthdays in December.

Operation Toy Purge is never painless.

Last night after we started pulling everything out of the bins, I said, "I'm going up to take my shower, and I'll be back down in 20 minutes. Sort through the toys, and put everything you're willing to sell in the yard sale on the kitchen floor. I'll come back down and we'll go through what you've chosen in 20 minutes."

I left them with this:



And I came back to this:


Five items, one of which is a "first reader" that we're keeping. WE HAVE A LONG WAY TO GO.

8 comments:

Rachel said...

You go mama! We did this last week. It wasn't painless here either.

RLR said...

We did this before our garage sale in June, and I ended up weeding out a lot on my own. We had the benefit (blessing!) of using our neighbor's empty garage, so I just took things next door to hide away until garage sale day. The kids didn't even get to look at what I'd put over there - and they haven't missed a bit of it!

Sarah T. said...

You rearranged your living room!

Katherine @ Grass Stains said...

Ryan Leigh, The deal we made with the boys is that they get to keep some of the money we make from selling their toys. So I can't hide any of what we decide to sell (ie, choose some "extra" toys to sell), because they'll be manning their own table out there and will see everything that goes out.

SET, yep, we swapped the desk and toy bins. Next up, everything else (on Thursday). Pictures to be posted this weekend, hopefully.

Sabrina said...

That is so funny! We are doing the same this week at our house.

Debbie @ The Shabby Bungalow said...

Bless their cotton socks :)Hopefully they will add some more for the sale. Thanks for popping by my blog :)

Ashley @ AshleysBusy said...

Ha! I don't have kids yet, but this still really tickled me. Sometimes I see houses with SO MANY toys and I think that there's no way that the kids can possibly play with every single one. Even so, it's hard to let go. ;)

melanie said...

You are my hero! My Jake's toy box is still in his closet. As you know he is 18. I am afraid...very afraid of what is in there. I guess I will purge it...oh, who knows when?

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