blooming in the gravel: What do I do with all this stuff?

Christmas this year was nice. We spend our holiday with my family up in GB. We were even able to make it to my Grandmas annual festivities on Christmas Eve. It went a little something like this; Food, presents, drinks, presents... Repeat. We stayed as late as we could with our two littles at GG Vi's house. I'm actually proud to say we walked out of there around mid-night with no major melt downs;) Thank God.

At both family gatherings we enjoyed the gift exchange where you pick from the pile or steal one; we came home with some sweet entertainment/kitchen items :)

The day after Christmas my parents and my brothers’ family joined us for some fun at the new Green Bay Children’s Museum to celebrate Josh’s second birthday. We took tons of pics and video of the cousins. Of course we made some great memories and fun was had by all.

Later that night, Mom had my brother and his family over as well as my grandparents for dinner. It was there, that evening, that overwhelming sense of, “holy crap, we got A LOT OF STUFF” set in for me, again. Don't get me wrong, all great stuff, just so much of it.

That night as my kids tore into another massive pile of presents from Gaga and Papa ( I don’t know who had more fun, the kids or Gaga;), but I was reminded of that mom who took all of her kids’ toys away, remember her? After getting so sick and tired of picking toys up all the time, she took them all away. It was quite controversial when she first posted it. You can read it here: http://www.livingwellspendingless.com/2012/09/14/why-i-took-all-my-kids-toys-away-why-they-wont-get-them-back/ She started noticing that her kids were not appreciating the things they had because they just had too much.stuff. Instead of being thankful, they would be concerned, somehow with getting more instead of enjoying the sweet moments with each other. Maybe that sounds a little heart less, to take all their toys away, but I get why she did it. I should mention this is also based on a conversation I had with my beloved as we reminisced about our favorite toys growing up. We had a fraction of the amount of toys kids have these days, and just as much fun, if not more. Granted it was another era and things were safer, less complicated and far less technologically driven. But still, why do they need so many toys?

I would be curious to hear what you all thought about it…Maybe I'm the only one who is not doing this? I've decided to call it " 2014: Project Simplify" as a kind of experiment to see what they'll do. What kind of behavior will I see? Could it be possible that my kids might learn to appreciate the things they have more, or even discover a whole world of fun by using more of their imagination? I was even thinking that maybe I would see more creative problem solving skills and longer attention spans if there were less distraction. Here goes nothing!

(had I been a bit more patient, I would have taken a before picture of the kids messy play area, and placed it here;)

Looking back over this last year It seems like I spend more time trying to keep all their stuff organized in neatly, labeled boxes then actually watching and or playing with said toys. Pathetic. They take something out and then get side tracked with all the options and rarely come back to what they started doing in the first place. I don’t know about your kids, but mine don’t love putting their toys away either. When I whip out the ol’ “Its, time to clean up,” jingle, its hit or miss if they jump to action and actually sing the tune as we put the toys away. The problem in my opinion is there is just too much stuff! It’s all so distracting and overwhelming. Caleb always says he needs help when its time to clean up. No kidding, honey. One look at the tornado in our living room or downstairs play-area would make anyone cry for help. Where do we even start?

I started a trial period yesterday. First, I took all of their neatly labeled boxes from the playroom into my office. I sifted through them, picked a bunch that will, "take a break" on the shelves, then put the boxes back in there place.

Here are all the toys taking a break.

Yet, another year has come and gone. This New Year we enjoyed a lively gathering of friends and all of our kiddos. I think the highlight of my night was watching the “balloons” drop for the boys Happy New year celebrations. Becky staged a fantastic ceremony complete with noise makers for the boys at around 9pm. Beautiful chaos.