Sorry I’ve kinda disappeared for a few days! We have been extremely busy working on our new house, getting it ready for inspection. I can’t wait to tell you guys all about it when it’s finished. We bought this home back in March, as a foreclosure. It was an unbeatable deal, but it definitely needed some working on. Hopefully we are in the last month of fixin’ her up. I’m really hoping to be all moved in by the first of Nov. So, wish us good luck! We’ve got a lot to do still. I’ll be back in with another great post when I get another minute to sit down. Thanks for your patience in the meantime!

As parents, we all make mistakes. Even from infancy a seemingly innocent practice can lead to a really hard habit to break in a very short time. Fortunately, if we start early we can avoid a few common mistakes that parents make which can easily create bad habits in our children. Now, these are not behavioral problems that would warrant discipline. I’m simply talking about kids doing things that aren’t so cute after a while. Here are a few things that I have tried to avoid in my own journey as a Mother, things that reinforce bad habits in children. Some I have had to learn the hard way!

1. Letting your child sleep in the bed with you.

Now, before I get a bunch of comments from all of you who co-sleep, let me explain myself. I don’t see anything wrong with responsibly sleeping with baby. I did it with both of mine for the first three months, and it was wonderful. It becomes a problem, however, when you allow baby to sleep with you for much longer than this. The longer baby sleeps with you, the harder it is for him/her to learn to sleep independently. I’ve seen it lots of times. And, sorry to say it, most of the time the co-sleeping continues because for Mom it’s easier, or it just feels good. This is selfish. You are developing insecurity in your child. And believe me, the longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be to stop the habit.

I had a single-mom friend who had her little girl in the bed with her from the time she was born. By the time her child was 3 years old, Mom was ready to have her bed back. But by then, the habit had been long nurtured, and wasn’t going to go away so easily. For many nights she tried laying her daughter down in her own bed, but by the middle of the night, the little girl had wandered back into Mommy’s bed where she stayed until morning. If Mom tried to put the girl back in her own bed, she cried and screamed and fought until her exhausted mother gave in. The frustrated Mom didn’t know what to do, and the poor little girl didn’t understand why all of a sudden she wasn’t allowed to sleep in the comforts of Mommy’s bed as she always had. Sleeping in a whole different room, in a cold and lonely bed (in her mind), was too intimidating for the toddler.

It is so unfair for you to do this to your child. So, start off right by forming good sleeping habits early. Co-sleeping for breastfeeding or whatever early on is great. But by 3 months a baby can sleep 8 hours through the night. Don’t make it harder for your child then it has to be. Teach them to be able to comfortably go to sleep on their own, in their own bed. Believe me, you’ll all get a better night’s sleep!

2. Using “White Noise” to help your child go to sleep.

When you put your baby to sleep, don’t debilitate him/her by creating a sleep crutch. Insisting that you turn on a fan, white noise machine, music, or some other sound in order to help your child go to sleep faster is only creating a bad habit. I’m not saying that you should NEVER do it. There are times, like when you have noisy guests over, or are at somebody else’s house, when using a pleasant sound is good for helping to drown out the background noise that would otherwise keep baby awake. But you should put your child to bed without a noise for the majority of the time, so that he learns to put himself to sleep in the silence of his own room.

My husband is a prime example of this. He simply cannot go to sleep without a fan or something creating a low humming sound. If we sleep somewhere away from home, where there is nothing to make a white noise, he tosses and turns and goes crazy in the silence.

My dad also told me of a man on his softball team who has this same problem. Every time they have a game out of town, this man brings a small fan with him, just so he can go to sleep. There is no reason to create this stumbling block in your own child’s life.

3. Using a baby wipes warmer.

Sure it sounds like a pleasant thing to wipe your new little baby’s soft tushy with a soft, warm baby wipe. And I’m sure that baby loves the feeling of it. But what happens when you are out to eat and you have to change baby in the bathroom using a little pack of room temperature travel wipes. I’ll tell you what happens. Baby is suddenly shocked at the cold thing wiping her bottom, and cries in protest wishing for the cozy warm wipes that she’s so used to.

I’ve never had a baby cry about being wiped with baby wipes right out of the box when that was all they had ever known. There is no need to create this habit of needing to have warmed up wipes. In my mind, it’s simply overindulgence, and when reality hits baby is confused and upset.

4. Allowing your child to carry around a special blanket or stuffed animal everywhere you go.

Limit it to bedtime only. If you allow your child to carry his special thing around with him everywhere you go, you create several problems: If you forget to bring it in the car with you, you will have to deal with your child being upset about not having it. If you accidentally leave it out wherever you were, your child will be devastated to have lost it. And, your child will become dependent on this thing to bring him comfort throughout the day. You want to teach your child to depend on the Lord, not on material things.

** Let me say it again; some of you seem to be misunderstanding, or just not completely reading what I’ve written. I’m not against a child having a comfort item. My own little one has a special blanket that he would carry everywhere if I let him. My suggestion is merely not to allow them to form the habit of carrying it around with him every single place he goes.

5. Feeing your child off your plate.

Seems innocent enough, right? But I promise you, if you begin feeding your child off of your own plate every now and then, you will soon create a little beggar. You will not be able to sit down for one little snack without your little one toddling over, climbing up in your lap, and begging for a bite of whatever you have. You will never be able to eat in peace again if you start this habit! If you think your child is hungry, sit him down at the table with his own plate of food to eat from.

6. Never making your child drink plain water.

For whatever reason, when we would run out of juice I would always find myself apologizing to my daughter as I handed her a cup of water saying, “I’m sorry baby. We don’t have any juice. We only have water.” When one day it dawned on me… what a terrible message I was sending her! I should never be apologizing for giving her such a wonderful drink as the one that the Lord intended to quench our thirst. After that revelation, I decided I was not going to buy juice any more. I started giving my children cups of ice water instead, and now they love it, and even ask for it! Drinking water is a wonderful habit to instill in your child, so don’t feel bad about it!

7. Cutting the crust off the bread; always peeling apple slices.

Just because you didn’t like eating the crust when you were a kid doesn’t mean that you should start this habit in your own kids! You are only creating picky eaters. If they don’t like it, they can eat around it. You have too much to do in a day, you don’t need to waste your time slicing the crust off a sandwich! The same goes for peeling apples. Unless it’s for your baby who can’t chew up the peeling yet, let them eat around it it they don’t like it.

These are just a few innocent mistakes that we all easily make with our children. I’m sure there are a billion more that I haven’t mentioned. But just keep in mind that it’s easier to create bad habits then to break them. The point of this post is to encourage you to avoid these problems, and fix them if they have already begun, before they get out of hand and become a nuisance.

If you want to share any tips or stories that you may have about creating bad habits in our children, I’d love to hear from you! I’m sure there is a lot that I can learn from you as well!

It’s that time again! Time for another week of minimizing our homes… clearing out the clutter in order to free our homes from the burden of too much stuff!

I feel like I should take today’s post to explain the point of Minimizing Mondays for the newbies. This isn’t meant to simply be motivation to organize your things. What this is about is living with less! Not simply clearing out a junk drawer, but actually getting rid of things that are taking up space in your home but serving no real purpose, yes, even possibly things that you like but don’t necessarily need. I am here to inspire you to let go of the material things in your home that are cluttering up your life and taking valuable time away from your family.

Let me explain that. Having tons of clothes leads to piles and piles of dirty laundry to wash. Cabinets overloaded with cups, dishes, and tupperware containers cause you to waste time digging through them looking for one particular item. Shelves lined with doo-dads and whatchamacallit’s take plenty of time dusting and cleaning around. An excess of kid’s toys all over the floor… how many times do you clean them up every day? All of these things, when in overabundance, cause waste of time in our lives. I am urging you to rethink what you actually NEED in your home, not just what you like to be able to say you HAVE.

So, when I give a challenge, it is not merely to organize what you have (though it is wonderful to have your things nice and tidy and in their place), I am provoking you to rethink what you actually keep in your home and allow to take up space in your life. So don’t just rearrange the shirts in your closet… get rid of half of them! Don’t simply find a creative way to store the ridiculous amount of toys in your home… donate the majority of them, your kids won’t die, I promise!! Getting the gist of it? Less, less, less!

LIVING WITH LESS!! Free yourselves of the material burdens in your life! Give your time back to your family and kids and off of these things that distract you in little ways every day. Now, go for it!! I want to hear what you think and how you’re putting these thoughts into action in your own home! Let’s continue inspiring each other to have less and live more!!

Although I’ve been teaching Jada really since she was an infant, now that she is technically “school age” I really want to make sure that I’m giving her a well-rounded education. I’ve been searching for a good First Grade Curriculum, as Jada is already pretty much through Kindergarten level academics. I’m just not even sure where to begin! There are so many different curriculums and publishers, I just can’t tell which one would be good for her. I’ve searched Homeschool forums for advice, but I haven’t found any help.

So, I thought I’d throw the question out there for you, my faithful friends. If any of you have homeschooled, or are homeschooling K-1st grade, do you have any advice for me? I’ve been just printing stuff off the internet, using worksheets from activity books, and pretty much just making up her lesson time as I go. I’d like to have a consistent curriculum for her, one that I know will be thorough.

She is already reading, writing her letters and short words, counting to 100 and doing simple addition. I’m just not sure where to go from here.

Can anyone tell me what I need to be teaching her for K-1st grade?

Do any of you have any suggestions on which books are the best for each subject? I’ve heard that some publishers are better in one subject than another.

Any good websites for printable worksheets??

Hopefully some of you might be able to help guide me along!! Thanks so much for any advice you can offer!

Looking for some great, inexpensive Princess Party ideas? Lucky you! I’ve got some really great ideas to share:

The Invitations:

Be creative in making your party announcement. You could purchase one like the Princess Party Invitation shown above, and add a little pop to it with glitter puffy paint, or by gluing on small rhinestones. Or you could make your own from scratch! For a princess party, you can make it in the shape of Cinderella’s shoe, a castle, like a rolled up scroll, anything like that! I thought it would be cute to send out the invitation like I was inviting each child to a royal ball. Here is what my invitations read:

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Princesses of all the land… Her Royal Highness, Princess Jada, is turning four years old! In celebration of this joyous occasion, the Princess requests the honor of your presence at a royal gala marking her fourth year.

Come One, Come All, in your finest princess attire, to insert place on insert date from insert time. Princess Jada and her royal Court will eagerly be awaiting your arrival! Please ring Queen Kendra to announce if you will be in attendance…

For some printable invitations, see the links at the bottom of this post. I’ve listed several good sites to visit for more Princess Party ideas.

(Me and Princess Jada)

Playing The Part:

Princess parties are so exciting for little girls, because they get a chance to dress up and have fun! Make sure that your little princess has a beautiful dress to wear. Also ask your guests to wear their own princess dress if they have one. Make sure that you have extra dresses and accessories on hand in case one of your guests doesn’t have their own. I had a dress up “station” where there was a little dress up trunk full of outfits, shoes, and jewelry for the girls to play with. What I didn’t have, I borrowed! If you have friends or family with little girls, see if they might have dress up stuff that you can borrow for the party and save yourself some money!

Don’t be afraid to play along too. Any little girl would love to have Mommy dress up along with her. I bought a Cinderella dress to wear as the host of the party. (It was like $30 at Party City, and I actually got my money back out of it by selling it close to Halloween time on ebay!) All of the girls loved that I was dressed up too! And I have to admit, I enjoyed it as well! Jada especially was in awe. She said, “Mommy, you really are Cinderella!” She was so excited!

Make A Cardboard Castle:

Last year I came across this site which showed how to make an awesome castle out of boxes, for under $10! We decided to make one for our daughter’s 4th birthday. She was having a princess party, and we thought this would be an awesome addition to the decor. And since we are all about frugal parties, this came within budget.

It requires several refrigerator boxes, which actually took a little while to track down. We went to Home Depot and spoke with a man in the appliances. We asked him if he had any big boxes like these that we could have. He told us that they break them down and get rid of them as soon as they come in. But, he would hold some for us from the next shipment. We had to keep checking back, but after a couple of days he had some ready for us. We ended up getting several refrigerator boxes, along with stove boxes, which worked out fine.

We didn’t follow the directions exactly. I thought it would be more frugal to just use duct tape instead of the rivets that they suggest you buy from the website. I was wrong. Buy the rivets, seriously. They aren’t that expensive, and after trying the duct tape, and several tubes of liquid nails, and using a staple gun, it FINALLY held together. Next time, I will definitely just buy the rivets. So, anyways, it came out really cute. I happened to have a can of gray paint leftover from a project, so I used it to paint the castle. Really you could paint it whatever color though. It took quite a few hours putting this thing together (doing it the hard way), but when it was finished we were very pleased. (Though I could have spent days detail painting it to look like real bricks!)

The kids LOVED the castle! They were in it for most of the party. We filled it with balloons, and they had a blast throwing them, kicking them around, and peaking out of the tower windows. The castle was the hit of the party!

A Throne For The Birthday Princess:

All I did was decorate one of our dining room chairs. I went to Walmart and bought a big sheet of stiff foam board. I also bought an inexpensive decorative stencil, and some glittery gold acrylic paint. I went home and cut the board to be the right size to make the back of the throne. Before I attached it, I used the stencil and the paint to create a really nice decorative scroll-like boarder. I also added a sparkly gold monogram by simply creating the lettering I wanted in Word on the computer, then printing it onto cardstock (thicker paper is better). I then cut it out to create a stencil, then traced it onto my board and filled in the lines with paint.

For the seat of the throne, I used a flower girl dress that my daughter had outgrown. I first cut the skirt away from the bodice of the dress. Since the seats of my dining room chairs are removable, I unscrewed the seat and removed it. I then duct taped the skirt onto the chair, on the inside of the frame where it wouldn’t be seen. I used the sash that came with the dress to cover the seat and then placed it back onto the chair frame.

Voila! A throne fit for a princess! And it cost me under $10. If you don’t have a pretty dress to destroy on hand, I’d suggest hitting up a Goodwill. They always have stuff like that for cheap!

Jada sat on her throne as each of her guest presented her with her gifts to open. This really made her feel extra special on her day!

Music:

You really do need to have some music playing to make your party lively and fun for the children. A great CD that we enjoyed for Jada’s party was Disney Princess Tea Party. We hooked up the stereo to play it continuously throughout the party. The girls loved dancing along with the fun tunes! The whole CD cost me $12, but you can also purchase individual songs and download only the ones you want, for $.99 each! If you Go Here and scroll down, you can listen to samples of each song, and purchase only those which you like.

Activities & Games:

Dress Up: As each girl arrived, I’d lead her to the dress up station, where she would get a dress (if she didn’t have one) and accessories. Then I would sit her down at a vanity to apply a little eye shadow, lip stick, blush, and stick on earrings if her ears weren’t pierced.

I really lucked up when I found an old vanity on the side of the road a week before the party. I had been wanting to use one, but didn’t want to buy one. I grabbed it up, took it home, and painted it, adding the same gold and glitter stenciling as was on the throne. What a blessing that was to find, it was perfect! (And I actually was able to sell it at a yard sale after the party after it was all painted and pretty!)

Kiss The Frog: It’s like Pin The Tail On The Donkey, but with a frog and lips. Draw a picture of a Frog Prince on a large piece of paper. Next create paper lips for the children to stick onto the frog. Blind fold each child, spin the around a few times, then let them see who can get their kiss closest to the frog’s mouth.

As a prize I let each child chose a Disney Princess Lip gloss.

Princess & The Pea: I like to precede this game by telling a short, paraphrased version of the story The Princess and The Pea, using a book mainly for visual interest. If you read it word for word, you’ll probably lose the attention of the kids pretty quickly, depending on their age of course, so try to keep it fairly short.

Now, you’ll need three or four small pillows and a marble or small rubber ball (for younger kids) to hide underneath one of the pillows. Have the girls line up sitting on the floor in front of the pillows. Let each girl have a turn to sit on each pillow and try to figure out which one has the “pea” under it. Once they have determined the correct pillow, announce to that girl, “You’re right! You must be a real princess!” And as their reward I gave each of our princesses a crown of her own (each was only $1.00 at Target!).

Karaoke: Having an open mike is so much fun for the little ones! Not to mention a crack up for the parents to watch! If you have access to a music player and a microphone or a karaoke machine, this is a wonderful, and inexpensive activity for your party goers to enjoy! My husband happened to have a PA system for his business, so we were fortunate to have that to use!

Decorations:

As if the huge castle wasn’t enough, right?

Besides the usual streamers and balloons, something that I got and loved was a Palace Scene Setter. It’s that faux palace backdrop that you see in the pictures. It was super easy to tack up, and really made a huge difference in creating a magical place for the kids. For $18, it’s so worth it!

(Not quite as perfect as the picture I was trying to replicate, but oh well, it was still a hit!)

The Cake:

Want to save some money, and still have an awesome birthday cake for your little princess? You don’t have to have any cake decorating skills to make this adorable castle cake! Believe me, if I can do it, I’m sure you can too! There’s even an instructional video that you can watch. Not only will it save you money by doing it yourself, it will be much cuter than a store bought cake and tastier too!

(*Notice the flags are missing from the tops of the cones? Here’s a little tip: don’t refrigerate the cake with the cones on it before you put the flags in the top! The cones get hard, and the toothpicks will cause the tips of the cones to break when inserted. Keep them room temp.)

After hours of searching for more Princess Party ideas, here is a list of the BEST places that I have found for some great ideas online!

Familyfun.com- Invitation idea, games, craft

Princess Paper Dolls- Printable Activity

Princess Castle Maze- Printable Activity

A Ton of Great Princess Party Ideas

Total Guide to Princess Party- Printable Invitations, printable crafts (including crowns to decorate), lots more!

Hope this has been helpful for you! If anybody has any other neat and frugal ideas for a Princess Party, or if you’d like to share how you did yours, I’d love to hear from you!

Sorry guys, I’m gonna have to skip Minimizing Monday today. I’ve had entirely too much to do lately! I’ve been painting my new house until midnight for the past 5 nights in a row, trying to pick up the painter’s slack so the carpets can be installed tomorrow. I’m DYING to be able to move into our home! Anyways, it’s after 1am, and I’m exhausted, so I won’t be writing anything new for today. But, if you need some inspiration you can always catch up on past Minimizing Monday’s. Perhaps there is one that you missed! And if you did any minimizing today, I’d still love to hear all about it in my comments section! Thanks for your understanding

It’s Apple Pickin’ Time, and last weekend I had my first experience picking apples. My good friend, Mrs. Adelia, called me Saturday, and told me that they were picking apples and invited me to come join in. I was so excited! Me and Jada jumped in the van and went to meet them at her Father-in-law’s house. He has over 100 apple trees, all ripe and ready to be harvested!

When we got there, Adelia and her family, plus a friend, were already busy picking up the apples. I had never picked apples from a tree before, but I imagined that we would just walk around under the tree and pick ripe apples from it’s limbs. I was surprised when Adelia’s husband climbed a ladder beside one of the trees, reached over to one of the higher branches, and gave it a really good shake! The apples all came falling down to the ground with a hail-storm like thudding! We all made sure to get out of the way when we saw he was about to shake again.

Once the trees were empty, and the apples covered the grass below, we all swooped in to gather the beautiful fruit. We had “good” buckets, and “bad” buckets. The buckets that we filled with the bad apples were fed to the cows, and probably the pig too. I thought we would just pick out the good ones, but we got them all up, which made sense as we were able to weed the good from the bad easier. And the bad apples were picked up and not just left to rot. I wasn’t sure what classified an apple as “bad” though. Some had spots on them where an insect had clearly eaten some of it, but most of the apple still looked good. Adelia told me that they bad apples were the ones that looked like something had really eaten down into it. So, if there were minor blemishes, they were fine. I quickly learned to distinguish good from truly bad.

We had no problem filling bucket after bucket with really nice apples. Once the buckets were full, we emptied them into a big trailer that they were pulling behind a 4-wheeler. We picked apples for about 4 hours. I really enjoyed the whole gathering process, and especially the fellowship with friends. The only thing that was somewhat bothersome was that there were tons of bees, yellow jackets, and hornets all over the fallen apples. At first I was extremely cautious around them, but after a while of them not seeming to mind us, I relaxed a little and got used to them being there. But, about halfway through the picking process I must have grabbed an apple with a bee on it, ’cause out of nowhere I felt a really sharp prick in the thumb, and unexpectantly let out a loud “Oww”! I stood up and looked at my throbbing thumb to find the stinger still in it, pulsating into my skin. Mrs. Adelia’s friend helped me scrape it off, so as not to break the poison sack at the end of the stinger. One of the children immediately ran off to fetch some Plantain to ease the pain. They told me to chew the plant up good, then spit out the slimy greenness onto my thumb, and let the juices sit there for a minute. I did… not so great! But, it did help a little. I think I rubbed it off too quickly though.

Anyways, after picking from a dozen or so trees, the trailer was full! The others were trying to guess how many bushels full the trailer was. After they gave their guesses, they asked me, “Hey Kendra, how many bushels do you think that is?” Bushels? What’s a bushel? I laughed and said, “I don’t even have any idea how much a bushel is! I’m still trying to figure out where “yonder” is!” They laughed at me. I was so out of my element… but loving every minute of it.

We decided it was time for the fun part, the apple juice making part, so we loaded up to go back to Adelia’s house. The trailer was so full of apples, that the 4-wheeler could not pull it! They had to hook it up to a big tractor in order to get it back down the road. Once we got there, Adelia’s husband positioned the trailer beside the Cider Press that was sitting in the shade, all ready to go to work. Here is an idea of what their press looks like, this one is very similar to theirs:

The apples went from the tailer, into a wash basin to be rinsed. Then each whole apple was fed into the top of the press, where a grinder inside broke the apple into tiny pieces, which then fell into the bucket below. We would then slide that bucket down to the press part, which had a handle that would turn and press a round board down into the bucket, in order to squeeze the apple pieces and cause the juice to run out of the bottom of the bucket to the draining part. There we would catch the juice running out, in a container.

We were all anxious to try the first of the fresh juice, which they call “cider”. We each filled a cup and drank away. Oh, how delicious it was! The best way to describe it was just as Adelia had said, that it tastes just like biting into an apple. I realize that sounds funny, as you would already assume that apple juice would taste like apples. But after tasting this, I understand now. Store bought, processed Apple Juice will never taste as good again. There is nothing like the taste of freshly pressed, nothing-added-to-it, completely natural apple juice. I gave Jada a cup full, and we all laughed as she guzzled it all down without taking a single breath!

We worked till after dark; washing, pressing, filling containers. At around 8:30, Jada began to melt down in her exhaustion from such a long day (though all she had done was run around and play the entire time). So, I decided it was time for us to head home. I wanted to stay longer; I wanted to stay and help until they were done. At least they had another friend there to help them. They sent me home with about 6 gallons of fresh pressed apple juice (that was all I had room for!). I took them home and froze some, shared some with family and friends, and refrigerated the rest. They ended up making over 80 gallons of apple “cider”, with still more apples left. Adelia told me that she canned a bunch for apple pie filling.

She also shared with me a neat trick: she told me that you can use the fresh apple juice to make apple jelly. Just put as much apple juice as you would put apples, and add the Sure-gel. It’s that simple! I love her ways of doing things. I think I’ll make some for Christmas presents, like she does.

I learned a lot on my first apple picking day. Oh how it makes my soul yearn to have apple trees of my own one day… and a cider press. But for now, I thank the Lord for bringing Adelia into my life, and for her teaching me so many things I never knew anything about before. I feel I still have so much more to learn. I’m so eager to know everything right now, and to be able to put it to use.

Patience Kendra, patience.

FREE Cold Stone Ice Cream Sept. 25, 5-8 pm. Click here to find one near you!

I’d love to eat only organic, but as you know, it’s usually SO expensive! And with a grocery budget of $35/wk, I can’t afford to buy much organic. If you are in the same situation, you don’t have to feel helpless. There is still something you can do to make your fruits and veggies much healthier. Here is a recipe for a produce spray that will do an excellent job of washing away the pesticides on your food, making them better for you and your family!

Produce Spray

*Makes about 2 Cups

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup white vinegar
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 20 drops Grapefruit Seed Extract

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Stir slowly and carefully as the combination of vinegar and baking soda causes quite a bit of foaming. Once the bubbles have gone down, pour the solution into a spray bottle. Spray on produce before eating. Let sit 10 minutes before rinsing well.

*NOTE: Don’t ever soak mushrooms in this solution, as they will only absorb it.

So, no more worrying about your children consuming a ton of terrible pesticides! Of course this won’t make them organic, nor will it get rid of 100% of the chemicals on the produce, BUT it’s a whole lot better than rinsing only with water! So, if you can’t buy organic, at least take this extra step and help make your food better for everyone!

You may remember my post My Toy Box Overfloweth! a while back, well, I thought I would post it again in honor of Minimizing Monday, for all of you who still need some encouragement to tackle your own toy box.

Go ahead and say it, I know you’re thinking it. It’s what I thought too, Oh my goodness! That’s ridiculous! How in the world did my kids get SO MANY TOYS? And believe me, I’m a purger. This isn’t because I’ve been hoarding everything. These are the things that have just accumulated in toy boxes and baskets. It’s time to DE-CLUTTER! I’m tired of the kids pulling EVERYTHING out, and then them being overwhelmed when it’s time to clean up the mess. I’m taking this thing by the horns.

So, I went through the house and found every toy that I could find. I know it’s not all of them, some are in my mother-in-law’s basement for storage, but unbelievably all of these toys were hiding in the corners of my humble home. So, I spread everything out (while the kids slept of course), and began the daunting task of separating into boxes: TO KEEP, NOT TO KEEP. As I went along, I found it to be harder than I thought. Emotionally I mean. As I sorted I found myself wanting to keep more than I had intended. The problem is that my daughter really does play with most of the things I wanted to oust. What do I do? Do I get rid of them just because there are too many? She honestly has a good time playing with them. And then there were the toys that she used to play with a lot when she was younger, but now has grown out of. Baby boy might like to play with them when he gets a little bigger, so I decided to keep them too. Oh, decisions, decisions!

So, I ended up keeping some, boxing some up to sell, and boxing some up to store. I guess this is a good compromise. Initially I thought, I will let my daughter keep 10 toys, and get rid of the rest. Well, it didn’t quite work out so nicely. I have a love for educational toys, so most of what I kept are “lesson time” teaching toys. That’s okay, right? I did let my daughter go through her My Little Pony collection, and choose only 3 to keep of the tons that she had. Surprisingly, she happily chose her three, very decidedly I must say, and had no problem with me getting rid of the rest. Good for her.

So, here’s what I boxed up. These boxes were actually quite big, though they don’t look it in the picture. Stuffed animals…see ya! Small toys, almost all are gone. All of the Fisher Price Little People things were sold on Craigslist. And a select few toys remain.

Need some more tips to clear out the toys? Free your home from it if:

• it is broken, or missing pieces (puzzles especially!).
• it hasn’t been played with in a while.
• you have more than one.
• there is something in your home that could double as a toy like it (ie: cookie cutters for play dough accessories).
• you can take it to grandma’s house for junior to play with there.
• your child can honestly live without it (they truly don’t need so many toys, so even if your child still plays with it, consider keeping only a few select favorites.)

Now it’s your turn, and I would LOVE to hear how you did! Just write a post on your blog, and then link back here to share with the rest of us, or you can tell us all about your job well done in the comments section. And as always, you are welcomed to share with us any other way that you have minimized your home as well. Encouraging each other to simplify our homes, one section at a time! Thanks for joining in!