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Underfoot: How I organize all the toys that live with us


        Clutter makes me twitch. One of my favorite activities when the boys and baby girl are napping is to walk around the house with a trash bag and load it up with anything that seems superfluous. Every few months I manage to fill at least two full trash bags to donate. How does all this stuff get in my home?!!  Toys are the biggest offenders and they are always underfoot because the play area in our home is also the family room. I fantasize sending my boys upstairs to play happily together in an imaginary bonus room for a couple hours while I work on projects downstairs, clean, exercise, cuddle baby girl, or have a cup of tea…. Um… who am I kidding? I have two beautiful, healthy, rambunctious boys who are two and three years old. They need a mom intervention every two minutes. I referee their wrestling matches, negotiate toy kidnappings, and kiss owies all day long. They also love to be with me, right in the middle of whatever I am doing. If I am doing planks they want to zoom cars under and over me like I’m a freeway overpass.  If I am cleaning they want a rag so they can leave little smudges right behind me. And if I am working in the kitchen they must have a snack. They come, they eat, they leave. They come, they eat, they leave….all day long. So the fantasy of a playroom that would be Mary Poppins while I get stuff done and contain all the toys is not my reality right now. And that is okay. That is more than okay. It is the beautiful crazy that I know I will miss in a few short years. Right now the kids are constantly underfoot and consequently so are all their toys, so we need a way to contain the chaos. I have two organization systems that are my salvation.

#1 Gallon Sized Ziploc Bags     
I need to buy stock in Ziploc. Ziploc bags have saved my life. Seriously, here is Amazon’s link to gallon sized Ziploc bags. https://amzn.to/2uCRMnt  Go buy a jumbo pack right now! All the activities that require mom's supervision get put in Ziploc bags. Markers, crayons, glue, stickers, playdough, stamps, magnets, lacing cards.You get the idea. If I kept all these items in their original packaging they would take up twice the space. The bags come out one at a time, must be used at the table, and must be supervised by mom. I have pull out drawers in my kitchen and I line up all my Ziploc bags so they are easy to grab. Some people call these type of bags “quiet bags”, not in my house. I have two little boys. If it is quiet, something very very naughty is happening. I call our bags “Activity Bags”. Seeing all those tidy Ziplocs lined up in a row makes me happy.


#2 IKEA Kallax Shelf Unit
This shelf is amazing! We have four in our home because they hold so much stuff! We have one in our living room which is also our playroom and it holds all the toys and books the boys could possibly want. Here is a picture of my beautiful shelf all cleaned up at the end of the day.



And here is all the crap… uhem, I mean lovely toys that it contains.  



I rest my case. 
I also store diapers, wipes, and a changing pad in one of the bins and use the top of the shelf as a changing table. With two in diapers a designated changing area is a must have downstairs. There are lots of fun storage bins you can use to customize it. The ones I currently have are from IKEA.  I think they are a bit plain and the basket weave bins have removable bottoms that fall out when the boys dump their toys. It’s annoying. But they’re not broken yet so I haven’t replaced them.  Here are the bins I have on my Amazon wish list.

I love this shelf so much! When everything is put away and the kids are in bed it almost looks like we don’t have any children living in our home… almost. I love my kids and I adore being a stay at home mom but I don’t want to live in a playroom all day. It’s nice to be able to host a mom’s night without feeling like we are enjoying our cocktails in the midst of a daycare.

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