The Clean Up Process~Every Parents Nightmare

Well Christmas went well and I am glad it's over. It's one of those things you love but then when it's done, it's a relief. I had hoped for less toys this year but it didn't happen. We downgraded on gifts this year (only spent $75 per kid instead of $200) so I figured it would help some but I guess in return the 3 sets of grandparents, 2 sets of great-grandparents, three aunts, and one set of godparents and decided to make up for it. We bought Mia and Damien 3 toys each and the other two kids 6. They weren't all that big or space consuming which was another thing we had hoped not to encounter. Dave and I received the normal (cash and gift cards) and well a 50 inch High Def Plasma TV that we may have to go to AZ to pick up. D's parents are also buying the kids a laptop since mine is fought over. Don't laugh but our other laptop is "too slow" for our 7 and 4 yr old. The websites take longer to load and it drives them nuts.

After hosting here and bringing home tons of toys our house was in pretty pitiful shape. D knows that I start to freak out when the house looks terrible so he was more than willing to help Christmas night getting the house back in order. We started by putting everything in the bedrooms and then cleaned the front room and kitchen. The kitchen was a crazy mess from all the food I had made over the past 2 days. Although I had done all the dishes there were still things everywhere. So by the evening on the 25th we had atleast got the front room and kitchen cleaned and there wasn't twistie ties from toys on the floor for Mia to try eating. D hauled about 5 trash bags of trash sitting in the front room to town and dropped in a carwash dumpster. I feel awful that I didn't even try to recycle any of that cardboard but I was so overwhelmed.

But then after that was cleaned you entered the bedrooms and there were all these toys everywhere that needed opened and some had already been opened. Ugh. I hate the after effects of Christmas. I love seeing how happy the kids are though with their new toys! lol We went ahead and gave up and I figured I'd finish yesterday. My step sister came over from 6am-8:30 so I could go by a ton of after christmas things I really didn't need and then after that I came home and started revamping the bedrooms. My hands were so dried out and in pain from opening so many toys and Damien, Alex, and Dominic would bring me their toys when I was opening someone elses. I was soooo done. By the end of the afternoon I had the babies room finished and Dominic's but I STILL have Alex's to go. We hauled of a ton more trash yesterday since our trash doesn't get picked up til Saturday.

It seemed this year that presents were a bit easier to open but still a big pain in the butt. I don't understand why toy companies can't include a set of wire cutters per box. I noticed with some toys this year they had these little plastic turn pieces to "release" the toys. That is the greatest invention. Several of the toys just needed turned and they would slide off the cardboard. Others though had so many twist ties I wanted to just throw the dang thing away. I noticed that Bratz this year put a label ontop saying "Easy Open Package." If you've ever opened a Bratz doll you'll remember how fuming mad you were after you finally got the doll out of the package with half it's hair missing. So anyways most of the gifts are now unwrapped, the house has been put back together but I still have a ton of sweet foods I made when we hosted that didn't disappear. We still have a ton of chocolate dipped, puppy chow, sugar cookies, Jesus cake, and chocolate cornflake bars to get rid of. Alex and I even put cookies on plates and took them to our neighbors last night wishing them a Merry Christmas. Dave took all the dipped stuff to work today and I'm going to just suffer with the rest of it here and pray I'm not tempted to eat it.

Today I'll still be cleaning up finishing Alex's room, taking loads to the recycle center, and sorting all the things I didn't need that I bought yesterday morning. I went a bit overboard and dh was ok with it but not the happiest that I spent $255. I bought a bunch of decor for next year and quite a few gift sets for birthday gifts. I think I just got alittle carried away that I was by myself this year and he wasn't there to disagree with what I was grabbing. Now we just wait for Target to go 75% off. lol

Toy Crisis

And No, I'm not talking about the toy shortage on the news.I'm going to guess that most parents are like me already thinking, where in the world are we going to put the new crap from Christmas this year? I've actually been contemplating this the last couple months. Our 2020 sq ft home is just over ran with toys and I admit a lot of it is my own fault. My kids have all kinds of different ride on toys. I mean ALOT. We have 2 infant ride ons in the house, 3 Power Wheels, 3 Girl 16 inch bikes, 1 16 in boys bike, 1 12in boy bike for Damien, 2 Little Tykes Motorcycles, a Little Tykes push car, but then I bought 2 antique pedal cars last Christmas. One side of our 2 car garage is solely dedicated for their outdoor toys and equipment that needs to be kept in out of the weather.

In the house my main problem is, I hate to get rid of something that Mia or Damien is going to want in a few years. For example: This Dora house and the Dora Castle (not shown). Alex is 7 and well she never plays with a good majority of her toys because they are meant for preschoolers. The Dora stuff, the baby feeding center, the little tykes kitchen: I have no idea where to put it all for Mia when she gets older. I don't know what other parents do. Do they sell it and then buy it again? Rent a storage unit? Build on?? Throw it all in the garage?Put it in the attic?? It was when we came to #3 when the toys started to pile up, again because Dominic's toys can be used now by Damien and I didn't want to sell them. The house isn't cluttered or looking bad by any means, there's just no room for new toys.
So I figured this Christmas since we shouldn't need to buy a 5 ft doll house or a 4 foot Thomas Train table, we'll stick small toys that shouldn't take much room. Dominic is all about Transformers, those are small enough. Alex is into Barbie and Bratz which don't take up much room. Now we just need to figure something small for the little ones. I'm sure this plan won't work, but it's worth a try.