Took a picture to remember....

I took this picture of Mr. Potato Head today in order to remember something to write about.  Then I sat down at my computer and could NOT remember what it was.

....how awesome my kids are?
....how awesome Morgan is?
....how I hate toys with 500 pieces?
....toys...that sounds familiar...

Toys.  We have a problem in our house and I'm going to call it the abundance of toys effect.  Essentially when there are SO many toys accessible NONE of them get played with!  I think it is because we can never find all the pieces for those dreaded toys with removal parts and we forget about what we have!  So I took all of Grace's toys and went to work!

First, I set apart "all the time toys".  This included books, puzzles, a few specific lovies and a couple things she plays with every day.  Then I piled everything else on the floor and started sorting.  All the pieces went with the right toy.  Toys we didn't play with EVER but were in great shape went to the church pile.  Toys that were loud and annoying went to the donate pile :).  Toys that were broken, missing pieces, or didn't work right went into the trash. 

Grace discovered a few treasures and started playing - that became pile one.  The rest of them got divided into four other buckets.  A few balls, one in each.  Here are a few cars, a couple in each bucket.  Lovies?  Divide them up!  By the time I was done I had toys she was playing with and four buckets of toys that I put back into the toy box where she can't get to them.  My thought is that when she seems to get bored with these toys, I'll swap them out for a new bucket.

I know part of it is the warm weather and the ability to run at free will on our back porch, but lately I feel like she has been happier, playing more independently and more self-entertaining.  I'm not sure how much this system comes into play but I'm pleased that she seems to be a happy little girl lately and wearing herself out having fun!