Oh joy it's Monday again! And it is the first day of June. This is my favorite time of the year. No more frost. Warm (sometimes hot) beautiful days! And the promise of an active and fun summer. What's not to love!

I spent the weekend spring cleaning. Oh what fun! I am in the mood to purge again! We have entirely too many toys. I think I am more emotionally attached to them that than the children are. I am actively trying to get over it! Today we will try to get rid of more toys! Yep it is a lofty goal, but one that has to happen. So the dilemma is do I pack the toys up and store them in the attic? Or do I just bite the bullet and give them away? Decisions decisions...I think I will just start at the beginning and start packing them up. How many toys are enough? It's funny because I don't even think they play with all the toys but I seem to be cleaning them up all the time. Kind of like dishes that reproduce while the lights are off.

Next weekend I am hoping we will get to pull our carpet out. It really needs to be done and there are beautiful hard woods under the carpet in the main part of the house. We have an addition (a family room (playroom) and bathroom with adjoining mudroom. No hard woods under there though. That carpet is pretty gross but it will just have to be cleaned until we can figure out what to do in there. I would like to find a couple of area rugs to cover the living room and dining room. Maybe not the dining room. It's a big project and DH wants to finish the front yard and garden before starting on the inside of the house. I think I am a little selfish cause I would rather have the inside done first. But I get it, people drive by and see our house everyday and form opinions about us because of how the house looks from outside. So I am compromising.

On the home front, my children are LOVING the nice weather! It is so fabulous that they can play outside all day and come in totally filthy and exhausted! They have helped there Daddy plant the garden (DH believes he has finally found his "happy place"). We are restless about getting to go swimming. We have a couple of offers from different family members who own pools. So in order to not overwhelm them we will be taking turns as to whose house we will hang out and swim at :) Princess Fairheart turned 1 last months and is still not interested in walking. Maybe it is because she is the baby?!?! All the other kids walked on or before their 12th month of life. She also still only has 2 teeth. She seems to be trying to cut a couple teeth on top but no luck yet. However, she refuses to eat baby food. She gums down whatever we are eating. She gets really upset if someone bigger than her has something else to eat. Don't you dare give her any mushed up, pureed, nasty flavorless food. She wants the real thing! So far I have found very few things my little princess will not eat. #1Son is five and a half going on 35! I swear he thinks he calls all the shots! And arguing with EVERYTHING! When did he decided to be a temper tantrum thrower! It is exhausting me. I am tired of fighting about EVERYTHING! Everything that does not go his way is "NOT FAIR!!!" UHG!! BB is talking so well. Most people look at me like I am crazy when I tell them he is only 2 and a half. The other day we were having cake at Auntie S's and he turned around (with his mouth half full) and told her "this cake is deeeeelisssiusss!" Delicious can you believe his vocabulary? He surprises me all the time with words he uses. He is definitely going through the tenacious two's! He thinks he is the boss of everything! Weewee and I are going this afternoon for a Mommy and Weewee day. We are going to get our manicures and pedicures! DH's cousin does nails and has offered to give us mani's and pedis...YAY!! I am so thankful for the gift because with four kids in tow I never really get to splurge on such indulgences.

So, I am off to purge a bunch of toys, referee several arguments and just be mom...don't you wish you had my day ahead of you?!?!?

We have too many toys in our house... that is the opening line to way to many conversations between my husband and I. I think because we both grew up in larger families and felt like we did with out in some areas, we over compensate with our own children. Granted we have four of them and money is always tight. But some how the toy collection just keeps growing and growing and growing! We have a playroom. A room that is a decent size and is completely dedicated to the housing of said toys. That room looks like a tornado blew through on any given day. I counted the toy boxes (rubbermaid storage containers of the medium to large variety) there are 12 of them! Holy cow 12 toy boxes!! Each of my four kids have two boxes of toys, one dress up box, 2 baby doll boxes and 1 play kitchen box! As you can see there is a good reason for a lot of conversations revolving around the amount of toys our kids have. So yesterday, feeling quiet ready to start my spring cleaning, I decided to venture into the danger zone (playroom) and started to purge. I tried really hard not to think about where the toy came from or anything sentimental. I simply looked at how much does it get played with and more importantly how tired am I of picking up said toy. Once the determination was made with the above criteria the toy was put in either the give away pile or back into the toy box to live another day. My bestest friend in whole world gave me some great advice about purging toys. She said that I should set aside one box of sentimental toys. Maybe some that really have a meaning or that all my kids got to play with. At the time I thoughtno way I am getting rid of it all. But then when I actually started the process, I had to admit to myself somethings needed to be saved. Like the it's a boy beanie baby we got when #1Son was born, the tummy time toy that all my kids have just adored, the Elmo (sack race) toy the #1Son and BB both played with so much, Winnie the Pooh and Piglet nite time toy that sings a lullaby, etc... I set aside a toy box just for keep sakes. After 3 hours I had narrowed the excess down to...

drum roll please****

Each child has one toy box!

I gave away (actually dropped off to the thrift store) 2 45 gallon contractor grade black trash bags full of toys!!!!

We have one keep sake box that will go in the attic.


And I can finally walk through the playroom. I still have a little bit of organizing to do and I may even give away some more things. But I am so proud that I was able to purge as much as I did. It felt so liberating. It was kind of weird cause I felt like that was a lot of money gone out the window. But at the same time I felt like maybe some other children would be blessed by getting some nice toys from the thrift store. So it was definatley a win win situation.

Now I am going to tackle all the clothes that are piling up around here.

Looks like this year it won't be deep cleaning and window washing its going to be purging as a theme for my spring clean.

I am determined to get organized no matter what.