MADHOUSE Organizing with Children!!

I walked into the playroom this morning and what did I find? The large round bin that holds all the kids toys had been dumped out into a messy pile in the middle of the room. Where were the kids? They were back in their rooms playing with their dress-up clothes! I called them all into the playroom and told them to clean up the mess or I will start putting their toys "IN JAIL" ***I put them in a box on a high shelf until they post bail---either chores they have to do to raise enough "money" to buy them out of jail or by good behavior***. When I told them this, my little wise guy Nicholas said, "what toy are you going to put in jail?". I said, "I'm going to put your hot wheels in jail". He looked at me casually, shrugged and said, "I don't like my hot wheels anymore. You can put them in jail." I was quite aghast and told him, "you are still going to clean or I will put ALL your toys in jail". Once he saw me pick up his Captain America action figure, he got to cleaning instantly. Every year after Christmas and birthdays, whenever they stock up on toys, I always do a basic cleanout where I will throw out an old toy for every new toy they receive. It has helped somewhat but somewhere along the way, I have made horrible calculations because toys still seem to be growing out of our walls! Less than a few hours after that first incident, I walked into the playroom again and what did I find......YES! The toy bin once again had been dumped out in the middle of the floor with not a kid in sight! I wanted to call them in to clean it up again but unfortunately this time, I had just layed them all down for their naps. I debated a moment whether I would wait and make them clean it when they awoke but I decided instead, to sort through them and "JAIL" the toys I thought would impact them the most. As I sat and picked up the toys one by one, putting them each in the bin, I noticed that 90% of the toys were not anything I would even care to play with if I were a child. I remembered a year or so before when I had made the decision to keep that toy and throw out a different one and I no longer could remember what made me make that decision. Then I thought of Toy Story and how every toy wants to be wanted. Then I wanted to watch Toy Story III because it's the best movie ever! But I started to get an idea about how to organize their toys. I have tried a LOT of different ideas. Last year, I got rid of ALL Nicholas's toys EXCEPT his hot wheels and costumes since those were the only things he plays with and for the girls, they got to keep barbies and their good baby dolls that still had all their clothes and shoes and their costumes as well. Everything else (games, tea sets, army men, etc) we threw out and we did their rooms around those toys they kept. That did not work even in the slightest. The year before that, I went organizer-crazy and got bins and baskets and boxes and we sorted all toys into their own designated spot. That worked for a few weeks until we started finding a few toys here and there that didn't really have a designated spot so we turned one bin into a "miscellaneous" bin blurring the line of "designated toys" and "miscellaneous toys" and soon after, ALL bins were miscellaneous bins until the bins themselves became toys.....then became broken, therefore becoming weapons, and finally....becoming trash. I am taking all the many failed organization attempts into deep consideration as I put together a schedule of how to get everything organized and stay organized having 4 kids ages 5 and under in the house! (and a husband which, we all know is like adding another 2-3 children, depending on temperament) :) This is no easy feat. Maybe we should just move and leave everything behind and started over afresh! I swear sometimes I feel like that's the only way we will get these sorts of clutter/organization issues taken care of. Well, just had to vent a bit about this but I guess it would actually be a much better use ofmy time to shut the computer down and actually start working on the issue at hand :) I'll come back and add some pictures for a bit more color on the post a bit later. ..............I really just can't get up the energy to do this right now. :/ Ok, bye!

Here is my hubby with the kids last weekend when we went to the beach. It was such a beautiful day!