Okay, I don’t have a “before” photo for you, but I’m sure you can use your imagination and picture in your mind what it looked like.  Legos, play food, small animals, stuffed animals everywhere in Emma’s room!  I was trying to keep all of her toys in her little wooden IKEA toy box, and it so wasn’t working. First, not all her toys would fit in it, and second, she didn’t play with any of her toys because they were too hard to find!  You know you need to do some organizing or go through your toys and get rid of some stuff when that happens. So that’s what I did.  First, I went through the toys, and discovered that we don’t really have too many – it’s just that she has a lot of play sets with small pieces that are hard to keep together.

Off I went to Target to grab some plastic Sterilite bins with lids.  Then we went through Emma’s toys and sorted them into the bins by category.  Anything that couldn’t be sorted we thought long and hard about how necessary it was and then put it in a bag to go to our local thrift store.

I made labels in Photoshop (you can use Microsoft Word, too) with pictures so Emma could easily keep her toys organized (I can dream, right?).  I let her help me put the labels on, asking her which label went onto which box, and she really liked taping the labels to the boxes herself.

(I have to tell the perfectionist in me to chill about straight labels for this reason…)

I was glad to see how proud Emma was of our accomplishment.  :)

I was actually able to vacuum the floor after this!  ;-)

Yes, that’s Emma actually playing with her Legos!  Yay!  (haha)

We may not have dealt with all the clutter in her room, but the majority of it is taken care of now.  :)  I need to go back for one more bin so we can put Emma’s Little People and accessories in it, then we’re good!  Ah, it’s so nice when your kids have a clean floor.  :)

Do you have any suggestions or tips on dealing with clutter in kids’ rooms?

Do you have any videos like this?  Where is the funniest place your child has fallen asleep?

I wondered if I would survive his babyhood.  He was not an easy baby!  In part, that might be because he wanted to be held constantly.

It was tiring, but also… well, he’s a cuddle-bug!  How can I not love that?  He can be rocked to sleep, he loves to nestle his little head into my neck.  He loves his family.  He’s such a fun little guy, he makes me laugh every day!  He loves to tease and be teased.  Lately he has this silly furtive expression – he looks down at the ground then peers up at me through his lashes and smiles slowly until he’s grinning at me.  It’s so silly and so heartbreakingly CUTE!

Here’s a peek at his birthday party:

We kept it small, just a short little family time.  The kids had a blast, though – that cake (which I actually bought for only $5 with a coupon at Fred Meyer, yes!) was really the center of it all.  Emma could think of nothing else until we dug into it, and then the kids really really enjoyed it.  Isaac was kind of unsure until he got a couple bites (and Emma helped him along, putting his hand to his mouth to show him how good it tasted), then that slow smile spread until he was giggling in delight.  That one picture of Emma with frosting on her face happened just after she got clobbered by Isaac.  She leaned in close telling him, “Isaac, you’re a funny b -” and I heard her get cut off and freeze, her face frostingified.  Funny children.  :)

I didn’t go crazy on gifts for him, he’s still so young and hardly plays with his many many toys, lol.  But he found these two containers of my husband’s hair styling goop and had so much fun with them!   Later he laughed while he dragged a jump rope around the house.  We’ll save toy-buying for next year.  lol

You know what was fun?  Comparing this party to Emma’s first birthday.  :-)