With three kids and lots of loving friends and family, we have too many toys. Oh, yes. They DO play with them. The proof is that there are toys ALL. OVER. MY. HOUSE. If you don’t know me in real life, you might not know that I am a bit obsessive-compulsive over keeping things tidy. I can overlook it for a little while but after a few days of living amongst the chaos, it starts to make me a bit twitchy.
We have a rule around here that if you get it out you put it up. They can wreak havoc all day long but at the end of the day, everyone must pitch in and put it all away. This rule has served me well. Picking up at the end of each day means that most the time the house isn’t overwhelmingly dirty.
When there are three little people underfoot cleaning the house takes twice…no make that ten times along. So, by keeping things picked up I can actually finish the house cleaning in one day – instead of a week of days.
But even with these little tricks up my sleeve, the toys still seem to find their way into every room in the house. It isn’t that I mind the toys in every room. I actually don’t mind that at all. This is OUR house after all, and we all LIVE here. So, instead of being crazy about keeping everything in their rooms, I have a few ways to keep the toys tidy while keeping them accessible.
What I have found is that if we keep the baby’s toys in the baby’s room, they don’t get played with. Most the time everyone hangs out in the family room and the baby isn’t familiar with the idea os dragging his toys into the room where we are by himself. So, I keep a big hamper of his toys in the living room to keep them accessible for him and easy to clean up at the end of the day for me. I purchased this one at Walmart. It really is a laundry hamper but I loved the print and thought it matched pretty well with the decor of my living room.
The bigger kids do keep most of their toys in their own rooms because they know how to take things out to play with them. But, they do have a small basket each on the fireplace that is full of books, drawing paper, stickers, and lots of crayons and other writing instruments. My kids love to colour and draw and I like to encourage that skill. 
What about you? Have you found ways to keep your house CLEAN and free of clutter while also allowing your children space and room to LIVE and PLAY?
