Our Lego Problem

At last count we had a bazillion Legos, most of which were once assembled into models, then taken apart and scattered around the house.  Keeping the collection contained became an all consuming passion a couple of years ago.

Stage 1: The Beginning
One of the grandmothers scored a Lego table at a church rummage sale for something like $10 (!) and that was good for building. We kept the blocks in a large container, but nobody wanted to rifle through it to build anything new. Not good.

Stage 2: The Legos must be contained
Summer 2012 found us sorting Lego by color into gallon freezer baggies. This worked OK and more unplanned building occurred, but nobody wanted to clean up after the Legos were dumped out.  Really not good.

By December 2012 I decided that we needed individual boxes for each color.  I discovered Really Useful Boxes at Office Depot and waited for the after-Christmas-get-organized sale.  The 12"x12" boxes are shallow enough to allow the boys to sift through their collection and they can build projects on the lids.  Cleanup is easy, the boxes stack well, and they're very rugged. I'd say unbreakable, but one of the boys managed to chip off a piece of a lid while standing on it.

Lego Headquarters

Stage 3:  The models stay built
With the arrival of the X-wing fighter, one of the boys realized that he wanted this model to stay built. So we needed something on which to store models.  Some older toys were discarded to free up space on a bookshelf.  I also found an IKEA Lack table at Goodwill which became a display center.

But the boys wanted something on which to display their minifigs.  Lego sells a display case for $25, but it didn't hold many.  I searched Pinterest for solutions and found one family that had repurposed a silverware tray and one who had painted a shadowbox white. I can do that!

I went to one of the local Goodwill stores and found a toy cash register tray and a dinged-up wall shelf.  A couple of coats of spray paint later, I had a shelf for small models and a nifty minifig cabinet.  I cut a large Lego flat into strips with a utility knife and used contact cement to glue them to the shelves of the tray. (Thank you Jedi Craft Girl!)

Now that they have easy access, a place to build, and a place to display, the guys are enjoying their Legos again.  I'm happy that the living room doesn't look like a Lego outlet anymore.

Now the guys want a "Lego Closet" in their bedroom.  'Cause who needs clothes anyway....

Shalom y'all!

Clearing out the Clutter

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal... (Matt. 6:19)

(Not my closet, but you get the picture)
Photo by Chris Scott @ stock.xchng

Well, I’m not sure about “treasures on earth”, but one of our biggest household problems is clutter.  The problem with clutter is that it’s hard to find the good stuff amid all the other stuff.

One of the things we used to do annually in the library was weed the collection.  Studies have shown that discarding books that aren’t circulating (or are out of date) helps improve the use of the rest of the collection.  Who knew?

During the past couple of months I’ve been weeding our house.  Not only have I cleared out some stuff we’re not using, I’ve found some things that we needed: a padded laptop case,  winter accessories, CD storage cases.  Now,  my house is cleaner and I didn’t need to repurchase these items at the store.

Here are some of our family tips for what we’ve been weeding so far:

Toys:  I start right after school begins in the fall (while the kids are at school).  I pull out the toys that don’t get played with and separate them into piles for consignment, donation, trash.  Last fall I made some cash for Christmas shopping by consigning toys and DVDs that they’ve outgrown.  I gave educational toys to the preschool.  So far, nobody has missed anything and between birthdays and Christmas, they have new stuff anyway.

Clothes:  Kids clothes are easy.  Once they’ve been outgrown, handed-down, and outgrown again, most of them are ready for the trash bin.  Good condition children’s clothes go to charity.  I’d already given ours away to Goodwill when I heard about Clothes To Kids and their need for warm clothes this winter.  

Likewise, my husband gathered up some good condition sweaters for the Red Cross warm clothing drive.  Clothes in poor condition went into the trash.  I did a serious weeding of my closet last year, but it’s time once again.  Good stuff to charity; bad stuff to the trashbin.

Documents:  Since I don’t like to use my shredder when the kids are around (3 guesses why),  I haven’t shredded tax documents and personal papers in many years.  Good Housekeeping recommends keeping 3 years of personal or 6 years of supporting business documents for tax returns.  The IRS has an interesting article on how long to keep tax returns.   This Bankrate.com article provides a list of what basic records to keep.

Here are a couple good clutter-clearing websites:

25 Ideas from Good Housekeeping
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/organizing/clean-out-clutter

Organized Home
http://organizedhome.com/articles/cut-clutter

A Date with a Calendar

Now that school’s out, we don’t have the thrice weekly routine of getting ready and heading out to preschool. My boys are feeling a little lost.  Regular activities defined their days during the school year.  They felt secure knowing that Monday meant school and gymnastics and Wednesday meant library and church. Summer is a little more freewheeling and I’m not one for scheduling every minute of the day. So we needed something to help us keep track of our time.

Enter the kids’ calendar.

DLTK is a fantastic website, with printable coloring sheets and activities for young children, including some excellent Bible activities.  DLTK’s calendar page  allows us to customize a monthly calendar by theme and language. It’s simple. Choose the month, year, title image and click create.   We’re using the summer calendar theme and selected a sand castle for June.

Each morning we look at the calendar and place a sticker in the square for the day.  We talk about the name of the month, the day of the week and what we’re going to do.  I added in our regular weekly activities with color-coded symbols (cross for church, wavy blue line for swim).  We’re using our calendar to count down to much anticipated events like Vacation Bible School and family vacation.

As a bonus, we’re reviewing math skills by counting to 30 (or 31) and repeating the names of the days of the week. By the end of August, we’ll all be ready for preschool to begin again.