No more toys

Do you remember when you were little and the sort of toys you had? You know the kind that made you use your imagination? You know what I'm talking about....

Nature. Boxes that became forts. A wrapping paper roll that becomes a sword. Or cups that can be made into a castle.

I remember in elementary school we would go outside for recess and play house. We had awesome houses because growing up in Oregon there were tons of big trees that had cool root systems. There were all sorts of spaces to make into rooms and then we would find bark and branches that became plates, and brooms. We had the cleanest houses on the playground. Of course the pine cones would be food.

I loved using my imagination. It was great. I sometimes feel my kids don't use their imagination as much as they should. Noah my oldest does. He loves to draw pictures and create stories to go with them. The girls pretend with their dolls and their dress ups. Jacob loves to build forts under the trees outside. So I guess they use them a bit.

You are probably wondering why I am bringing this up, since they seem to use their imaginations all the time. Well I have a playroom full of toys. Lots of toys. We have so many toys it is ridiculous. There are toys in the boys room, toys in the girls rooms, toys in the family room, toys in the bonus room, toys that made their way into my room and bathroom. Where did we get all these toys?

The sad thing is that they are always wanting more. More and more toys that get played with for and hour and then get broken. Sad for the toys. Sad for our wallets.

I have decided that I am going to do a huge clean up and get rid of some toys. Not the ones that require imagination like legos or lincoln logs or tinker toys. You know the ones like when we were kids. Not the dress ups or the doll houses or the kitchens. None of those. What is left do you ask? All the ones you see on the commercials that the kids just had to have. The ones that are supposed to do something spectacular and end up broken in 5 minutes. Those toys. I truly hope that I don't have too many of those. But I'm afraid I do.

After all of my ranting about the too many toys we do have the last week my kids have enjoyed playing with a bunch of paper cups. Yep. I think from now on we don't need anymore toys. Maybe we will try to use our imaginations more.

I've been waiting to post this because there is a picture I wanted to add, but then my computer died and I've been using Dave's. I haven't yet figured out how to get my picture on here because it doesn't have a card reader and mine does. I also can't find the right cable to use to hook into my camera. All this is because Dave is a Mac and I'm a PC. Yet we fit together perfectly.

When I figure it out, or more to the point find time to have Dave do it, I'll come back and put it on.