Mom Hack: Toy Boxes!

Problem: Cara has TONS of toys.

• Does she play with ALL of them every day? No. 
• Does she tend to pick her favorites and just stick with those? Yes. 
• Does she have a bunch in a box that we forget to open and show her how fun they are? Yes.
• Do I find myself constantly buying new toys for her because I keep thinking she doesn't have enough toys? Oh that's a big yes!

This was becoming such a problem, I realized spending money every week on new toys was getting to be ridiculous. This isn't something I could (or wanted to) keep up with. That's what Christmas and Birthdays are for and ONLY those occasions (unless she has her own money or it's a different special circumstance).

Anyways, I realized she had tons of different toys: puzzles, learning toys, books, stuffed animals, etc. So why not just get several clear totes (one for each day of the week) and put a toy from each category into the totes? Then we can just grab one of the totes in the morning and those will be her toys for the day. She'll think that she's getting new toys each day, but I won't be constantly spending new money! I can't think of a more win-win! Plus I can go through them every 6 months/holiday or birthday to clear out what she doesn't play with and get new ones put in that are more fitting to her development.

I'm not sure how we're going to do this with a second baby - combine them or have separate boxes for each kid? I'll figure it out as I go, but either way, this solution has been working wonders so far and I'm so excited that we've figured out a nice fix for our problem!