A Clean Start for the New Year

We had a wonderful trip to Long Island to visit our family over the holiday! We stayed at my mother-in-laws and intended to visit from 12/23 - 12/27, however the weather had other plans! Two days later than expected, we arrived at home -- weary travelers, unpacking what felt like a caravan's worth of belongings from our over packed minivan! While my husband spent this morning braving the supermarket, Target (for a return) and the liquor store for some bubbly (for he and I!) for tonight, I braved the "garbage cupboard"... I wish I had taken a before photo -- you can't quite appreciate my hard work without the before photo... For anyone who has spent any time at all at our house, you know that the garbage cupboard is a major hub of activity. Obviously, the garbage is kept in there. Also, cleaning supplies (there is an eye hook latch at the top to keep little hands out of the cleaning supplies!), and on the top shelves we store art supplies, etc. for the kids. In our effort to put away all of the things that the girls got for Christmas (Santa and the family were all very generous!), I decided that this morning would be a good time to clean out the garbage cupboard. I had piles of papers, buckets of markers, crayons, paint sets -- and Playdoh GALORE! I took the opportunity to clear out all of the things that my girls no longer use and organize the things that they do use. I now have neatly labeled containers -- one for each girl, and one for all of the Playdoh "utensils". My cleaning and organizing spree carried over to our 2-drawer lateral file. The top drawer holds all of my 4-year-old's books, while the bottom drawer holds all of the puzzles and things for car trips (auto bingo, Leapster, Story Reader...). I love when I have time to sort through everything and organize and pull out broken toys or dried out art supplies. This is a great time of year to do that, too -- when you are making room for new toys and craft items. Now I feel like I earned a relaxing evening at home with my family, ringing in the New Year!

How do you like to prepare for the New Year?