Back to school clean out

I decided the other day that it might be a good idea to take a day with each child to thoroughly go through their room before the start of a new school year.  My idea was met with great enthusiasm and each child was clambering to be the first to go.  Who knew?  After much debate, the line up went as follows:  first London, next day Emmy, next day Cannon.

Now London is my neat freak.  It's not unusual for him to randomly reorganize his room just for fun; consequently, I have not cleaned out his room since we moved here.  Because of his neatness I thought he'd be the quickest room to go through, but I was wrong!  His little room took hours but we emerged unscathed with a laundry basket of things for Goodwill and a full trash bag of garbage.

After

The next day was Emmy - my messiest child.  About once a month I have to come into her room and complete re-organized what was once beautifully organized.  She has quite the talent for destroying organization!  I planned to spend HOURS in Emmy's room, but hers actually turned out to be the quickest.  I think I keep her room pretty culled of stuff so it wasn't quite as bad.

Before

Before

I quickly decided the best way to approach Emmy's room was to make a huge pile of all the "bits" in the middle of the room and then we went through put things in their right box (animal box, Lego box, car box, dinosaur box, "girlie things" box, etc.)

Before we knew it, we were done and had a pile along the hall of all the stuff to go to Goodwill.  The best find in Emmy's room?  All the hair bows and hair clips that had gone missing - I accumulated quite the pile.  They are all over her room not from being in her hair, but because they are used as collars, harnesses, etc. for her stuffed animals!

After - it won't ever be this clean again!

Cannon was next and I discovered he doesn't have much stuff.  And, in fact, if you took away his Legos and books then he'd have practically nothing!  Still, it was dusting those @$#%$ Legos that took most of the time!

The reward at the end was lunch out with Mommy.  London and Emmy chose Panera where they got their favorite - a bread bowl with soup.

Haven't I tought them good table manners???