like Christmas morning.

It wasn't gone by morning (the sore throat that is...). It wasn't worse at least. But I've developed a cough. McKay thinks I have Pneumonia (I don't, but he's cute).

Anyway, so I did what most people do when they aren't feeling well. I gutted the garage. But not all by myself, Gentry helped. Which meant that it took hours longer than it should have! But that's ok.

When we moved in May we left a few boxes of toys in the garage. I was planning the let the kids trade out some toys every couple of months to avoid the black abyss of toys everywhere...

This plan didn't work for two reasons.
1. they each had a birthday since then, which meant presents, which meant things were no less cluttered without the garage toys. and
2. The boxes of toys got buried behind other boxes, camping gear, furniture etc. They would ask periodically about certain things that they remembered were in those boxes and for months I've been saying that I would dig them out.

Today it finally happened. It was like Christmas morning for Gentry. There were toys in these boxes that I would just as soon throw away, but he hugged each one and was so excited to see his old "friends". It was cute. It almost made cleaning out the garage not suck. Almost.

So we put the boxes aside and continued to get out Christmas decorations and some of McKay's winter clothes from last year for Gentry When McKay got home from school we made a deal that they could bring in any toy that they wanted, but for every one that was rescued they'd have to replace it with something from their room. An even switch. And any toy that they didn't want anymore would get donated.

Oh my gosh. This process took forever. They pondered and went back and forth and tried to decide what would stay and what would go...oh, and they got distracted every 5 minutes and played with their "new" toys. I finally had to set a time limit because it was getting dark.

I'm proud of each of them though because they didn't try to bend the rules and they actually willingly gave up some toys and threw some broken ones away. In all it was a success.

This garage thing has been looming over my head for awhile. I'm glad that it is done. But I'm exhausted.