End of the Year Declutter Challenge-- So Far

 Hello friends and happy Monday before Thanksgiving! Do you have plans for the holiday? We will be driving to Florida tomorrow night to visit Devin's grandmother and some aunts, uncles, and cousins. It should be a lot of fun! Devin's grandma is 94 and still such a firecracker. I am looking forward to spending some good quality time with her.

This will be my only post for the week since we will be traveling, and it's an update on my constant battle with decluttering. Anybody else feel like you are constantly pulling things out to donate? It feels like I'm always doing some sort of decluttering challenge around here. A couple weeks ago I had one of those moments where I thought "how do we keep accumulating so much stuff?! I swear I don't buy this much!" So I made a note to keep track of all the new things that come into our house each week. In one week we had 17 new things come into our house that neither Devin or I bought. 17 new items-- in one week! How did we bring in 17 new things??

- Some of it was art projects from school or items from the treasure box at school

- Both kids got haircuts and the lady at the salon gives them a gift bag of goodies if they sit still while they get their hair cut. 

- I love my parents to pieces, but they are big culprits here too! I think my mom buys the kids something small every time she goes to Dollar Tree/Walmart/Target. It's sweet, but it adds up to more "stuff"! 

Unfortunately I felt like this was a pretty typical week. Meaning if we accumulated roughly 17 new things each week, that's almost 70 new things a month. 😬 No wonder I feel like I'm constantly decluttering! Yikes! 

So here I am doing yet another declutter challenge, but this time I am also trying really hard to keep the junk at bay in the first place. Remember the decluttering challenge I shared that we would be doing? Here's a look at how we're doing so far with that:

Roughly halfway done--  not too bad!

One Saturday we went into the kids' playroom and pulled out every single toy they   owned. Yikes! They had a lot! There was a moment there where I definitely had mid-project regret. That being said, now that we are done, it feels very freeing. The kids are much happier with the fewer toys they have and feel less overwhelmed when picking out a toy to play with. We took some toys to the consignment store, some to the kids' schools for inside recess toys in the classrooms, and some to  Goodwill.

I have a feeling this is one of those projects that is never-ending, but it's honestly so worth it. It feels like a huge weight is lifted off my shoulders whenever we minimize the items we have around our house.

Today I am linking up with Sarah and Holly for Hello Monday. Have a great week and a happy Thanksgiving!!