The Battle of the toys

By accident, I am starting to wake up between 5-6am in the morning. First of all, you must understand I am not a morning person. I am not a pleasant person without sleep. But, I also noticed, I wasn't tired (I was going to be early) and getting some chores done! Having the chores out o the way, gave me more time to set the children up for their math lessons. They happily do the Singapore Math (M just loves her manipulatives!) and I sit down and do two pages with G (she loves the attention). Once that is taken care of, I send them off to play. And then the day weakens.

We have a 1600 square foot house. I trip over toys constantly. I had set up every room in the house with toys in baskets, with the concept, this is their house and they should be able to play in every room. Except I hate the toys in the kitchen. I hate them in the living room. And I am constantly tripping over them everywhere else. So, that theory has since evaporated. New plan.

I want to feel like my house is my house as well as the children's. So, my first step was setting up the "school supplies" in a cabinet in my basement. I also have the girl scout stuff down there. Everything related to school now is in the alcove (aka breakfast room in realtor terms) of my kitchen. This will be where the children can study and do school. My dining room is being reclaimed as a dining room!

I am weeding out toys and haven't come up with a good plan for that yet. My main problem is my children won't play outside unless we are thereto entertain them. So all year I am tripping over them and their toys. They won't go play in their room without the same thing. It's aggravating because I spend so much time with them and have a ton of other things I need to get done. If they do go and play, they want to exclude the "baby brother". I remember that same phase...or they will claim they are playing with him just to stay down. This is a battle I seriously need to figure out. Any ideas?