Dream with me for a moment, would you?

I have always enjoyed having the babes' play spaces incorporated with the rest of our living space. Having their little kitchen just outside of our kitchen, having a space set up for play in the living room, etc. My thought was that they usually end up in whatever room I am in, so why not have little spaces set up for them?

In our new house, though, we have much more space and toys were s p r e a d i n g everywhere! Downstairs, upstairs, in our room, their room, the living room....AHHHH! I really do try to keep their toys simple and limited, but even so the spreading out of them was just becoming too much. Sooo, a basement play space was created (my mama really encouraged it and I listened!:). The basement isn't finished and so it's hard for me sometimes to see the beauty of it, but for the most part I LOVE IT and most importantly, they do! Yes, some toys do find their way upstairs and that's okay, but it has cut down significantly on the chaos. They play down there A LOT, and also find plenty to do upstairs without gaggles of toys.

I think of this space as their "pre-school room" also, because I think that children learn so,so,so much from creative play. Building, creating, pretending, finding solutions, sharing, cleaning up, interacting and on and on. Their favorite toys right now are stuffed animals, trains, blocks, and their little rubber animals and barn. Amelia doesn't ever play in the kitchen (uh oh, taking after mama) and they don't play with the dress up clothes (except for playsilks) unless friends are over. I have a storage space attached to this basement room where I have just finished organizing extra toys, all of their books (now sorted into categories, I'm a nerd like that), learning games, puzzles etc. I'll show pictures of that soon.

It is still a little weird for me to have them playing away from where I am, and I do spend a lot of time peeking in on them:)
Today I went down and they were in their little boat sitting side by side just talking away. They were taking a trip to a "sandwich shop" and had all of their stuffed animals on board. I ran up to get my phone to snap a picture of them (sheesh, I wonder why I never feel like I get any house work done:). Here are those pictures and a few others. Dream with me for a minute of what the space will look like when it is finished out.










Here is to childhood and creative play:) Jen