The Secret Toy Garden

We have a couch with a console that holds things like beverages, remotes and small toys (as in our case) and it has a lid that slides from the front of the couch to the back of the couch. Its supposed to not slide all the way back but ours does for some reason. The kids slide it so far back that it slips out of its notches and falls in behind our couch. They also put toys up inside so that they too fall behind our couch. I call this area "The Secret Toy Garden." When we can't find a toy, its usually there. The other night Ella had an apple. She decided to put her apple in "The Secret Toy Garden" and it just so happened that I was there to see it. If I hadn't I would have thought she ate it all and put the rest in the garbage or sink. Anyway, I knew we had to get it or, well, that would get really gross. So I moved the couch away from the wall, separated the pieces (its a sectional), and got out the flashlight. Much to my surprise...NOT...there were about 100 toys, pieces of popcorn, cereal, cookies, coins, and various other items as well as Ellas apple. So I busted out the vacuum and cleaned it all up. I can say its now the cleanest part of my house, at this time. Anyway, once all the stuff was clean, I figured out how to keep the drawer from sliding all the way back to avoid having "The Secret Toy Garden" return. I was most happy. We got the couch put all back together and since we found the tents hidden in the garden we decided to put them up. So for the past week and a half the children have enjoyed their new found toys inside their new found tents. Its been fun to slumber party in them or have some new hiding spots. And now that I think about it, we may have to recreate a "Secret Toy Garden" just so the kids feel like they have new toys all over again as they did with the tents. thanks for reading xoxo

ps. a couple of the photos were taken with an Ipad2 and I don't think I have the camera all figured out since they turned out blurry, sorry.