Before and after :)

Yesterday I felt like I cleaned ALL day long. Between the girls needing help with school, lunch, snacks, phones calls and more I felt like I was cleaning at a v~e~r~y slooooow pace. By the end of the day though the house looked great and I had a lot of things marked off my to-do list. My house was very messy after my rearrangement project. That pretty much consumed my time the day before so I had a 2 day mess to clean up.
I meant to take before and after pics of all the rooms but I forgot (oops). I did manage to get a few. Why did I take these???? There is a little saying going around facebook that says something like "My dirty dishes show that my family is fed, my dirty clothes show that my family has clothes to wear, my dirty house shows that we have a home to live in". There are variations of this. I'm interpreting them as a dirty house is okay, normal and maybe a good sign of a happy family. I noticed that a SOME of my friends that shared this are the same one's that struggle with keeping their homes clean, children and even themselves. I'm not saying that I don't agree with the saying. I'm just very aware that I don't want to make a messy home a way of life. I'm fine with my kids pulling out toys, making a mess while baking, a house that falls apart during our school day, children that play in the dirt, ect. I just don't won't to be comfortable with the home or them staying dirty once we are done making our mess. We need to clean behind ourselves when we are done. Mud pies are fun to make but a good cook always cleans up afterwards. I want my children to remember me as a fun mom but also as a responsible mom. I want them to remember me as creative but also clean. This will be a gift to my kids. Good work ethics. Good habits.
My daughters, all three, have made comments to me like "I love when our house is clean, I can think so much better when the house is clean, the house feels so good when it's clean". My gift to them, is a clean house now. I love my girls. Anyways, I thought I would share a few before and after just for fun. I'll add more later.

I'm not sure how the radio ended up in the fruit bowl. 

Notice the dog cages EVERYWHERE!  Besides my dog just having puppies, I just cleaned the carpet so the dogs are confined to this room and their kennels.  In the midst of this chaos, she's doing school.

This is my biggest shame!!!  TWO bags of trash!!!!  Trash not being taken out immediately is normally my pet peeve.  It was raining outside and I couldn't bring myself to go out there.

I remembered to take my picture when I was almost done with the dishes.  Pheeeewwwww (wiping sweat from my brow).  That was a lot of work.  By the time my husband got home the house looked great.  He was glad to considering the house had been destroyed the two days before while I attempted to swap rooms around. 
On a side note, Julia the almost 10 year old noticed another beautiful sky outside our windows.  :)