I love a clean kitchen!

In general, I love a clean house. I don't love the work it takes to get there, but I looooove the finished product.

I'll admit though...our house is tough to keep clean. It's 3100 sq. ft and with the boys' rooms right off the kitchen/familyroom area, a lot of their toys end up in there. And when they really want to mess up the house, they make their way back towards our bedroom. I feel on most days, as soon as clean one room, they destroy it while I'm working on the next room. So, I'm constantly cleaning in circles. I can find the time on most days to pick up the day's mess, but I can't seem to find enough time to really get down and CLEAN. Well, yesterday...I made the time. The boys' worked on cleaning their rooms (a process that took 8 hours and basically nothing got done) Ward and I worked on the kitchen and family room. I worked all day on those two rooms, rearranged some decorations, thinned out the junk drawers, and even dejunked the front of the refrigerator. I'm so excited that I'm posting pictures because I'm not sure it will ever be clean again!!!



There are no dishes in the sink, no dishes in the dishwasher, no crumbs on the counter....it's all DONE! We're going out of town this afternoon and I'm so excited to know I'll be coming home to a clean familyroom and kitchen. I am really going to make an effort to keep this straightened up. I love the way our house looks when it's clean and it's so rare I get to see it that way! :)



I've been reading some blogs lately that are reminding me of the importance of making your home a haven. We're all so much happier when the house is clean and there's less temptation to mess it up. When it startes getting dirty, that's when everything seems to fall apart because no one takes pride in keeping it clean anymore since it's already "messy."

My goal this week? Take another picture of the kitchen next Saturday and hope it looks just the same! :)