Amazing!

First, a picture for Grandma.  She sent this cute tutu and onesie for the girl.  Don't forget to check her out at Etsy. 

And now comes the amazing-ness.

First, the before image.  And really, it's not even a full before image.  I had already been working for quite some time when I snapped this.  It just took me that long to say, "hey!  I'd better take a before so I can truly appreciate the change!"

It had gotten so bad that I just couldn't do much of anything in my kitchen.  I had some space next to the stove, but even that involved shoving stuff out of the way.  And I couldn't use the snack bar at all.  So I cleaned all day yesterday.  I kept wanting to give up, but I had promised myself a trip to IKEA if I got the living room and kitchen cleaned up this week.  I'm going to see if I can add the younger boys' room to that list for next week.  Then I'll go during spring break week after next.

This is the next day.  After making dinner, breakfast and lunch and a trip to the grocery store.  So I'd say we're doing pretty well. I can look around and see a million more things I need to do, but really the counters were the main problem and they were the worst they'd been since we moved in.
Another reward that the boys had a blast with was the coin jar.  I've been tossing coins in a can and bowl on the counter for ages and never gotten around to taking them in to do anything with them.  So this morning we took them to the grocery store and dumped them all in the coinstar machine.  $93.52!!! Holy crap, that's a lot of spare change.  So now we get to shop around at Amazon and see what strikes our (my) fancy.
I have to say it is very disheartening that despite my week of cleaning and organizing and purging, my house is still a mess.  I'm more of an instant gratification type.  This is slow work.  And every time I get something  done, littles are dumping something out.  But such is the life of a mom of younglings. I'm trying to appreciate their incredible curiosity. Although, included in my plans for when I have older children, is the plan to do some decorating when I can reasonably expect things like curtains to stay on the wall and small furniture to not be used as forts and projectiles.  Any guesses how long that will take? Anyone want to come help me decorate then?  Because I'm clueless!