The House We Really Live In

It all started with this picture.

I thought about cropping it...or kicking some of the crap out of the way before Greg snapped the photo. But then I decided to just let it be what it really is. There are so many times I'm looking at friends pics and facebook. And do you know what? I'm not looking at their cute kids! Nope. I'm actually looking at the floor in the background and thinking about what a terrible housekeeper I am.

So here's a picture that shows our house in it's real life glory. Today, a friend said that she didn't think our house was messy. Just lived in and loved. I laughed at her. This afternoon I snapped a few pictures to prove her wrong. :) So, here we go. A tour of my house.

This is my entry-way. The beautiful spots on the wall that need to be painted, or really the whole wall that needs to be painted! There are coats on the floor (hey at least they made it to the right area, there's still several hanging out on the couch!) And of course, the obligatory toys on the floor and even the baseball gloves hanging out of the drawers.

And these are the stairs. All of this junk belongs up there. Would you believe that we had this cleared off just two days ago? The basket was overflowing then, too!

At the top of the stairs you'll find my children's bathroom. This isn't too terrible today. I make them clean it every day. There are still dirty clothes in here, toothbrushes scattered everywhere. And a pile of toys are behind the door, as well. You'll walk down the hallway, past the crib that's dismantled, but there's no place to store it. And the toy crumbs (read: broken bits of toys that cling to the walls) and you'll find yourself entering my children's bedroom.

This is another room I make them clean every day. Can you tell? Today the dirty clothes are mixed in with the clean clothes that didn't quite get put away, and the stack of dresses I had laid so carefully across the changing table. Yesterday Roselyn decided she didn't need a nap and climbed up the shelf (spilling everything off) and onto the changing table (throwing everything off). I had enough time to put a few things back, but for the last day I've just been shoving clothes out of my way and sitting on the floor to change her. 

And there's a terrible smell emanating from the beds that are wet on at night...because I can't remember the last time I changed the sheets (I mean really, who has time to change six beds every week?). Books and toys are mixed in here too (although they're not allowed). Will you also believe that I sent them each up and made them clean up their stuff before letting them watch football this afternoon? This is the "cleaned up" version!

Right next door, you'll find the school room. This is the view from the door way. Yeah, you can't really walk in there... All of these tubs have a home on the shelf to your left. Right now, it doesn't even appear that the toys that are IN the tubs are in the right ones. And why would a child ever pick up the tub and put it on the shelf. My kids certainly can't do it without crying for twenty minutes, even though it's about two feet away from where the tub is sitting.

After scooching in a little you can get an even better view of the bed that's not only unmade, but losing it's sheets. Chairs are, of course, meant to be upside down. I didn't dare take a closeup of the desk/table for you. Of course if you threw five dozen sheets of paper, three or four boxes of crayons and a couple dozen pencils on the table and stirred it all up- you'd be half way there. 

And one obligatory photo from my bedroom. We got this shelf so I could keep craft materials away from the kids and in an organized manner. Yeah, if I could get to the shelf over the boxes of other junk, it would be a great system.

So, there you have it. The real house we live in. Please tell me yours looks more like mine then all those beautiful photos on Pinterest.