Chaos in the House

our family room was really lived in!

so after having the kids home for two weeks straight during winter break plus several playdates later, the house was totally trashed. everywhere i turned, there were toys. i was paralyzed by the amount of mess in the house and walked around dazed and depressed for awhile. however, i have this strange need to have the house in good order before we leave the house for any period of time. i just like walking into a clean house after a vacation because no matter how fun the vacation was, we are always exhausted as soon as we step into our own homes. there's also a more morbid reason for my need to clean but i won't share that here. this is what the playroom looked like before we tackled it. we couldn't walk into it without stepping on or tripping over something.

so the day before we left for our cruise, i went into mrs. clean mode. the children had to chip in and help since school was cancelled due to foul weather. we organized, simplified, wiped down, and vaccummed as much as we could stand. the final result was so good that i was glad we were leaving early in the morning. no chance for anyone to mess it up for a few days.
the somewhat organized playroom. too bad, it doesn't really look like this anymore. as soon as the kids got home from our trip, they headed into this room.