Bountiful Blooms & Clean Rooms....Finally

This weekend began on Friday afternoon with promises of no stress, relaxation, and a weekend where I could accomplish some things at home that needed to be tackled. It has turned out to be quite the interesting weekend.

After getting home yesterday afternoon, I went outside while Eric was starting up the grill, and wow, I saw the most beautiful bloom from one of the new hybrid hibiscus plants. So of course, I grabbed my cell phone and started taking pictures of plenty of blooms around the yard.

I love, love, love having color in the yard. It's awesome to open the windows and look at these beautiful flowers from inside the house throughout the day. They're simply gorgeous to me.

For mother's day, Eric and Celeste gave me this pink orchid (below). I'm not that great at orchids, in fact, I'm pretty awful with them. But the poor plant has managed to hang on until now, which is saying a lot. Not sure how much longer it'll be with us, but it's here now. And the blue orchid ... that one's amazing!

Saturday was completely full of cleaning the house. Dust, sweep, mop, clean, wash, repeat, etc. Whew. As anyone knows who has had small children, this is quite a feat with little ones in the house. Let me just elaborate for a minute on some of the episodes of the day....

1. Moved the couch to find melted Now and Laters on the wood floors. Scrub, soak, scrub, soak, ugh.
2. Me: "Celeste, what is that on the wall?"
   Celeste: (very matter-of-factly) "Boogers."
   No joke.
3. Fixed a broken leg on her toy box.
   20 minutes later, she rocks the toy box and moves it until it breaks again.
4. Me: "Celeste, why are you writing in red markers on the tile floor??"
   Celeste: "Sorry..."
5. Sweep and mop the floors.
   10 minutes later, mounds of cake are everywhere on the floor.

...and the list goes on. I love my baby girl, don't get me wrong. But there are some days, when I just want to scream at the world in frustration. How is it possible to keep a clean house with ONE five-year-old inside???

One of the tasks today was to clean her room. We went through her toys and got rid of a huge 55-gallon sized bag full of them. Here are some before and after pictures of her room. The look on her face in the before photos is because she was embarrassed about her dirty room. (So stop keeping it dirty?)

Before...




After...

I wonder what it's going to look like tomorrow. Oh the fun joys of being a parent!