The Home My Kids Built

The kids spent a couple of hours decorating the house for Halloween a few weeks ago. I pulled out our 2 big boxes of decorations and then we went over to the Dollar Tree for some additional things.  When we returned from the store I put on a Halloween Music station and let the kids run wild around the house, tossing decorations all over the place.  In the past when they've decorated the house I've followed behind them, rearranging the decorations to make things look neater but this year I decided to just sit on the couch and let them decorate the house the way THEY wanted to.  They had SO much fun - placing pumpkins, skeletons, witches and more on tables, steps, shelves and counter tops.  They even hung some 'scary' things on the apple tree out in the front yard!  They decorated the windows with halloween stickers and some crafts that they had made.  By the time they finished it was well past their bedtime.  After so much excitement and running around, they were exhausted and fell asleep within minutes.

As I walked back downstairs I  walked around the house and surveyed their work - holy pumpkins, ghosts, spiders, scarecrows and witches!  Mixed in with all of the decorations were their regular toys - Legos, Dolls, Trains, Tea Cups, Cars, Books and more.  I took a closer look and noticed that their finger prints are on every window and table.  Their toys are scattered through out the entire house - they are on top of the dryer, in, under the beds.  There are toy dinosaurs in with my plants, scarecrows on top of the surround sound speakers and fake spider webs hanging from my pictures on the walls.  My bedroom is full of arts and crafts supplies.  There's a bin of playdough under my bed.  The kitchen drawers are full of random school supplies; flashcards, markers, rulers, pencils, workbooks etc.  There are stuffed animals perched on top of the towels in my bathroom.
And all at once I realized that this is The Home My Kids Built.  The majority of things here belong to the kids.  They've put their personal touch on pretty much everything.  Where I once kept a neat and organized house, now things appear cluttered.  Clean, but cluttered. And I'm okay with that.
This is The Home My Kids Built.  They've filled it with multiple items but, more than that, they've filled it with laughter and love.  Even when they're tucked into their beds at night, they can still be found everywhere in this house.  The smell of Lysol and Baby Powder fills every room, just as loads of laundry fill the washer and dishes, cups and bowls fill the sink each and every day.  For as long as my kids are little there will probably always be Matchbox Cars and My Little Pony's in the bath tub, Farm Animals and Puzzles on the bookshelves, Toy Jewelry and Plastic Food on living room end tables.  For as long as they're little I'll probably never own a glass table or a glass *anything* for that matter.  
And I'm okay with that.
When we bought our house - over 6 years ago - it was run down, outdated and needed tons of work.  We knew we would need to customize pretty much everything in order to better fit our needs.   In order to transform it into a home it needed so much more than new floors, walls, ceilings and rooms.  It needed boat loads of TLC, the kind of TLC that comes from little footprints on the floors and sticky fingerprints on the windows.  It didn't happen overnight, but it happened.  Slowly but surely my kids transformed our house into a home.   And now this is The Home My Kids Built.  It's small.  It's cluttered.  It's ours.
And I love it.