Every time we do a blog post about our living room/kitchen, we get asked how we keep our house so clean, especially with two little kids, a dog and a cat. The truth: we clean like crazy and hide all the mess before taking pictures, of course!

I thought it would be fun to take a few quick, completely real and unstyled snaps on my phone from our real life this morning. This is actually nothing compared to what it’ll look like by the end of the day, but we do pick up the floor every night before bed, which helps. I’m also super picky about things being on the counter. It gives me anxiety. But don’t get me wrong, there’s always something on the counter, and usually it’s my mine.

Olly had just started digging into the toy bin at this point. We keep that pink basket in the living room mostly with rattles and little things, which makes it super easy and fast to clean up every night, and then the rest of the big toys are in the playroom downstairs. And yes, there are always random balloons around our house.

Note Joey’s backpack on the chair since she went to daycare on Wednesday, the tupperware on the floor that one of the kids had been playing with, the huge pile of dishes next to the sink because our dishwasher broke this week, a jumble of computer cords, last night’s clean pots and pans waiting to get put away.

I posted this same angle on Instagram this week, and here it is looking a lot more like normal. Another balloon, my shoes lying around, and you can’t even see that there’s about half a bowl of cereal spilled on top of the table.

So we’re just as normal and messy as everyone else.

Also, did you notice that in both pictures of Olly he’s looking at me like, “what are you doing, mom?!”

Here are a few things that have caught my eye lately:

• How cute is this 900-square-foot pink Victorian in San Francisco?  (via Domino)
• I’m not buying anything this month (see update below!!), but there’s no rule against window shopping and I’m really into this fringey pillow cover for fall, and this rust-colored throw.
• Also this trench. I guess I like that color right now!
• I absolutely have to make A Cedar Spoon’s s’mores A&W root beer float!
• Wow wow wow!

And an update on No-Spend August!
If you’re not caught up on our no-spend August challenge, take a sec to go check out the post! We’re ten days in now, and I think we’re doing great, no cheats, no broken rules! Honestly I really haven’t noticed that much of a difference in my own lifestyle, except I’m dying for some M&Ms! The little things are the hardest part. A few dollars here or there doesn’t really matter that much, but it adds up. I’m so curious to see what our end-of-month spending will look like. Unfortunately I’m sure our dishwasher repair is going to mess it all up!