A little fun and work

The beautiful wife and I spend a lot of time just doing everyday cleaning to maintain our home, but now and then we have to strip down the room and do some heavy duty cleaning.
Today was one of those days. The living room floor, couch and walls were simply grimy.
Here's the challenge. How do you do all the work, but still make it fun enough that you don't spend the entire day with Big and Little sister hanging on your shirttails screaming, "pay attention to me!"
The beautiful wife is good at it. I come home to the sparlking home all the time with the girls telling me what a good time they had.
When I try it, we usually end up with two little girls who are kicking and screaming, tears running down their faces who hate their daddy.
This morning, I did it right. I'm not saying I'll ever be able to repeat, but I had the dynamic duo eating out of my hand. I made a game out of drying the floor after I mopped and promised them we would "ice skate" when everything was clean. We moved the couches out of the living room after cleaning them. Then we dusted the entire room while Big sister ran the vacuum and Little Sister helped by climbing all over the couches in the kitchen.
Then came the fun. We put in a CD, put on our slick socks and "skated" and danced all over the laminate wood floor.
Big sister had fun. Little sister had fun. But most importantly, the beautiful wife complimented me saying, "wow, you did all this and I didn't hear any crying when I called you."

Love the smell of Lysol

I don't know how she does it. I run around all weekend, just trying to keep two little girls from impaling themselves -- both Big and Little sister like to wield anything sticklike as a sword, which is actually my fault and probably a blog for another time.
There are days Stephanie comes home to find a clean house with laundry done and dinner on the table.
Then there are the other days.
Something resembling food is probably halfway cooked in the oven, most of the floors are swept and the laundry might be halfway to finding itself in drawers. Things definitely aren't together though.
I have my good days and bad days. Hopefully the good ones are happening more often.
But I can't achieve the consistency that Stephanie does. She has a routine that works, which I can't seem to get into. Here's an example:
I walked in the house today after -- what I like to call "stick a needle in my eye meeting day," when my time was spent moving from one group of people to another while thinking about all the work I had to do -- to the wonderful smell of Lysol.
MMMMahhhh.
The sound of girls playing, wife singing and the cleanest house this side of Martha Stewart's. Not only was it clean, Stephanie had found time to tackle the tough projects in the kitchen and hall closet that we had both been avoiding for months.
To top it off, she even went and did the grocery shopping after supper. I did clean up after the meal, but I must tip my hat to the domestic goddess.