I have a similar kitchen makeover on my website - may give you some ideas.

www.designbyphoto.com (sorry link button is gohsted ??) 

I'd also have to agree with everybody - painting cabinets is a giant pain. But it looks like you might have to do some touch up on the cabinets - but I would just stick with white, especially since the countertops, fridge and stove are all white. For the walls, I'm thinking a nice tan or a light green - something soft (see color swatches below). On the back wall with your metal storage shelves, you could add punch with a color band.

It's also a good idea to consider light - does the kitchen get a lot of light, or not very much? If it doesn't get much, you should probably stay away from really saturated deep colors like red, purple, darker greens. But if it does get lots of light, then you could go a little more crazy.

Definitely new hardware! Either a nice polished nickel type or black iron. Since you have black appliances, the black iron might be a better choice. A good hardware site:
Coolknobsandpulls.com

Also, check out Colorschemer.com. The site has lots of sample color combos that might help inspire you. 

I think that earth tones can look great in the kitchen... With that said, you probably would want to repaint the cabinets, based soley on the fact that stark white doesn't blend as well with an earth tone.

Might I suggest something similar to what my parents did (we have a wine/grapes theme throughout our kitchen and dining room, which has a similar color pallet to an earthy room): Paint the cabinets in a cream or beige tone. My parents went with what I would consider something between a beige and a camel color (hard to picture, i know) but they turned out really well. For the walls they went with a very nice golden toned tan/yellow. Obviously I'm not a paint mixer, or a master of color names, but I can say that the color went very well with the color of the cabinets, and complimented their tuscin themed decor. You could pick whatever wall color you wanted to, really, as a cream or beige colored cabinet is still a neutral. 

I'm excited to see what you decide to do. You should definetly post pictures when you're done! 

DEAR lafemmedramatique AND dbornsztein;

Thanks so much for your feed back, it is very important to me to obtain ideas and be able to get this project done. My litte one's favorite place happens to be the kitchen, so with that said your ideas are GREAT!! As for my self? I love earth tone colors. :0)

First of all, your child is adorable!

Now, on to the kitchen- I agree that the cabinets don't look bad at all. However, if the cabinets do look dingy and such, as I'm guessing they could and that's just not translating in the picture, I would try to keep them white or a lighter color, as the current color doesn't look bad. Plus I don't really like color on cabinets unless it's only the doors or only the frames...  You could try that if you wanted to or you could paint the frame and the doors two differant colors also, just for a cool contrast... however, I would like to mention that my parents redid our cabinets once upon a time, and it takes forever! Just make sure that if you do it, plan on it taking a whole weekend, at least...

As for the walls, it really depends on what you're going for.... I love color in the kitchen, and the sky is really the limit here... it all depends on the mood you want to set in there.

Scared of color? Keep most of the walls white or paint them an off white or cream, and then paint only one wall in a bold color. Want something fun for your son that could look really cool? Paint one wall with chalkboard paint so he can draw on it, or use magnetic primer on one wall and then paint whatever color you want over it, and then use magnets to put his drawings all over the walls as artwork! (I bet he would love that!) Here are a few websites to get you thinking about color:

Color Therapy

Your Kitchen can be your Canvas!

Magnetic Primer

Have you thought about just changing the cabinet hardware, and only painting the walls? The cabinets look pretty new and nice. The white looks bright and I love the tile countertop. Maybe you could buy some interesting colorful cabinet hardware... http://www.potteryknobs.com/ to add color to the cabinets without painting them. Afterwords you can find inspiration in the cabinet knob color and paint the walls to coordinate. what do you think?