Make-up Madness

Winter break. Words that inspire extreme joy, and extreme fear. The first two weeks were wonderful, since with my parents in the house it worked out to almost as many adults as kids. Then, they LEFT. Just like anything else, it is hard to go back once you've had a taste of the good life. It started off slow enough - at the beginning of the week, we looked something like this (see the picture above)

I'm feeling GOOD! Everyone dressed, fed, and out on a bike ride; no mishaps, life is beautiful. I even baked home-made snacks.

Midway through the week, things start to look something like this (see pictures on next page)

This is what happens when you mistake quiet-ness for "aww, they must be having so much fun playing with their friends!" I know, I should know better - too much quiet always equals mayhem in this house.  Apparently using makeup the traditional way got too boring - it was more fun to paint their entire bodies (yes, this includes arms and legs, front and back) as a monkey and a tiger. Big brother told on them, but forgot to mention HIS roll as face painter. Nice.

There aren't any pictures of the last few days of the week because quite frankly its all I can do to stay sane. Things that may or may not have happened include: having the 5 year old bicycle off on his own to a friend's house, me only realizing he is missing when I get a text from the friend's mom; having the almost 2 year old smash open a jar of pickles on the kitchen floor ; crying at 9 a.m. because I can't possibly make it all day ; crying at 7 p.m. because I just know how much I'm going to miss them when they have to go back to school; and finding the bathroom completely covered in soapy water due to an "experiment" gone wrong (according to me, not the 3 year old :) 

Having kids makes me feel like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: I can't wait until they are all home so we can have all kinds of fun together, and then I can't wait until that first day back at school when I can regain some of my sanity!