You know what's cool?

This garden shed is. Or is it a grown-up playhouse?
(I got this inspiring photo from The Inspired Room.)

Oh, and thinking you have to mop your kitchen floor--sweeping it--and discovering you can go another week. With a little spot cleaning to scrape off the melted ice cream cookie pieces under S-man's chair.

You know what else would be cool, that I just barely thought of? Mimi Sue mentioned I could implement duct tape in the survival of the boys, but what about bungee harnesses hooked on the ceiling that I could lock them into all day and then just let them bounce and fly all over a padded room? Someone get going on inventing that. I will be your first stock investor. Because it will be big.

You know the hair-cutting episode we had compliments of Lolly?

I should have mentioned that I'm very glad it wasn't the mullet she gave herself four years ago. Remember that Mom? How she found your scissors? At least then her hair was still pretty curly and it was easy to disguise all the short hair all over the top of her head. I wish I had digital pictures--at least some of her super curly hair. You would mourn the loss of it, but it's so coot straight, as Mr D would say.

And for your viewing pleasure, some random photos.

Should I get the wheelbarrow and yell, "Bring out your dead?"

He's hoping I'll remember to post about his birthday. If only I could remember.

And Charlie Chaplain when he was one.

No Rest for the Wicked

Some days, I'm convinced my children have a pact with the devil.

Do not be deceived.
I always am.

You know those days where you're always, not two, but 23.75 steps behind them and every time you turn around from cleaning one mess, they've made two more?

Hints at how to survive three boys would come in handy right about now.

I know the worst the third one does so far is cause slows-me-down weight gain, sporadic heartburn, and near-constant loss of energy (oh mercy, Laurel and Tammy, who do I sound like? yikes.), but I'd like to be prepared.

One thing I already have thought of is to not have any rugs.

Anywhere.

It's already been done in the main bathroom, compliments of the children.

We have plans to pull out all the carpet in the house eventually, whether we do anything (parent-intentional) to redo the wood floors or not. We've already pulled out the carpet in the hallway and I'm really liking it. The more wipeable surfaces, the better, right?

Next step: all wood furniture--Shaker style.

And a lifetime supply of Clorox wipes.

Anyway, yesterday, someone decided to do this:

Nice fringe. The 40's called, they want their bangs back.

I don't think she'll ever grow out of the self-haircutting phase.

A few weeks ago she also did this:

See how she was careful to cut both sides evenly?

It resulted in us getting an emergency haircut at 9:30 at night. Luckily the gal who cuts the kids' hair was nice and let me with all three kids go over to her house to do it.

Good thing I wanted to bob her hair for summer anyway.

Both instances, she was cutting out knots she made (and makes all the time) from twirling her hair.

All I could think about was Beauty School Drop-Out.

My predictions of Mr Destructo's advancement to real underwear was premature. Because he's gone through three pairs a day since and they don't just get wet. Hence the reason I'm very glad we have no carpet from the toilet to the washing machine so I can clean all the drips. My boys are averaging two baths a day this week. Yesterday they earned their second one climbing around in the big pile of sewer mulch and throwing it at each other. I think S-man still has some in his ears because he keeps picking at them.

I still haven't learned my can't-leave-the-kids-alone-for-20-minutes lesson because today I was outside weeding while they were inside presumably playing nicely and came in to find that someone had messed his pants again, and he and his brother had found the toothpaste and

fingernail polish--

luckily the kid kind that comes off with baby wipes.

At first, I couldn't find all the bottles of polish until I came across our big (luckily not full) refill bottle of syrup in the pantry--i.e. linen closet--full of nail polish bottles that got dumped out on the luckily carpetless floor when I so brilliantly picked it up by the not-screwed-on-all-the-way lid.

(Can you see the little bottles floating in there?)

(And check out our interestingly but not completely painted wood floors. I think I'll just paint over it. Once I sand off the painted on newspaper scraps. Nice, huh?)

Good thing the janitor came to clean it up.

With Kleenex he found in the "pantry".

He cleans his hair with blue High School Musical toothpaste. Yeah, all that blue stuff is toothpaste. He likes to be minty fresh.
Look, they even painted the syrup bottle.

Pretty pretty--

the famous last words of my brother before he pulled over the Christmas tree when he was one.

The boys got hungry after all their hard work.

Here's their abandoned attempt to make lunch.

Everyone puts fingerprints in their bread right?

(And has awesome yellowish-blue countertops? RIGHT???)

Later, I came across this:

Of course it was inevitable.

And was an almost-new Mega-sized roll.

(Whoa on that vinyl. That of course is in perfect condition, so why replace it right?)

Of course, once I was completely exhausted from cleaning everything and everyone up, they had to go for...

the mud hole.

With a shovel.

And a sword.

I think only a boy would understand.

I wish they would have submerged it and killed the noise-making mechanism in it.

Usually I'm sort of okay with the mud hole, but not today.

Oh well. Motherhood, right? I was laughing part of the time.

At least I can enjoy this.

Even if my lack of photography skills make it look more jungly than it is in real life.

I hope the pansies last a while longer, I love all the different colors.

I planted some flower seeds today. I know I'm a little late, so I hope they still turn out a good harvest so I can have more of these:

And since the day is far from over, stay tuned for addendums.