Playing Santa, Poop in the Potty & Mayhem

Reading the title for this post you may be thinking, HOW can those three things possibly go together. Well, welcome to a day of my life.

This morning found my children having had stripped the red pillowcase off my son's pillow and stuffed the pillowcase with various toys from their room. They were taking turns lugging around the bag of toys and playing Santa. Whomever was Santa at the time would inquire of the other what did they want for Christmas. Once the desired toy was mentioned, "Santa" would dig through the pack and find a toy that matched. What fun they were having. They were so sweet and innocent and cute and funny... If only that could last. Alas, as is typical with my children, the cuteness wore off as the day went on.

We were blessed enough to have access to a hydraulic log splitter (for 1/2 the cost thanks to sharing the rental with a friend) for the afternoon. Now when we agreed to split the rental we'd yet to learn how extremely cold it was outside. A whopping 27 degrees had us bundling up in our long johns and hunting overalls, gloves and hats to work outside splitting the wood we'd obtained early in year from felling our largest oak (it was doing house damage and sadly, had to go).

We came inside at one point to warm up a bit only to find that our son had FINALLY pooped in the potty YIPPEE...He's doing a jig in the bathroom buck naked and with a completely RED face/neck. That's right... the kids got into my lipstick and painted their faces and necks COMPLETELY with it. They were SOLID red all over their faces and necks. While there was a little lipstick on things other than their bodies, I AM thankful it wasn't like the last time this happened. Still, it was chore getting it cleaned off them. (Not as bad as the dry erase markers they colored themselves and their chairs with last week... My son STILL has a big blue mark on his belly that will NOT come off. Anyway, I digress...

My DH gets the kiddos cleaned (as best he can with scrubbing and a bath). We were SO torn between being SO excited about the poop in the potty yet being so frustrated at the lipstick everywhere. URG. Well, kids went down for a nap and we went back to splitting wood.

We'd come in to check on the kids when they awakened from their nap and they were quietly playing with one another so we went to finish the splitting of the wood. During this time, my children decided that having gotten into the baby locked drawer with my makeup earlier wasn't nearly enough "fun" for one day so they proceeded to open the baby locked cabinet underneath and get into my nail polish. Yes... I said nail polish. Candy Apply Red, to be exact. When we came in to check on the kids and call it a night for wood splitting, we found my darling boy all excited to show us his "pretty" toenails and fingernails. Sister had painted them for him. In turn, he'd painted hers. Needless to say, hers didn't look nearly as well as his did, but that is beside the point. I spent the next little amount of time scrubbing nail polish off all surfaces while my DH had to give our precious daughter yet another bath. You see, in addition to the nail polish, she'd decided to almost empty the hairspray onto her hair and used their toothpaste as her hair gel.

As Bill Cosby said in one of his old routines, "The beatings will now begin".... Ahhhh. Just another day in the James' household. I'm trying to give homemade gifts for Christmas this year.... which one of my children would you like?