A lovely morning of sleeping in -- or post-party redux.

After last night's party, the girls were quiet this morning. Although I was vaguely aware they were up, both Daddy-J and I enjoyed a long, leisurely sleep-in. I was impressed that my "big" girls were playing so nicely with their new toys and nobody was screaming or coming to tell me they were poopy or hungry. I didn't get up until the sun was shining bright in the sky and it was a beautifuly, clear-blue morning.

Only to discover that the girls had been keeping themselves quiet by PAINTING MISS-D's ROOM! They started with painting the trim pink and purple and yellow. Then they got out the markers and did some work on the wall above Miss-D's bed. And then they turned to Miss-D's heirloom dollhouse and started making that pink and yellow. Of course, I didn't discover all this immediately. No, upon waking, I discovered Miss-D and K-Wiggles painting K-Wiggles' new wooden barn pink and yellow and M-Moo painting my bedroom door purple.

The most interesting part of the whole thing, however, was that Miss-D decided this would be the day she would graduate to more elaborate lying than she has been experimenting with to date. While Mama-V was busy cleaning up the paint in her room (sorry, no pictures, I was too angry!), Miss-D was telling Daddy-J how sisters had done all the painting while Miss-D was asleep in her bed.

I knew she was lying by the style of painting, but I wasn't sure how I was going to bust her, until I remembered that when I was upstairs, I had seen the boxes the paints came in lying on the floor, cut open with scissors, tiny little scissors. Now I know the littles don't know how to use scissors yet, 'cuz I had just seen them try the other day. They certainly don't know how to cut open a cardboard box.

But here's where it gets really good! When confronted with the evidence of the scissors-opened boxes, she readily admitted that she had done that, but THEN SHE HAD GONE BACK TO BED while sisters did the painting in her room! Um, yeah, NOT!

So we had to have several little talks throughout the day, about how paint only goes on paper, not on walls and not on toys, and how markers only go on paper, not on walls and not on toys, and how telling lies is not good, and how telling lies when you do something wrong is even worse. Etc., etc., etc.

Ah well, as Daddy-J pointed out, we've made it through 4.5 years of having kids without having anything we own get majorly destroyed, so I guess we were due. Looks like G-pa Irv will have some re-painting to do in Denali's room... who knew that purple paint doesn't come off all the way? And Daddy-J is working dilligently to scrape all the paint off the barn and the doll house, and then we will be using some kind of finish on those so that the next painting session comes off easier.

*sigh*