My love/hate relationship with creative play

One of the many reasons I love having the children home is that they can have lots of time for uninterrupted free play.  I love them having TIME to play- really play.  HOWEVER- it destroys the house.  Just tonight as I walked upstairs I saw the playroom entrance barricaded...again.  Why do they keep doing this?  Is it not fun to play on the toys where they go?

When I went to ask Tucker to clean the playroom I found him in Julia's bathroom causing mischief (or being creative- depending on how you see it).

And yes, I LOVE the things they build with the MagnaTiles- and they do use them every.single.day-

But then they knock whatever they built down and every day I see this for the rest of the day-

If I ask them to clean it up they inevitably start building something again and beg me to keep them out.  :)

Then today when I went to find Charlie- the hallway was blocked- why is the table from Julia's room HERE?

Ladies, I appreciate your need to get out...but the hallway?

Charlie came and "fed" many of the babies and then decided he better have lunch with them himself. 

 



Madam, you look like you've had enough- time to go!

 I'll go ahead and finish up where you left off.  :)

I know that all too soon there won't be anybody little living here to mess up my house.  What a sad day that will be.  Thank you, Lord, for this mess and the babies who make it!

*****UPDATE*****

As I was typing that last post "Thomas and James" here poured a whole bag of pretzels out in the kitchen.  

Don't worry- I'm training up my children.  :)   Lucky for me, they think cleaning pretzels is almost as fun as pouring them-

I'm just going to assume he's eating one off the table.  :)

Those dimples mean that Mommy won't stay mad at all his antics.  :)

I love those Irish eyes a smilin'!