One of those days

Wow! I didn't know so many different people visited my blog! This just made my day (plus Dad said "Hi!"). Who knew blogging could be so fun:)

Yesterday was "one of those days." I went to bed feeling entirely defeated by my children and wondering if I was ever going to finish unpacking or find enough kid free time to mop my floor. I was a sad sight. I'll start my explanation by asking a question: Does anybody know how to get permanent marker off the wall?

The day started great with early morning scripture study and a shower before the kids woke up. My goal for the day was to clean the floors on the main floor (doesn't sound too hard does it?). I quickly noticed after the children woke up that the boys had tons of energy and that Courtney was whiny. "No problem" I thought. Ha ha, I was wrong. The boys energy quickly turned to boredom and they dumped out toys and spread them all over the main floor (remember, the one that I wanted to clean). I decided to be persistent and make them clean up the mess THEY made, so it took an hour. Then we had fun for a while dancing around in the office to country music. I thought the day was looking a little better. While we were playing around Jacob found the finger paints that were still in a box and asked if we could play with them. I still hadn't got my cleaning done so I told him that today was a cleaning day and tomorrow could be a messy day. Well...you can see where this is going...

While changing Courtney's diaper upstairs, Jacob decided that he wanted to finger paint TODAY. I came downstairs to Jacob, the living room, finger paint, and brand new carpet. Did I mention that I rent this house? Jacob spent time in his room, Courtney in her high chair, and I scrubbed the brand new carpet! Did the paint come out? YES! I am lucky because I own professional grade spot remover from the time Jacob broke soy glaze all over the living room carpet last year. This kid has quite the record.

So why did I want to know about permanent marker? Well, my day is not over yet. Later, while trying to do the dishes, the boys disappeared upstairs. I had just brought clean laundry up to my bed so I assumed the boys were throwing that around. "Oh well" I thought, "that is a harmless activity." When Luke came down a little while later I asked him if that is what they were doing and he told me yes, and they were having so much fun. (Did you know that Luke lies sometimes?) My "mother's intuition" went off and I decided to see exactly how much fun they were having. To my surprise, the laundry was still on my bed. I then saw my wall, covered in pink highlighter and black permanent marker. Then I saw my bedspread with pink highlighter and black permanent marker. Then Jacob came out from under the bed and yelled "Roar, I'm a tiger!" Jacob's face was covered in pink and black tiger stripes. Luke vowed that Jacob did it, but I wasn't convinced because there was a perfectly drawn smiley face on the wall. I didn't know if I should yell or laugh, so I put the boys in their room and let them wait for Bram. (side note: Earlier that day I turned the boy's door knob around so it locked from the outside. I didn't know it would be put to use so soon!) I decided I was done for the day and my floors never got clean.

So this brings us full circle to my question: Does anybody know how to get permanent marker off the wall?