Dirty Boys

I took the boys up to the Canyon for a picnic with some friends.  The boys love to explore.  While I was sitting on the picnic bench I noticed Owen was missing so I looked around and found him sitting ontop a mound of dirt.  He was picking up the dirt and throwing it and then laughing when the wind would blow it right back in his face.  Then, of course, he would 'wipe' the dirt off his face with his even dirtier hands.  He looked like a chimney sweep.  I swear, these pictures do not even show the smallest part of his dirtiness. Man he's cute, even covered in dirt.  He went strait in the bath when we got home.:)

I've been really trying to keep the house clean in case I need to rush to the hospital and someone needs to watch the boys.  Today when I got in the shower the boys were happily playing with some cars and legos, so I wasn't too worried about the time they would be unattended.  When I got out of the bathroom I could hear lots of laughter and noticed the boys' door was shut.  I opened it to find this: 

It was one of those moments when I had to make a quick decision: either get angry and start throwing out discipline, or walk away quietly and grab the camera.  . . I chose the camera.  After taking a few pictures I smiled and complimented their creativity in making the slide/launcher and then reminded them of the house rule, "You make a mess, you clean it up".  Then I left and laid on my bed until one of them came out.  They wanted to eat lunch, so I said I would make them sandwiches WHILE they put the bed back together, because we can't move on to another activity until the first one is put away.  It took a little while and a few complaints, but they managed to push the mattress back up onto the bed and somewhat put things back where they should be.  Sometimes the boys drive me crazy and leave me feeling like I am always franticly trying to keep up with their energy, but they are such good boys.  I feel so blessed to have so much sweetness in our home.