PAINT!!!

Abby love to paint - I love it when she paints on paper. We have had to establish a few rules with Abby concerning art supplies. After she painted the futon with my acrylic paints we made a rule that she could not climb up on the cupboards to get into mommy's paints (after I frantically called my parents to help me come and get it out of the carpet - I was doing all I could to keep Piper from crawling all over in it). We had to make a rule that the sidewalk chalk was only for the sidewalk - this rule came after Abby colored the house and the car, an easy clean-up, but timewise was tough since she had covered lots of ground before I found her. We have a rule that the markers do not color on her bed or on the babies carseats. We had been incident free for a couple of weeks and I thought that maybe we had grown out of the mischief - WRONG. Ethan came inside a couple of days ago and calmly announced that Abby was outside painting the house - words that for me can cause immediate panic - I know the destruction she is capable of. I sprinted outside to find blue and red paint all over the deck as well as the brick of the house - mind it was children's "washable" paint, but I scoured some of the bricks with comet and alot of elbow grease to get it off and I even managed to get it off of the deck as well. There were a few casulties from this incident though - a decorative branch in the backyard that had a birdhouse on it and Abby's clothes. Needless to say - we have yet another rule - ABBY IS NEVER TO TOUCH PAINT AGAIN UNLESS MOM IS SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO HER. Well, we had another paint incident today while we were at the Scout-o-rama, Abby decided that she wanted her face painted. The babies were tired and fussy, but I knew how much she would like it so I agreed and stood in line for over 1/2 hour with her. As soon as we got up to the front - Abby refused to sit in the seat - I was so frustrated with her that I couldn't even talk to her on the way home. I cooled down after I got two extremely fussy babies fed and down for naps - just about the time that Abby had a meltdown because she wanted to go back to get her face painted. Here is my attempt at face painting - she thought it was great.
She wore the same pants today that she was wearing when she "painted the house" - so I have included a picture to show you what blue "washable" paint does to pink pants - funniest thing is that Abby likes the pants better now. We have had to rename them however, they are no longer the pink pants, but they are now the pink and purple pants.

I sure hope that I figure out these "girl" emotions before the twins hit the terrible two's. Abby is doing her best to give me plenty of practice with the mood swings.