My favorite thing about Christmas is that the kids get so distracted by the new toys that I actually have moments of QUIET that I don't have to sell my soul for.

Teen went to a friend's house so it was just us girls most of the day and it was actually quite lovely! In the morning we purged their closet and Lil Miss was surprisingly helpful! She pointed out the games that had missing pieces or that she just didn't play with anymore so we were able to get rid of those. I also helped them organize and make pretty the rest of their room while putting away all of their new toys.

Then I made a deal. I told Lil Miss if she "gave her salon to a sad little girl who didn't have one" = donate this HUGE AWFUL looking plastic thing that she never plays with, then I would open up this "color me playhouse" she got from her Gramma. Well ... I had no idea what I was in for.

OH.MY.WORD. It's huge. It's 3 feet x 5 freaking feet and 4 feet TALL. It's tall enough for Lil Miss to stand up in. It's big enough for all 3 girls to sit in comfortably. It's so large, one of them may have to move in and start using it for a bedroom.

On the bright side though, they ADORE it. They had SO much fun playing in it that it's hard to hate the thing.

Well ... it WAS hard to hate it ...

Until they started to color it.

Oh how my OCD hurts.

Seriously. Thinking about possibly putting this monstrosity somewhere I will have to look at it and knowing that it's appearance is in the hands of a 6 year old who thinks the Gingerbread House Look is CLASSIC is making my eye twitch.

I had hope at one point. DH can't walk away from an artistic opportunity ;) So when Lil Miss was getting ready for bed, he got out his sharpie and decided to give the house a "distressed cottage look" with some "exposed brick and broken stucco". I heard "cottage" and thought HEY! Maybe this won't be a total eye sore!

And they were so cute working on it together :) I had visions of adorable cottage looking playhouses running through my head. Until Lil Miss decided she liked the Gingerbread House Look better ...

And started to color EACH SHINGLE A DIFFERENT COLOR.

EYE.TWITCHING.

On the upside, it might fit right in. It looks like the only place in the whole damn house where this thing will fit would be where the Christmas Tree goes in the living room. So next year we might just be decorating and singing carols around the Christmas Playhouse instead of the tree. But hey if we add a wreath and some lights to the GIANT GINGERBREAD HOUSE we could always take family pictures in front of IT and use it as our Christmas card.