First class all the way

Over the weekend, we finally assembled the easel my mother bought our kids for Christmas. She'd brought it over several weeks before Christmas wanting my husband to reinforce the wood after she'd read a bunch of reviews online that said it falls over and breaks easily. I guess she was hesitant about giving her grandchildren such a ticking time bomb. Naturally, we did what any good parent would do and hid it in the garage and immediately forgot about it.

We discovered it while cleaning and decided that if it falls and breaks we'll reinforce it then. For everyone that's playing along at home, that's called very, very lazy. Here's the potential death trap in our living room:

What with the giant plastic house, the play kitchen, two nylon tunnels and 347 assorted toys, we figure what's an easel. And the kids love it. I define love it by how many minutes they are capable of playing with it before an adult has to get up and find out why someone is crying. In this case, over an hour. Worth every penny she paid. Here's the newest Kindergartner trying out for Russell Crowe's part in A Beautiful Mind:

And here's her brother attempting to destroy the dry erase board side by refusing to listen to me when I tell him to stop drawing on it with the wrong kind of markers:

Nothing warms a mother's heart more than her child attempting to destroy a perfectly good toy. Thankfully, we're firmly entrenched in the "Washable Markers Only" camp and they wipe right off with Windex. Way to be, Crayola. Way to be. Now if I can just remember to buy them a giant roll of butcher paper to draw on we'll be all set. In the meantime, we're improvising:

Classy. That's us.