Cutting and Coloring Chaos

The kids are in a phase since school started...I don't know what I should call it exactly.  It involves drawing, cutting, paper, magazines, stickers, and scraps everywhere.  It's not really crafts.  I guess it is art.  Of course, they have previously enjoyed coloring and drawing and cutting but it's gone really crazy lately since school started.  I think they get motivated by what they make at school and want to keep going at home.  

For example, Ben brought this home from school last week:

It is a football field and he only had time to make the endzones there.  The middle was white.  He filled in the rest here.  I could live with this.  I was pretty proud of it actually...the bubble letters are pretty good I thought. But...this is just the beginning.  The kitchen table looks like this every day:

Gah...don't panic...don't panic...that will be easy to straighten up...the little shreds of paper from the back of those letter sticker are no problem!  And shredded magazines...easy!  And the multiple pairs of scissors and markers where a fresh two year old can reach them are no big deal at all!  So what if his hands and face are always colorful!  It's easily washable!  No one even notices, I'm sure!  

Oh, look! Another pile that must be saved!  The tractors are pretty funny actually...Ben and Tessa were cutting them out and saying they were "tractor coupons" for my dad.  If only!  And Ben likes to cut out scopes from the hunting catalogues and he taped one to a paper towel tube.  Clever.  

Tessa prefers the women's and fashion magazines because of the plentiful jewelry ads with "beautiful gems" to cut out and lots of bottles of nail polish.  Also, I have read many magazines in my life and I never realized how many pet food ads there are in them.  

As much as I don't enjoy eating lunch on a pile of notebook paper and sticker scraps I let this activity continue.  It is creative at least.  And I get to find items like the following strewn everywhere in the house:

Tessa calls the swirls she draws "galaxies" and the weird little ovals are from the show "Wild Kratts".  Ben makes those.  They are creature power disks or something.  I should know.  They are watching it in the background right now.  

This here is rather unsettling.  Tessa made this last night.  It has the feel of a ransom note if a three year old could make a ransom note.