To dishwasher or not to dishwasher

THAT is the question.

When we put our townhouse on the market, in January 2011, we got into the habit of washing all of our dishes by hand, since you can't exactly leave dirty (or clean for that matter) dishes in the dishwasher when you're having open houses.  When we moved here, we were already in that habit and just continued.  We have used our dishwasher on a few occasions, including this week, to wash the dishes after Christmas dinner.

And I've been thinking lately, we have this dishwasher in the kitchen that is EMPTY all of the time.  It would be a great place to store our pots and pans.  OR we could start using the dishwasher again.  When we first moved in, there was just three of us.  Then there was four of us, but one of us was a newborn who didn't use dishes.  Now there are four of us, including a 4 year old and an 18m old who can (and do) get into their dishes and use what feels like every dish in the house almost every single day.  IKEA children's dishes are dishwasher safe, aren't they?

So we're going to try it.  I'm a tad over spending so much time doing dishes.  OR, if I don't get to the dishes, it just piles up on the counter and THEN there's a ton of dishes to do.  So we'll see how it goes. Worst case, we go back to doing them by hand.  But if it's easier, and takes less time, which turns into spending more time with my kids, then I'll take that.