Mouse Traps!!

I have a problem here! Can anyone help me out here? Okay, I love where I live, sorta. I love the fact that my back yard has a lot of trees and I feel like -somewhat - I am in the boonies! But there are bad things about living in the "boonies". MICE!!!! Yeah, Yeah, I have mice! Last year, I think I caught 10 of them in those nifty old mouse traps! It was an exciting and disgusting thing to do! Whenever I would check to see if I caught a mouse, I would slowly creep up on the mouse trap having mixed emotions on wanting a mouse caught but then hesitating on seeing the gruesome way he died! I usually wait until the kids get home so they can dispose of the smashed little mousy body. They seem to enjoy that for some reason! So I reset it with peanut butter on it and wait for the next victim. It is sooooo stinking gross to me but I have to do it!!! So that was last year.......This year I think the little mice had a big meeting and warned them all of the dangerous mouse traps that I put around the house and to STAY AWAY FROM PEANUT BUTTER! Or maybe the mice now are just so sick of peanut butter that they have developed an allergic reaction to it! Whatever the case is, my traps are sitting there mouseless. I've even checked the traps to see if they even work! SNAP! They work alright! It scares me every time! I know there are other options out there to catch mice. I thought the old mouse trap that actually kills them instantly would be a better choice. Randy's son Michael had set up his very own mouse trap. You know, the typical prop a box up with a pencil with a long string tied around it and then you wait patiently until the mouse is under the propped up box and you pull the string and "Bam" you caught the mouse. Well, Michael did it. I thought it was funny and it would never work. But hey, he doesn't have to work that day and he's got plenty of time on his hands so I thought what the heck, it will give him something to do. Okay, so in no time, he caught the mouse!!!!! I guess they didn't warn them about that one in mouse school!! Okay so besides buying a cat, what other options work good for you guys? Or should I just forget the whole mice trapping and tell them they won the war and just start charging them rent? AHHHHHH! What do I do? I wouldn't mind them so much if they didn't poop all over the place!! Thanks for listening!!! :)