When Alida pretends to be a cat, Elaine jumps in with, "Oh, come here kitty." And we have maybe a full minute of hugs and smiles.
And when these two aren't pretending to be in epic battle to alternately save or destroy the world, sometimes they just sit on the coffee table and share and apple.
Elaine on the left; 
And five kids under five sent out into a field to pick up exactly 13 eggs. 
But they had fun.
And after this I was on the run.
If this was one of your toys, 
playing with a tape measure makes just as much sense.
In February I made sure to take pictures of all the kids with their dad, thinking it would be great to have one for each of them. Then I picked up some cheap frames. Then my project stalled.
And Benjamin has carried his around everywhere since. Yesterday, he took it in the car with him to daycare. I had to set it just so on the dashboard before we exited the car. And you better believe I made sure to have it set back just so when I went to pick them up.
Here he is feeding daddy some soup.
Nicholas was eager to help every step of the way when we got ourselves all dressed and off to Lady Emily's birthday party Saturday.
As usual, the spread was incredible.
And the birthday girl gracious. 
Which was good, because my two princesses, who insisted on wearing their princess garb, got a little confused about whose birthday we were celebrating...
And Ben just had a smiley sort of weekend, I'd say.
Flashes of "Back Off." 
And in a showing of goodwill, instead of fighting for the chair they both wanted, these two just shared the chair so they could tear into their beautiful cake.
JB-Anon came by to visit on our rainy Sunday afternoon. 
And in one of those why-didn't-I-ever-think-of-that-moments, she had an umbrella tent up for the kids within about 30 seconds of entering the house. 
Group picture time turned into a melt-down of people scrambling to take pictures with my camera. So this was as good as we got--me with my mini-me's.
We loved it, and the proof is in a smile from Benjamin.
I had my first chance to stow-n-go the other day. 
My dreams were interrupted, or rather integrated somehow, with an argument between the boys. It was clear, and it was loud. Somewhere between incredibly asleep and not quite awake, I managed to think to myself that surely this wasn't really happening. My head felt like a brick as I turned to look at the clock. 2:30 a.m. The voices were louder now. But they were still far away. The more I woke up, the more far away they seemed. And yet, the more real they became. This was real arguing that I was hearing, but where? The boys sleep a door away from me right now, and these voices were downstairs. What? I lunged out of bed and lurched to my door. Sure enough the boys were downstairs arguing. I looked back at the clock to make sure I read that correctly. Yes. I stumbled downstairs toward these little people. When I got to the kitchen, I found them together at the sink with cups in their hands, teddy bears in their arms. Ben was dumping water on Nicholas' bear. What?
Well Alida, what's got your nose all out of joint this fine afternoon?
The purposefully crossed arms.
Ah, fighting over fake phone time already.
Ben wasn't sure what to do with the chocolate covered marshmallow. 
When we were leaving here last month, the boys got in a fight over a bouncy ball they found along the way. Nicholas went all Hulk and shoved Benjamin near the longer pool of fountains in the top right. Ben came gaspingly close to tumbling in just as a line of princesses from a birthday party paraded past us.
Good grief, we've had a strange winter.
Sometimes, you just have to fall asleep at the top of the stairs.
I started growing these last month. My dad did the same at his house.
Armored trucks--these could be useful lots of places.
So, um, yeah she's still cute.
Taking 4 to the doctor at once. At least it was an ice storm and the place was deserted.
Mine bloomed!
Long winter days. Why not just pull out the bubbles inside?
Happy Birthday this week little chick.
Give him a kiss, he says: "Oh darlin'!"
Grandma and grandpa arrived late Saturday. 
To pitch in and hopefully avoid our germs.
Being the good mommy that I am, I dismissed Nicholas Monday night at bedtime as delaying when he told me his stomach hurt. I told him if he didn't feel good, he needed to get some sleep. Five minutes later he was in the bathroom throwing up. We were up several times during the night fighting the good fight. Tuesday we hung out together. It was refreshing to have just one four-year-old in the house. I ignored my own swelling throat and got a million things done as he watched cartoons in my bedroom. 
Wednesday Nicholas was better, really. I, on the other hand, left work at 11:00 because I felt like junk. I was home and in bed by noon. I got a solid three hours of sleep before daycare called to let me know that Ben had thrown up in the library. I gathered him and we hung out and felt awful together for a little while that afternoon before getting everyone else.
Wednesday night, we hunkered down to bed with little formality, no baths, no stories. Ben came to bed with me in case he got sick during the night. Nicholas said he was scared to sleep alone but passed out quickly and the girls went down fast. Then around 11:00 Alida found me and complained that her pants were wet. Yes they were, wet with throw-up. Cleaned her up, got her back in bed. Two hours later, the same thing again. One hour later a magnificent storm blew through and rocked the house waking us up again and blowing two breakers. Ben looked over at me and asked, "Mommy, what's that racket?" He still hadn't thrown up.
Thursday morning and Elaine was the first out of bed, as usual, but at a late 5:45. She had throw-up caked in her hair. The poor thing had thrown up during the night and didn't even get out of bed. (Oh, yeah did I mention that I'd had my own round of this during the night as well?) I toyed with the idea of taking Nicholas in to school just to get him out of the sick house, but gave up when I realized I could barely move. I laid around half coherent Thursday morning while most of the kids did the same. Nicholas, I discovered later, had found Halloween and Christmas decorations somewhere, unraveled an entire roll of scotch tape, taken off all of his clothes, painted his face like a warrior with my eye-liner, lined up some toilet cleaner and bubble bath in the shower. He had drug out the toilet plunger (did he use it? I don't know), and drug a stool into the extra bedroom and found my one last Chapstick the girls hadn't previously destroyed that I'd hidden high. 
So Cute. 
So Hairy.
Toy Story Garb
Big Girl Shoes
Pretending to be Cats
Dancing
The Corndog
Before Cookie Making
During Cookie Making
