The Upstairs Hallway

Yes, it is a very interesting place for the dog these days, right outside of Elaine's door, face down staring at the cat through the crack.

 

Interesting to me too.  That table is from the basement.  Not a single person who lives here would claim to know why or how it came to be sitting in the upstairs hallway.

While I packed

The girls decided to have a baking challenge.

We're guessing the challenge was "Blue Desert."

 

Macaroons.  I don't think I could make these.

 

They were both winners of course.

Broken

Washing machine.

Two days before I have to leave the country for two weeks.

The children may not be clean, but I trust they will be alive when I return.

Pictionary

After using up all of the charades cards to no end, we added Pictionary over the holiday.

 

It would help if they read the same thing during the "Play All" portion of the game where all teams play during the round in a competition against each other. 

 

"Buried Alive" won because "Burned Alive" was not the picture to be drawn.

Sparkles

She didn't think they would be quite that sparkly when we ordered them.

Yet, she's a good spirit.

Don't Worry Dad

We made these, and we devoured these.

On the very last evening of Christmas break, six went in the oven, three went to neighbors, and three more didn't make it past the brood.

102

Degrees

While those boys slept in the freezing cold, this one shivered with a fever like we haven't seen in a long while around here.

Polar Bear Patches

Friday night camping was cold.

Their Polar Bear patches from camping in a 32 degree in Alabama laughable.

 

Both excited here to begin the evening.

 

Guess which smiling boy enjoyed the sleeping in the cold.

Guess which boy didn't bring one of his three layers and was cold...

Waiting

Alida, waiting to go to see the dentist.

 

Alida, after a good report from the dentist.

 

And so we had five appointments back to back yesterday, and we made it through a lot of teeth.

Way Back 2017: Happy Birthday Boys

It was into downtown Chicago on the boys' birthday for some puzzle room fun.

 

In a pretty cool old building, where we had to ring someone to come operate the elevator for us.

So we could go up and be locked in a room in that building.

Then we had1 hour to figure out all of the clues to unlock the door and escape.

All while a zombie was chained in the corner but was released a foot further into the room every ten minutes.

We escaped!

The key here--we listened closely to our briefing, and it turns out the zombie can be distracted by show tunes.  The girls set out to distract that zombie from the beginning while we ran after clues.  And by then end, we were pretty much in a puzzle room having fun chatting with a zombie.

 

We hear there is another version of this based off Devil In The White City around here.  On the list for our cold winter activity.

 

(That's not our fifth child; that's our second Ben.  He hangs around a lot and we like him.)

Way Back 2017: Ice

That didn't take long.

 

That's looks almost as if it is being helpful to one another going on there.

It's not.

The boys pretty much hit the ice and turned it into a battle of some sort.

The girls, took to it immediately, had no learning curve, and giggled.

 

 

 

But don't say those girls don't have a sense of humor and are sweet to each other all the time.

Way Back 2017: Our Gymnasium

And our basement becomes the gymnasium.

Way Back 2017: Midnight

That happened.

Introducing her to the dog has been slow.

Way Back 2017: Christmas

Union Station Downtown Chicago.

 

Where we met grandma Montana!

And I found myself saying, "Now you'll smile, Nicholas?"

To which he replies: "It's grandma, mom.  Of course I'm going to smile."

Well done, Nick.

And we ventured out not very much--it was cold.

We have seriously set some sort of long-term cold weather record as of January 6, and we're looking forward to 30 degrees tomorrow.

That was okay--the living room with a fire was just fine.

 

We did get all dressed up and went out for Christmas Eve service.

But we took our pictures indoors.

 

Where there were also stocking sack races.

And Ben photo bombing the air rifle gift for Nick.

I was a little nervous that our new neighbors were going to kick us out of the neighborhood when we got that.  Then it turned out the boy across the street got one too.  We're going to play Hatfields and McCoys some day if it is ever warm enough.

 

There was Mexican Train in the living room.

 

And there was relaxing in the living room.

And it was perfect.