Entertainment

After you all ran off here, and then screamed until we found you, you found this.

Then you amazingly gave each other rides for quite a while that afternoon. And the girls didn't mess up their Christmas dresses, which I'll soon be calling their Easter dresses.

Alida

Our new routine includes you melting into a crying fit every.single.moring because I don't have a dress to do with your uniform top for every.day.of.the.week.

You exasperate me.

Benjamin Walks Into the Kitchen

And announces: "Nick is red; there's something wrong with him."

Nicholas walks into the kitchen, itching, not talking, and SWOLLEN.

His head is like a balloon; his lips like a movie star's.

An hour after Benadryl, he's fine again.

Whacky.

The Car Wash

Fun for the whole family now instead of terrifying for the girls.

As we drove out, it started to rain...

When I Get Bigger

Nicholas: "Mommy, when I get bigger, will you teach me how to tell them apart?"

And Then

On Saturday we opened the windows and the doors and flew outside.

In our Christmas dresses with cowboy boots and umbrellas.
I love three-year-olds.

Two Out of Four Agree

The Stubers love snow days.

These two were pouting because they got snow on their pants walking from the car to the house. I got distressed girl duty.

Bleh

Took nearly 3 hours to get back to these cute people from work last night due to ice.

I'm Sure They Don't Think So

but enough already with the snow.

We're Southerners, yet we're on winter storm warning today.

What's Going On?

National Guard Weekend.

And it was cold.

Saturday night I changed them out of Friday's pajamas and put them in clean ones at least.

Ben has his baby "Benjamin" that I am the mommy of and must feed and diaper in our game that goes.on.forever. Nicholas is tipping furniture of course. Elaine looks content, but that is the 50th costume change of the day and she requests help with the hunt-for and changing-into of each one. Alida. She's tired. She had night duty. 3:30 a.m., every morning lately. Yesterday, she was so exhausted she fell asleep on the couch and snored through the loudest movie ever since the kids are learning to use the remote and enjoy turning up the sound these days.

Good times, good times.

Sweet Tooth

We don't often have dessert in our house.

We're not opposed to dessert, we just don't tend to go to the trouble.

And then the other night, he was getting the kids while I made the weekly grocery store run. And while there, I picked up a package of cookies, thinking we just needed something sweet and special to top off the boring throw-it-together dinner we were about to have. He must have had the same thought because he came home with the kids plus a box of Star Kisses from Dairy Queen. His pick won their hearts instantly. And then we spent the next 20 minutes licking our stars and then running to the bathroom to stare at our tongues and then running back to see if the next color would change our tongues once again. Four kids, eating, running, fighting for mirror space, shuffling back, doing it over again. And I sat in the corner shivering. It's what I imagine having four teenagers will be like.

January

January 2010

A long weekend with girls who claimed they just wanted to sleep.

Claimed, I say.

January 2008

Again on the floor in hopeful hibernation mode, warm in our daily outfit of footie pajamas.

January 2005
Was this really the last January that someone slept in our house?
Last night at 3:30 in the morning, at least that's what I'm told because I didn't hear a lick of this, Alida came down and asked her daddy to get her some chocolate milk.

Overslept

For the first time since who knows, we overslept this morning.

Racing out of bed at 6:30 in the morning with a 7:00 deadline for six people, four of whom need severe prodding to get going, is not fun. I'm pretty sure I'll check the alarm about 50 times before bed tonight.

But I keep reminding myself that we got an extra hour plus of sleep out of the deal.