The one I did because I had a few minutes

Sickie the Eldest is snuggled in a couch nest watching Milo and Otis, an old favorite of momma's that I was pleased to find on Redbox's menu. Sickie the Youngest is (reluctantly) sleeping well into the lunch hour, which he will be allowed to do UNCONDITIONALLY while he is fighting this cold. Sickie the Patronly is watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation in HIS bed, while I make chicken soup for the whole snotty lot of them, while periodically dousing myself in hand sanitizer and wiping down surfaces. Could it be that this is one of the few household illnesses that I DON'T contract? I shouldn't even put it in print. Even if I do come down with it eventually, I'm actually enjoying a quiet day of tending to my charges, boiling last night's chicken off the bone and chopping vegetables for a nutritious broth and catching my breath from what has been a marathon of a few weeks. Shifting gears, going through closets, cleaning out summer bags of bathing suits and sunscreen, tiny sandals and extra pairs of Little Mermaid underwear for "just in case" Eden goes in the water at Sandy Pines. Ah, yes. I'm talking myself into this day already. It helps that the morning began with prayers of thanks after a night of fearful paranoia that the howling wind outside was certainly going to send a tree crashing through the window of one of my children.

What's a little cold?



And to round out the entry...

Here's Bean the Third!

The spine shots are my favorite.

Here's Judah requesting assistance

Killer boots, man!

My baby (for the time being) with one of my oldest friends...

Eden gathering her thought while hoards of "big kids" bombard the play structure

Judah looking like a big brother

And Eden smiling sweetly, showing off what was soon to be a nasty scab running the length of her dainty little nose. (We still don;t *really* know what happened, apart from the involvement of the stairs, the parquet floor, and a child-sized plastic broom...)