I’m so sorry for those who have missed my lovely stories.  Thank you to those of you who checked in to make sure I was still around.  We have all been so sick for the past week or so.  It started with Taylor and a very nasty stomach bug and spread through the rest of the house in various other forms.  I am the last one to get sick, and when Mamma gets sick, the whole system crumbles. I am lucky that Todd is so amazing and even though he had the dreadful man cold (I’m kidding, I’m kidding) he still helped me out with as much as he could.  I am so thankful for that man and I think I’ll keep him around. Luckily, we are all on the mend.  It has been a long week of staying in and watching movies.  I am pretty sure I have single handedly brought up the stock of the Lysol and Clorox Bleach companies significantly by sanitizing the entire house, multiple times! I, unfortunately, got used to functioning on one to two hours of sleep, getting up for the day at 5:30 am (not our usual wake up time) and filling my travel cup with ginger ale instead of coffee. Did I mention how happy I am that we are finally getting back to normal?

The past few days, it has been so much nicer and less humid out – a wonderful feeling but a sad sign that summer is actually on its way out. I made sure to get the kids out of the house as much as possible because we all  desperately needed some fresh air.  We went for many walks, played in the yard, and had lots of Popsicle Pajama Parties, as Taylor likes to call them. The kids have a new found love of popsicles, and this summer, Jackson doesn’t even cry because they are too cold! Progress. In an effort to further build their immune systems, they all shared their popsicles with each other, the dog and literally licked the pieces that fell off of the front steps.  They were happy, and that’s all that mattered.

Last night, Taylor and I made a container of water beads.  For those not familiar with them, they begin smaller than a grain of rice.  We dumped them into a large vase and added water to them, and they transformed into water filled beads overnight. I put them in three separate tupperware containers and set them up at the table for each of the kids to play with.  They used toy cups, spoons, and frying pans and played with them so happily.  They played for two hours straight. As I am sure you’ve all realized by now, that is unheard of for my children.  They had such a wonderful time, and were marveling about the feel of the beads in their little hands. They were excited to sort them into color groups.  Also, in full disclosure, they smashed a fair amount into the carpet.  Thankfully, they were able to easily clean them up.  They are a wonderful sensory toy, and I was so pleased to get so much happy, uninterrupted time from them. I even had time to finish both laundry and an incredible book a friend of mine wrote.  I bought the beads I have from a co-op I am in, but similar ones can be found here. We have even played with them in the bath tub before. I highly recommend them!

The kids were so happy to be feeling well and had so much fun playing outside.  Taylor proved that boys aren’t the only ones to enjoy digging in the dirt.  She is such a girly girly when she wants to be, but she will dig in the dirt and play in the mud just as much as her brothers do. I love that about her and also love that playing in the dirt was free entertainment.

Since we were outside for a while and everything was going well, Jackson decided to mix it up. He decided he couldn’t let too much time pass without causing some sort of mess, so he ripped the doorbell off of our house.  Maybe he wanted to put an end to the pesky alarm companies, lawn companies, and people trying to get us to vote for them in the upcoming election.  I can’t say I was too thrilled, but I do like his thinking. He stood there with the doorbell in his hand, pushing the button and saying “ding dong ding dong – We’re not home!” In all fairness, he also carried around one of the state senator candidate’s cards telling me that she was a princess, so I am not really sure where is mind is.

Even though it wasn’t on my agenda for tonight, I had to give the kids baths.  The bath water immediately turned brown once they all plunged their bodies into the water, but I took that as a sign of a good day.  Ranger was so pleased with the new Blueberry Crumble body butter I got the kids and excitedly licked it off of Taylor’s clean skin.