Update

Anna is my festive child lately. Each day she adds some festive little flourish to her outfit. She almost completely mutinied because in our Christmas card picture the kids were not wearing red or green. We had a serious battle of the wills and I forced her to wear her new darling pink and gray dress. She did, however, sneak a little gold bell into the photo as a touch of Christmas.

On Sunday she wore a black dress and then tied gold ribbon around her waist and then added a little silk poinsettia flower. She taped her little belt together but then during Church took it off. After wrestling Ben and creating two gigantic holes in my nylons I stood up to take him out and stepped on the tape part of Anna's homemade belt. So there I was holding a crazed LOUD baby, two big holes in my knee dragging a gold ribbon stuck to my boot. Perhaps that was my punishment for forcing her to wear something so positively un-festive for the photo. We love Anna.

Ben has done fairly well with our Christmas decor until suddenly last night he suddenly grabbed an ornament and threw it against the tile smashing it into a million pieces. We were all startled and as he watched us coming for him he started grabbing for more and throwing as fast as he could. He managed to throw three, two of which were obliterated, before we got to him.

Whenever I put my shoes on or Nate's trying to get his clothes on Ben will grab the one item I'm not holding and with an impish grin say "MINE!". He then runs as fast as he can (which is actually pretty fast) and hides behind the Christmas tree. Each time I say, "Ben", he says, "Whaaat." If I say, "Benny, come here" He answers with, "Why?" It cracks me up. He honestly thinks he's 8. We love Benny.

Nate keeps asking me if I think his stitches are "inducted." I'm pretty sure he means "infected". I told him I had to run into a store to see if they had any headboards for the girls' beds and when he asked what that was I explained, "You know that shelf thing at the head of your bed where you put your stuffed animals?" "Mom, you could never carry that!" Such a typical male, so sure his mother was too weak for the job at hand. It caught me off guard and I laughed hard, because I really hadn't considered how and where I would get it into the car if I did find one. We love Nate.

Brennan has been out of town and poor little Abby dissolves into tears about every 20 minutes or so. She definitely has a dramatic bent, but she does genuinely hate for any of us to be apart for any extended period. Each time one of the kids refers to Dad, she tearfully and dramatically says, "Could you please not mention his name?!" I'll find her in a corner hugging her stuffed bunny that he bought her before he left. "Mom, I miss Daddy!" We love Abby.