Today

Today was interesting.  Timothy was up last night with a throwing up bug.  I wasn't sure how to proceed this morning, as it is very close to Christmas and I didn't know which of my kids had been or would be sick, and I didn't want to spread the bug.  However, Miriam and I were singing in Sacrament meeting, and we didn't want to miss that.  Eventually it was decided that Miriam and I would go to Sacrament meeting and stay until our song was finished, and then we would come straight home so Timothy wouldn't be alone with all the other kids for very long.  He slept through my being gone anyway, so I didn't really need to worry about that.

Our song went very well, which was nice.

When we got back home, I scratched the meal I had already made and stuck it in the freezer for another time.  Does anyone want to throw up baked pasta?  I thought not.  Instead, I made a huge batch of chicken noodle soup (in my pressure canner--I really need a bigger pan) and some wheat biscuits.  I had not tried the wheat biscuit recipe before and it was fantastic.  Definitely the best new recipe I've tried recently.  We ate and then the kids played with legos and I tried to work on my talk for Sacrament meeting next week.  It is Christmas, so the topic is, "Why do we need Christ?"  I'm slowly narrowing down on what I want to talk about within that very large parameter.

Eventually the kids became restless so I sent them downstairs to watch the Mormon channel on youtube.  They ended up watching several of the Bible videos, including the birth of the Savior, so that felt appropriate.

I called them up for supper (leftover soup) and then we sang through our Christmas carol book around the tree (sort of).  This is a long standing tradition dating back to when we only had three children.  Great-grandma Frances gave us a children's carol book with a cd.  My kids LOVED that book and we would sing through it repeatedly every Christmas.  I've always included singing through it on our advent chain, so for years now we've sat around the tree and sang along with the cd while looking through the book.  We've reached a stage in our family, though, that doesn't lend itself well to sitting *Cowen and Eli* so tonight was a bit different.  Timothy hung out on the couch looking a little wan but not too terrible.  I sat on the yellow chair with Annabel--who watched everything with much bemusement, and Miriam sat on the blue chair and laughed at everyone.  The rest of the bunch started out dancing and running around.  I nixed the rough housing and the running.  Eventually a game developed wherein some of the children would dance around and then suddenly drop to the ground and someone on the ground would jump up and dance until that person suddenly dropped back to the ground.  This started because at the beginning of the cd, Clover was laying on the ground shaking her head and Emeline thought that looked like fun, so she laid down beside her, and that attracted Eli's notice so he joined in, and that caught Cowen's attention.  The boys, though, couldn't stand lying on the ground for any length of time, so they started jumping up and jumping over people and then laying back down, etc.

The reason I go into this as such length, is because it was so darling how quickly Clover caught on to what was happening.  After a short time, she was up and jumping and back down with the best of them.  Then the kids were laughing at/with her as she tried to jump over people, and usually ended up falling herself, but they were careful not to run into her and she was so delighted to be a part of it all. Toddlers are so much fun!!!  Plus, it is so much fun to see how much the other kids love the babies.  It was all lovely.  In the meantime, we had three neighbors deliver gifts today (our first Christmas gifts of the season) so after we finished the cd, we moved to the table to eat treats.  Yum.

As for the sick--several of us have had stomach cramps and other, less polite, symptoms--but nothing too terrible.  I hope it stays that way!!!!