On Christmas Day, in the morning

Jacob, barely awake at 7 am. Awake enough, however, to realize that Santa has been here.



Jake opens the first present. It's...the Screamin' Banshee!



Seriously, THE SCREAMIN' BANSHEE, people! It growls, eats cars, and poops them out!



What's more fun... a hundred dollars worth of Legos or two Dollar-Store dinosaurs from the stocking? Isaac knows the answer.



Mommy is so happy about her Tony the Tiger hat (a present handpicked by Isaac).



Mommy sports her new fleece and socks from Daddy.



Daddy rocks his new Chinese Corn Flakes shirt (from Isaac!) and his V for Vendetta movie.



A coffee mug from Jake! Our Daddy sure loves his coffee.



Isaac is in love with Jake's new Playmobil set. We'll get to the Legos eventually. Jake's still busy assisting the Banshee in eating all his new cars and pooping them out.



All this accomplished while we are all still sick, and Mommy has a brand new pink eye. Also, all pictures and many captions are blatantly stolen from Daddy's facebook profile.

Smithsonian, again

Last Wednesday we got the opportunity to accompany Daddy on a quick trip to the National Museum of Natural History. Can we ever get enough of that place?



It was me and the boys by ourselves for 2 hours while Daddy met with some people from the archaeology department. I was a little worried that the kids might split on me and make a run for it. We had a two-fold approach for that possibility: first, Daddy put the fear of God in both boys by sitting them down for a stern talk involving the words LOST and I WILL KILL YOUR MOTHER AND THEN YOU and the like. Then, just in case, I wrote their names, our names, and our cell phone numbers on a piece of paper and put one in each of their pockets.

I worried for nothing. The boys and I moved slowly through the dinosaur, animal kingdom, and insect exhibits, taking our time, stopping for snacks, talking about everything. It was great.

When we met up with Daddy, Isaac insisted we visit the "Africa" exhibit (what it's actually called is the Hall of Mammals). Buddy, we tried to tell him, they don't have an exhibit about Africa. "Yes they do," he said, "see, it says right there..."



Dude READ IT. BY HIMSELF.

The sick bug that we evaded for so long...

...has finally come to bite my whole house. It's the sore throat, body ache, fever, coughing, snotting thing. Everyone we know has battled it for more than a month now, and we thought we were lucky.

Jake has run a fever since Wednesday night, Daddy has been moaning and groaning since Thursday morning, and then I succumbed full-force Thursday night. Today I sound like Kathleen Turner after a carton of cigs. Miraculously, Isaac seems to have escaped with only a little snot and a little cough. I pray the rest of us don't have strep throat.



At least the weather is crappy enough that we don't feel too bad about staying in and watching Christmas movies all day long. Jammies and popsicles, anyone?