It was this or laundry...

It's been a while. A couple weeks ago we took all the kids to Rome to meet up with some friends. Then when we were just on the verge of a nervous breakdown, we came back home. Then we had a few days of only mild madness. Then my husband went to pick up our previously mentioned friends on a mountain in the alps (where it was required that he stay to board for a day and spend the night) while I stayed home with our three kids to clean the house and prepare it for company, to prep everything for the Thanksgiving dinner we would be hosting for our guests and several other friends, and to care for our newly spayed dog who wouldn't sit or lay down because of her new wound, and wouldn't walk around at all while wearing the cone of shame. Then our guests came, and we had lots of people around and had even more fun. And then they left.

I put our house back together. I restocked the fridge. The fridge got postponed a day, but it got done (I discovered, standing at the front door, kids in shoes and coats, that somewhere in all the madness my keys got misplaced. I had to wait for Jesse to get home that night and confiscate his key to my car). I have almost regained my sanity. And now all that's left is to clean the house. And yet, even with all the organizing and straightening, I have not yet regained my motivation. So instead of doing laundry or mopping floors, I am killing time with a cup of hot cocoa in front of the computer :)

One little story though from our days of mild madness. We were at a Thanksgiving function and Cooper fell in the parking lot and gave herself a bloody nose. It's a very long story, but lets just cut it down to: I left the function with no cell phone, at bedtime, and a bloody four year old who suddenly couldn't keep her eyes open, said her head hurt and that she was sleepy, and wouldn't answer any questions I asked her. In a panic I detoured from our house and went to our pediatrician's house, who happens to be a good friend of ours (at least for the time being...we'll see how much longer he'll take my calls on holidays and open the door for me on dark nights when something has happened to one of our kids). All that to say, she was fine, and is fine. Maybe just a little puny the next morning:

We actually have quite a few pictures of Cooper looking pretty bashed up. Maybe sometime I'll post the ones from when she fell out of the stroller onto concrete on her second birthday. The poor kid is so much like her mom...

The worst part is, Cooper looked a little beat up. Then Payton fell while we were all down at the square and scraped up her face. Then Zeke and I were playing with a balloon on Thanksgiving and my thumbnail scraped his forehead and left a big bloody scab. When some friends came over later that day, after seeing all our beaten children, she asked Zeke what happened to him. "Mom hit me."