We had a blast there at my sister Diane’s house – all 30 or so of us!

Cousin Sam and Max

Sweet cousin Calvin

Our super hosts – Di, Rob and Sam

Gran and Toby

Let’s save time and wash ’em all!

Our beloved Bud and Cena

Anyone for football?

Love gettin these smooches

Don and Sam like the Chinese food, but I guess Max doesn’t!

Laura and Jesse

Sisters!

Laura and Auntie Bonnie

Our fab 4 – before anyone got sick. 🙂

She made a craft at church last Sunday, a picture of baby Jesus with dried spaghetti noodles around it. I said – “what’s that?” She said, “A manger!” I asked her what a manger was, she said, “A hay!” (not some hay, or the hay, but A hay.) She got to see Santa around the corner, doing pictures before the town parade. She laughed out loud with such glee when she saw him! And then he said, “Merry Christmas!” She looked at me with amazement, “Mom, he TALKS!” (I guess the plastic one at Rite Aid doesn’t say much.)

Taking my face in her hands (all the time), she’ll say, “You’re my sweet girl.” She went with me to the store, and wanted me to carry her out on the sidewalk. I was carrying bags already, and I said, “Honey, I can’t, I don’t have enough hands.” She said very urgently, “Mommy! Mommy!” (So I turn around.). “We need to go back to the store so you can buy some more hands!” (she was quite serious.) We have sausage in the morning a couple of times a week. She asked for it today, and it wasn’t on the menu. She said, very depressed, “We haven’t had sausage for a hundred years.”

Lucy woke me up at 12:30a with some really loud crying. This is not so unusual as she often has bad dreams about flies, spiders, butterflies and other small bugs. But what was different this time is that she said her tummy hurt. I asked her if she thought she ‘has some barfs’ and she said yes.

Knowing that she was intimately and recently familiar with the feeling, I grabbed her up and rushed to the bathroom. Our bathroom is only a few step from her room, but she yakked on my shoulder just as I stepped through the doorway. I set her into the tub and she proceeded to empty her tummy. Just as before, she was happily chatting away one second, and then the next she was spewing then back to chatting with me.

Somehow, cleaning her up last night was worse than cleaning either her or Max earlier. ???

I am so proud of her that she was able to communicate effectively by crying out and then using her words.

Hopefully, it was just the cupcake they gave her at Awana Cubbies, but I blamed the pizza when Max got sick as well, so I don’t have a good track record.

ILLNESS UPDATE : Both Rob and Sam Perez came down with the bug the day after we left. That brings us to 5 kids, 6 adults by my count. And we are still awaiting word from 2 families.