Infant Jesus of Prague

National shrine is here in Oklahoma of all places, we made a visit over the weekend, finishing a novena.

"I love them more"

I spend several mornings per week building new track configurations for X to play with. It's surprisingly difficult to get the tracks to meet up just right. Though Thomas was meant for all the kids (Christmas), X tends to play with them pretty exclusively with his older sisters helping to build him tracks in their free time. On more than one occasion I've overheard him arguing with M2, "I love them more so the trains are all mine!"

11th

Earlier in the week, Christmas cookie decorating at friend's house and then BB's birthday celebration -- with spaghetti, Brussel sprouts, and blueberry muffins, watched LOTR Two Towers.

Closet Monkey

12th Day

10 months

Meat and potatoes/carbohydrates (and green peas) kind of girl, loves her sweets, fruit not so much; four teeth on top, two on the bottom; still a cuddler; just started high crawling (instead of on her tummy); grooves to music when there's a hoppin' beat.

10th Day

X (arguing with M2): I love trains so these [Thomas train set] are mine. ...Older kids got a Marvel Lego set to assemble.

Lulu's Art

X Quotes

Watching Drew doing something with his batch of wine: "What's Daddy doing with his pink beer?"

During our morning power outage: "Did a big bad man take all the batteries out of our house?"

Short-Lived

One of the things we learned in 2017 is that we don't have time to be dog owners. I took the kids to get a couple dogs from the Humane Society, Mama Dog with one blue eye that we renamed MJ (retriever mix) and Bean that we renamed (Bean-Powered) Rocket (pit bull / terrier mix). How we picked these two is that J liked MJ; I was sold on her gentleness and willingness to be loved on by the kids; and Rocket was the only one (of the other dogs at the shelter that day) MJ liked. BB and M, who agreed to be responsible for their care, were very good about daily feeding and watering, but ultimately we were too busy to spend very much (extra) time with the dogs which resulted in mischief and destruction on their side. After nearly four weeks, it was a unanimous decision to return them (to the Humane Society) and give them a chance at a better life.