While Andrew was in DC

Andrew is on his way home from a whirlwind trip to DC for a conference. True to their word, the FAA did cancel a lot of flights. Andrew was lucky that both his flights remained on the docket...though they were delayed...and the airports were miserable. 

Phoebe decided it would be a good time to get croup (maybe). 

She was up all night coughing last night. I barely clocked 3 hours of sleep by the time I needed to get up to head to seminary with Miriam. I brought a pillow and blanket and tried to nap in the car while she was in seminary...but was ultimately unsuccessful. 

When we got home (where Benjamin was left in charge), the kids were still sleeping. Here's Phoebe, who definitely claimed Andrew's spot as if it were her own:

She sounds croupy to me (especially at night), but Miriam is suspicious of those rosy cheeks. Fifths disease? Who knows...

After getting the kids through all their schoolwork, I helped myself to an afternoon nap, and then we all got ready to take take Benjamin to swimming. After dropping him off, we headed to the church so that Miriam could practice the organ. We kicked some balls around and enjoyed the fall colours that we're finally getting.

Phoebe doesn't understand how to make a peace sign

And then we went inside to throw some balls around some more. 

Phoebe was really excited about changing into the cat slippers our neighbour gave to her today. She picked out that sweater at a clothing exchange our stake had over the summer and decided those kitty slippers matched it perfectly, so she had to wear them together. That was part of the reason she wanted to head inside from outside—so she could put on her kitty slippers (because I wouldn't let her wear them outside). 

(She's also excited that they match my own kitty slippers so well. My mom gave me a pair of slippers for Christmas a few years ago and I broke them out at the end of October when our house was getting cold inside. Phoebe loved them and would follow me around the house trying to pet and hug my feet. So now we have mommy and baby kitty slippers and...the world is so full of a number of things, I 'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.)

This neighbour actually gave Phoebe a whole armful of shoes to wear, a bag full of socks, several outfits, and a raincoat. Also, three pairs of sweatpants for Alexander, and a few fun things for Zoë. We made out like bandits!

Anyway, here are the kids turning to tangram puzzles while we ran out the clock:

We did a similar thing yesterday, with the little kids tagging along simply because the big kids had places to be. Benjamin's coach added some dryland training after their swim practice a couple days a week and yesterday was his first day doing that. But Miriam thought it was an extra half hour rather than an extra twenty minutes, so she was slow (so we were slow) to wrap things up at the church and head back to pick up Benjamin. 

He was fine—a ten-minute wait never killed anybody.

(Don't quote me on that because I don't actually have, like, data on that). 

But, still, I thought that today we could do better and actually leave on time to get him. And we did! We timed things so perfectly that we turned into the driveway of the facility precisely at pick up time. 

And there was Benjamin, camped outside of the building. 

"Why are you waiting outside?" we teased him. "There's a perfectly good bench inside!"

We teased him with these words because...we've simply been alternating how we tease him when we pick him up and he alternates where he's been waiting. So yesterday he was waiting inside and we asked him why he wasn't waiting outside. And the day before he was waiting outside and we asked him why he wasn't waiting inside. It's...a joke. 

Also a joke is how good I am at running late. 

"Look at how perfectly on time I am!" I boasted when he opened the door.

"Yeah," he said. "Unfortunately, we got out of practice a half hour early."

"What?!" I said. "You've been waiting for half an hour?"

"Yeah. But it's fine. I was talking with my friends until they all left."

"You could have had one of your friends text me to tell me you got out early!"

He...doesn't have a phone. 

"Yeah, but by the time they all left it was like ten 'til. So it's no big deal."

So we went home and made dinner and ate dinner and then Phoebe begged to go to bed. Miriam had a friend come over to do linocuts. The friend left. I put all the other kids to bed. Phoebe got up. Andrew came home. 

And now he's negotiating with her about whether or not midnight is a good time to go back to bed (it is a good time to go back to bed).