Here we are

Part 1: 

It's about 60 degrees out today, beautiful.  The baby and I are sitting on the school playground while the oldest burns off some energy before going home. I'm forcing myself to take a break from compulsively checking election results every 5 minutes. It took a good half hour before any children on the playground noticed a baby but once they did they all crowded around asking questions and gently touching his face with Mr. H proudly telling everyone " this is my new baby brother!" I am wearing a tee shirt and it is warm in the sun which is a big contrast from this day we had recently:

Yikes.

I think a Leghorn hen went out for a stroll.

It didn't last long and had melted by the next morning. I'm getting diddly squat done besides laundry, cooking and keeping kids alive and happy. It's enough. It would be nice to have the energy to do anything besides sleep after 9 p.m. though.

Part 2:

Hours later after gathering up Mr. A. and visiting with my dad, getting dinner into everyone,  doing dishes, doing puzzles with Mr. A., nursing Mr. P. and watching The Grinch. 

I took this picture of a sleeping Mr.

 A's beautiful baby locks yesterday before he got his first ever professional hair cut. I was expecting to have to restrain a screaming 2 year old but turns out he LOVED IT. He loved the ladies, the big mirror, the spray bottle of water and was all sorts of proud getting his hair cut. He looks adorable. 

We did take the kids trick or treating. Here is Baby P's costume. I was going for "leaf pile" but it turned out more like "archery season in Pennsylvania ". 

Here is Mr. A Trick or Treating. He was really dramatically put out about the whole thing. 

And here are the two oldest and a good friend checking out their loot.

Here is Mr. A doing his morning chores of feeding the cats.

And here he is using Bee as a racetrack for a monster truck.

Here is Baby P's tiny hand in mine.

Part 3, two hours later:

 When I look back at the pictures from the last two weeks it is mostly pictures of babies and children.  Life is a cycle of wash, feed, dress, love & nurture little souls, sleep, repeat. It's exausting and rewarding and too short.