Bradley Questions Death, Eleanor Couch Gymnastics, & Sick Patrick

Bradley has been asking me a lot of questions about the specifics of death and going to heaven for at least the past six months or so. It pops up at surprising times, like the other day when I gave him a hug and told him I thought he was pretty wonderful. He replied "I don't want your body to get washed out to sea. I don't want your body to go away EVER." (This teaches me for mentioning once, just once, the ancient practice of burial at sea).

It also comes up at Costco sometimes. Went there a few days ago and while the two youngest children were sitting in the cart and clinging to me and crying for cuddles Bradley started yelling "Mommy, I don't want you to die and go to heaven!"

Delighted with clipping princess dresses all over his clothes. It's a very good thing Eleanor didn't see this.

Bradley is rather mommy fixated these days. We've been making him sleep on his own a bit lately because he and Eleanor have been a bit too wild at bedtime and are not going to sleep until late if they are in the same bed. But it backfires on us because if Bradley wakes up and is alone in the night he comes and finds Mommy to cuddle with. Patrick has been having a rough go of it for the past week or so with a cold and teething so mostly Nathan has been sleeping in his room with him on a twin bed but I finally took a turn two nights ago. I was a bit confused when I heard someone opening the door at 4:30AM and thought it was a cat until a very happy Bradley hopped into bed next to me. I finally booted him out to sleep with Nathan and saw that every door upstairs was open. I realized he had checked both the master bedroom and Eleanor's room until he finally found me in Patrick's room. What a sweetheart. We're letting the big kids share a bed again now. We want sleep.

Bradley and Eleanor had their preschool Christmas program and it was beyond adorable.

Nathan and I got to have a cool grownup date night at the Burns & McDonnell holiday party. I had a sparkle dress and fun friends to hang out with, it was very good times.

I'm going to have Nathan scan copies of these pictures later. I thought we were getting digital copies at the event but they fooled me and gave me a gif link instead! I'm too old for your gifs. I blame the kids in their 20's for this nonsense.

We know the kids had a good time at home with the babysitter because Nathan walked in after we got home to check and make sure Eleanor was under the covers and she was asleep with a princess book with the light on. We're not sure how late she stayed up reading but she was quite tired the next day.

Bonus sleeping pictures of cute children:

Naps with Daddy are still the best thing ever.

Patrick saw the Daddy snuggles and yelled at me until he got in on it.

Patrick's Daddy obsession is fairly ridiculous. Here are a couple videos proving it.

The time between naps and until Nathan gets home can be a bit long if you're a little guy.

Patrick loves his daddy.

Sometimes Daddy gets too much love from both boys and can barely eat his dinner.

Okay, Patrick loves me too.

And the lucky kitties:

And it is a privilege to get to cuddle next to him at shows.

Sometimes the love can be a bit much - he's so lucky to have such a nice big brother.

A few days ago I was doing dishes in the kitchen and Bradley had opened the door to the basement in order to block my view of whatever he and Patrick were doing in the office together. So I said "Bradley, why is the door to the basement open?" Bradley replied in a cheery voice "Because we want to have some good fun and we want it to be a surprise!"

Bradley's imagination is one of my favorite things about him. We were doing stamp drawings the other night while Patrick was being read to for bedtime and Bradley made up quite the elaborate spider and monkey scenario.

Patrick is finally holding hands when we walk through parking lots ... just not with me.

No other child has been this obstinate about doing what I say. We've been having some battles over wearing a coat, which isn't that big of a deal until it's 5 degrees out and you have to wear a darn coat, kid.

Yes, we took our kids out to play in the snow when it was 5 degrees. It was as warm as it was going to get and it was the first real snow of the year so it was very necessary to play in it.

You'll be happy to hear that Eleanor isn't letting the cold weather keep her from keeping active.

Last night I had just changed into a t-shirt and pajama bottoms when Eleanor walked into my bedroom. Eleanor took one look at me and said "That isn't a girl shirt." I laughed and asked what I should do with it and Eleanor said "Give it to a boy." So I switched into a different shirt and asked if it was acceptable. There was a long pause and then Eleanor said "yes." She also told Bradley tonight after bath that she was his mommy because she was wearing a dress. I can tell I'm going to have to up my game when it comes to my appearance around here, I have quite the judging audience.

Eleanor has a "good foot" and a "naughty foot" in the bath and one foot likes to be washed but the other one doesn't and usually has to have a lengthy talking to by the good foot (and sometimes some threats from Mommy) before it will allow itself to be washed.

There's a bit of sass from sweet Eleanor girl these days. She gets away with a lot of it by being cute and having a smile on her face while she says somewhat ridiculous things.

Her class posted what the students answered for the prompt of what they would give baby Jesus as a present. I like all the answers and am not at all surprised by Eleanor's. Her best friend in the class is the girl who said she would give Jesus a My Little Pony. No wonder they get along so well.

Poor Patrick has been go go go these past few weeks and teething combined with a cold has made him feel very tired and sick.

Happier times with a giant chick-fil-a shake

Keeping up his hoops game

Being naughty touching buttons on the electric fireplace in the basement. If you look closely you can see that he managed to set it for 12 hours at 90 degrees.

So Nathan and I have been getting some fairly amazing Patrick snuggles with all this going on.

We stayed home this morning instead of leaving the house (I HATE staying home so it never happens) and the kids did "art" aka a game of see who can stack the markers the highest and cut up the most paper into little bits all over my kitchen floor.

I got a snoring baby on me during some morning shows that he still won't watch. It's ironic that the healthy kids are getting to sit and watch shows while the sick one plays basketball with me until he passes out on me because he's so tired.

But we finally figured out how to get him to sit still for a show. Well, it lasted as long as the popcorn did.

We are so happy that we're getting all of the sick out of the way now though before family comes to visit for Christmas! The kids are talking about seeing grandparents more than I hear about Santa Claus, we're really looking forward to having a cozy Christmas at home with wonderful family. We are so blessed!