Snurgles and--surprise, surprise...rain showers!

This a.m. D. woke up with a plugged nose and a gross, chunky sounding cough. I kept him home from church so as not to share the blessing with others.

It was a nice, lovely quiet morning; I was able to have some quiet time and relax, listening/watching the rain fall, then I did some exercises on the body ball to strengthen my weak lower back and abs.

Enter the rest of the family home from church. It ceased being a quiet day at that point! D. may be battling the effects of some cold bug, but he certainly hasn't diminished in the ability of making his sister angry. I have spent my day refereeing and sending various children back to their corners of the ring.

To calm things down a bit, I read Little House on the Prairie to them. As I read on, my living room became filled with 4 kitchen chairs and assorted blankets covering the chairs, to simulate the Ingalls' covered wagon. S. grabbed some dry kindling and firewood and made a suitable "campfire" and they played in and around their wagon as I read. 4 or 5 chapters later I had to bow out, hoarse.

So next came the Atari game that S. got for Christmas! I love this thing for nostalgic reasons. The whole game is contained in the joystick. You plug it into your TV and voila! you have Yar's Revenge, Adventure, Breakout, Pong, Carnival, and several others. All these games I played at my best friend Karen's house when I was a kid! (she always got the cool toys) D. and S. played Adventure for a bit. It's a maze-type thing; you have to find the arrow to kill the dragons, find the keys to unlock gates, find the chalice that's guarded by the dragons, etc. The kids have done pretty well at figuring out the secrets and codes, etc., but it wasn't too long before one was irritated with the other for not playing the game "right." Begorrah! Turn OFF the TV and GO TO YOUR ROOMS. but first, take down the wagon!

If we can keep a truce going long enough, we'll watch A Day at the Races with the Marx brothers. D/S love these guys and so do I :) But any more sniping and the halflings will go OFF TO BED while A. and I enjoy a nice evening on the loveseat!