January 8

Today feels like it was especially long. Perhaps it feels that way because my morning went something like this:

In the dark, pre-dawn hours, Daisy woke up. I had no idea what time it was, so I tried to nurse her back to sleep. Nothing doing. Then I heard Caleb talking to himself in his bedroom. Because we had no power in our bedroom, I wasn't sure whether it was really time to be awake or not. So, Daisy in arms, I padded down to the kitchen to check the oven clock. 5:56 am. Shivering, I checked the thermostat. 65 degrees. Those two numbers do not add up to "time to be awake" in my book, so Daisy and I plodded back to bed and burrowed under the covers until our theromstat decided the heat needed to come back on.

Twenty minutes later, Daisy was definitely awake. So was Caleb. The heat still hadn't turned on. But I had to do everything in my power to make sure Chris stayed asleep, because he was cleaning at the old house until after 2 am. So I took one for the team and got the kids up.

We manually overrode the thermostat program, and set to work making coffee, bacon, and blueberry oatmeal pancakes. While I cooked in the kitchen, Caleb and Daisy played happily in the living room. Chris woke up just in time to eat breakfast before we headed out to church at 8:30.

Long morning.

While Caleb napped in the afternoon, Chris had some special "Daddy and Daisy" time. He would pluck a few strings on Caleb's guitar, and then

She would try to play the guitar with her feet. Funny girl.

Some of Caleb's cars. I think he lined them up for a race. Then I told Caleb that Grandad and Grandmother and Sally were coming over, so he needed to pick up his cars.

Usually, this ends up being a battle. But today, he completely understood. He looked up at me and said, "So they don't trip on them!"

Yep, that's right, kiddo!

Grandmother brought a special treat for us to enjoy.

Whoopie pies! Yum!