December 6

When Lily got up this morning, the first thing she asked was, "You have fun at ball? You Daddy dance at ball?"

She's only two, but Cinderella has given her an idea of what a ball is, and she was captivated. I showed her the pictures and all of the goodies we got, and she was so happy. I love that little girl.

Eli was up at 5:30, and ready for his morning nap by 8:00. I know, it's bizarre, but we're going with it for now. Unfortunately, that meant that once again, church wasn't an option for him and one of us needed to stay home. Chris took the older three to church, and while they were gone and Eli slept, I was wickedly productive with the photo editing. God smiled down on me, and my sweet baby napped for three hours straight. I was thankful!

When he woke up, we spent a good amount of time nursing and snuggling in bed. It is definitely one of our favorite pastimes together.

Hi, cutie pie!

We also had some quality playtime. Eli is a big fan of both the wooden abacus (Caleb has learned to call it a "math rack" with "number beads" at school) and the singing activity table.

He's an even bigger fan of my camera, though. This is him crawling to get it.

Later, Chris showed Eli some of our swag from the ball last night.  

Eli was particularly fond of this hat. I wonder if it is foreshadowing that he will attend Missouri State University? Last night someone referred to it as "the Harvard of the Midwest", but I'm pretty sure I don't believe that.

Regardless, he's cute in the hat.

Caleb had rehearsal for our church kids' Christmas program after dinner, so Chris took him to that while I handled bedtime.

Want to see what bedtime looks like around here? Here are some videos:

 Eli is getting really fast with his army crawl. Though he can get up on his hands and knees, he hasn't figured out that he can move around that way. Also, he's wearing his new Christmas jammies. Every year we give the kids new slippers and jammies on St. Nicholas Day. This year I found an awesome sale, and the kids all have coordinating or matching jammies.

The girls prepare for bedtime by running up and down the hallway in their new jammies. Whatever, man. I just want to get them to bed.