January 11

You guys were praying for us last night, weren't you?

I could tell, because Eli slept perfectly, which meant I slept perfectly. Mind you, he definitely did not sleep through the night, but at least he slept, nursed, and went back to sleep. I'll take it.

Also, this horribly blurry picture from today may provide insight as to why Eli is suffering:

Can you see? It's faint, but there are two little tooth buds bulging on his lower gum. The teeth haven't broken through yet, but they are on their way. Poor kid.

It's either the teeth, or he hates me and wants to see me suffer. I suppose that's always possible, too.

Eli was really fun today. He spent quite a while entertaining himself with a little red ball.

He would hold it, say, "Ball. Ball. Ball." and then throw it.

Throw!

Throw!

And then he crawled after it and began the cycle again. (Don't mind the mess. We're busy here.)

It was the best game ever because Eli loved it, and because it required absolutely no input from me.

In other news, Daisy's final Christmas gift finally arrived from China. She loves it. And how perfect that she already had an Elsa hat with braid (a gift from Grandma) and this Christmas got Elsa gloves from Grandmother? Daisy felt really, really fancy, and seems to be trying really hard to take care of this dress. That's noteworthy because it seems that our children struggle with taking care of anything, but Daisy seems to think this dress is special

And this boy. Seriously, he was so cute today that I could tell he felt bad about the other night.

And boom. Mom is on the ground, so Eli has to be in my lap. Look at those scheming brown eyes! He is up to mischief!

I am posting too many pictures here, but I don't care, because he is SO STINKING CUTE.

And his little tongue! He has been sticking it out when he is particularly happy lately.

Sweet bear.

But the best part of the day was after dinner, when Chris and I were getting ready to put the kids down for early bedtime because Caleb and Daisy were clearly exhausted. They were getting ready to read, when Daisy shouted, "WAIT! WE NEED TO HAVE A FAMILY SNUGGLE!"

And so all three mobile children went racing toward our big bed, and we all piled it. We snuggled and giggled and played and cuddled, and it was the best thing ever. As I snuggled Caleb, he told me, "Mommy, snuggling is my favorite thing in the whole world. I love it even more than Legos."

Now, that's saying a lot. I think we need to make family snuggles more of a priority!