May 19

At 5:00 this morning, the power went out.

The kids immediately woke up because their fans stopped whirring and their noise machines stopped noising. 

No big deal, because the power goes out quite a bit around here thanks to above-ground power lines and mature trees. The electric company usually has it back on in a few hours.

Except that this time, they didn't. The outage was the result of a severe thunder storm, and there were lines down throughout the area. Something like 60,000 people lost power. 

We have a downed tree in our back yard (STILL), so front yard play was the only option. The blessing of that was that we had the opportunity to chat with many of our neighbors.

See those gray hairs? I was feeling every one of them today. No power is always stressful, but it was compounded by the fact that Eli was being super clingy, probably as a result of being woken way too early. He only wanted to sit in my lap and be held all morning. 

Finally I wrapped him up, and that satisfied him for a little while. But then he was done. Luckily, Lily took over and turned Eli into her real live baby doll.

See how nicely she put him down for a "nap" on the porch swing?

Meanwhile, Caleb found ways to keep himself busy.

The power stayed out all day. I was nervous about nap time, but the little two did fine. I had no idea what to do for dinner, though, since it was supposed to be Friday Movie Night. Luckily, my mom was home alone and invited us over. The kids watched their movie, we all dined on frozen gluten-free pizza, 

And Mom and I shared well-earned margaritas. We got home at 8:30 pm, and the power was still out, with an estimated return time of 6:00 the next day. Yuck.