Nothing truly BIZARRE, just different. And I think I'm ready for James to come home. He's been gone for a week now and I think maybe we're all getting a little lonely for him. The only trouble is that he isn't scheduled to come home for another 5 days! ~sigh~ We'll have to find some things to keep us real busy until then!

Sam woke up crying several times last night. I think he wasn't feeling well, though all he ever complained of were growing pains. It made for a very sporadic night of sleep for me. At 7:15 I was awakened by Joe crying. He had thrown up in bed! ~Aaaarrrrggghhh!~ I HATE that! Luckily, it really wasn't too bad. Just a new pillowcase and shirt and he was fine. Except that he threw up another 4 or 5 times over the next few hours and couldn't seem to keep any food or liquid down at all. That's not a fun way to start the day. It kind of put a damper on everything, you know?! At 11:00 today I realized that all I had accomplished was making my bed, splitting some kindling and building a fire (the high is 44 degrees here today! Wow!), making oatmeal, and... maybe that was it! That's all I can remember.

We cleaned house a little bit, then had a very late devotion. Sam laid down in front of the fire and fell asleep and slept solid until I woke him up for us to go to the store. We headed down to Charlie's (the little mountain grocery store about 3 miles from here, owned by a cute little old man--Charlie, of course!) to get some of the bare necessities: milk, bread, soup, 7-Up for the sick-o and eggs. $13 later (!) we came back home and I fixed grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for the kids.

I made myself go out in the cold and finish up in the shed. It only took about 20 minutes, so that wasn't bad.

We had nap time, although nobody slept. I was surprised considering the fact that NONE of the kids have acted like they felt very good today. It's been a crazy weather day around here, too. It was cold when we woke up. (I've been keeping the thermostat on 60 and just building a fire to break the chill--but it was nice and warm the past few days and we haven't needed it.) So we've had a nice, cozy fire all day long. I LOVE that!!! I just LOVE it that I'm up in my little "log" home in the mountains and it's April and it's cold and I have a fire in the fireplace and I can look at it and feel it and smell it... ~sigh~ Life is grand. It started snowing two or three times today--really hard once--but then the sun would break through and it would be bright and sunny for a while before clouding over and snowing some more. Kinda crazy.

I made "Company Chicken" tonight. It's made pretty much like oven fried chicken, but with a few different spices and with soup poured over the top of it to bake. It was really good!

The boys are outside playing right now, before it gets dark. Joe never has acted sick today--except for the obvious symptoms this morning, that is. He was pale, but perky and wanting to eat as much as he could and wanting to be outside playing all day. Weird. I'm glad though.

It's getting close to 7:00, so I think I'm going to call the guys in for the night and maybe play some games with everybody before bedtime. Maybe I'll actually be able to put ME to bed early tonight! It always sounds so good, but I'm lousy at actually pulling it off. We'll see!