Here is a fun peek inside our madness.

We are addicted to matching pajama sets.

We make ourselves comfortable, even if it makes us look silly.

We help ourselves. Sometimes it means climbing onto the table to raid the fruit bowl.

We have sweet and innocent faces that are a complete smokescreen for the impish souls within.

We are serious about fitness.  So serious, in fact, that we will do it without pants, in a polo shirt, in shoes that are 15 sizes too big.  And, obviously, safety while using the equipment is a must.

I know, kid #1 is playing a video game in the second picture.  I'm torn about it.  The therapist at the children's hospital autism research group said a half hour to an hour a week would help his hand-eye coordination and exercise his problem solving skills, so long as it's not a point-and-shoot game.  They love to play a game called "Little Big Planet," where you are a little knitted doll who has to run around helping characters from different dreamscapes.  It's really cute, and it does require problem solving.  I just don't know that it requires more of him than, say, a puzzle.  But the selfish mom in me is happy that it does what the therapist wants while captivating the other kids long enough for me to have a breather.  Ugh.

The ant saga continues.  Kid #4, a voracious carnivore, gnawed on the bone from the steak we had the other night and then, unbeknownst to me, tossed it into the laundry closet by the dryer.  Yesterday, I go to do laundry and am met with a swarm of them on that bone.  Naturally, I freaked out and began hosing the lot with poison.  I don't know why we still have the poison, because I abhor using it, but it was right there on the laundry shelf and I wasn't thinking.  Post-massacre clean up involved the making of ant bait (sugar, water, boric acid) that I've placed around the main floor.  I think they're travelling along the baseboards, beneath them, to the various spots in the house.  Ack, ick, yuck.  Hopefully, within a few days, they should be history.

Oh, and in the spirit of rejoicing in small projects, I was given a beautiful shantung satin spring coat for The Girl (kid #3).  It's a classic, beautiful cut.  But there was one aspect that just wasn't her:

The buttons.  They're classic-looking faux-brass, with a shield and some palm detailing.  Lovely, of course, but not my daughter's style.

I was hoping to update it, bringing in a touch of whimsy that my daughter practically lives by:

Bye bye, brass!

Hello, whimsy!

I think it helps update it ever-so-slightly, and The Girl is over the moon about the results.  I may yet swap the buttons on the front for plain white shank buttons rather than sew-throughs.

Well, I'm going to check ant baits and plow through some paperwork before addressing Mt. Washmore on the couch, begging to be folded.