February Break (a.k.a., Strep Week!)

This week is a blur in my mind, partly because it happened a month ago, partly because every picture I took turned out blurry, and partly because 10 of us got strep throat halfway through the week, and moaned and groaned from bed to sofa, when not feeding or chasing children.

 Here is Lindsey with her new hobby, knitting.  She is happy to have found a productive hobby (better than her spider solitaire obsession of many years hence), and knits like nobody's business.  Tori took it up again (she had learned from Connie years ago) and knit a beautiful scarf that week.

 Every activity is better when wrapped in blankets and crammed in a small space with your cousins.

 A typical picture of Dad.  I have lots of pictures of his hand.

 Livie must have borrowed the camera for this one, because she was on a big pico de gallo kick.  It is pretty, and yummy.

 Lindsey was busy being the Cool Aunt that week, so we had a picnic one day.  It was even in a basket!

 Tuna fish sandwiches (and one PB&J for Rilla).

 It was in February, so it was an indoor picnic, of course.

 Cheyenne serving up the fruit salad she had helped whip up.

 There were sandwiches, chips, fruit salad, store-bought pudding cups (giving into Elliott's cravings for the first time ever), and juice boxes!  Living high on the hog...

 Girlie cousins.

 Elliott, monitoring Lindsey's camera.

 Lincoln and Grandpa Lee carrying out a frequent ritual-- the Begging for the Pocket Flashlight.  Dad carries on in his shirt pocket, and Lincoln adores playing with it.

 After the picnic, a rousing game of Duck, Duck, Goose.  None of the kids understood the point of the game, (actually, I sure hope Livie, Tori and Kim did, because that would just be pathetic), but they liked running in circles around the living room while pounding people on the head.

Lincoln, full of Flashlight Smugness.

And that, apparently, is the only pictures I took of the whole week.  Pathetic.  Thursday morning, several of us woke up with wicked sore throats.  The funny thing is, Evan, who had returned to work down here Sunday night, woke up with it, too.  So apparently we were busy swapping germs the first weekend of the vacation.  Lindsey, as is her wont, got the most violently ill, but most people were pretty sick.  I hung on until Friday morning, because I didn't feel like having to go into the emergency room.  I finally went in, and the doctor took a quick test strep, which came back negative.  He gave me a patronizing little talk about the dangers of over-prescribing antibiotics, and told me I probably didn't have strep, despite the fact there were 9 people in my family, including my husband, who had tested positive for strep.  So I got to go home and suffer, sans medicine, until they finally called on Sunday to tell me (surprise!) the longer strep test came back positive.  It took a while to recover from that one.  I don't know if my house has been really clean since then.  Feeling sick for a week, plus popping up north for sugaring several times, has left my house in a sorry state.  It may sound a bit whiny to be blaming an illness from a month ago, but these things snowball, especially with World's Most Active Toddler in residence.  I plan to be a ball of vip, vim, and vigor tomorrow, though.  So off to bed now!