*cough cough*

I'm sick. Again.

Not death bed, make out yer will, Ma, get right with Jesus sick, but sick nonetheless. I've coughed until my head hurts and I feel like my head is full of Elmer's glue again. Tylenol Severe Cold and Sinus is now freely flowing through my system and I'll have about two nights of blissfull drug-induced sleep and then the insomnia will strike again. Since my Christmas shopping is done, maybe I can use those wee hours of the morning to wrap presents.

Yes, I said my Christmas shopping is done. We started shopping last night around 5:30 and I walked into my house at 3am this morning. And I just have to say that three hours in Toys R Us is just way too long. We were also in Wal*Mart long enough and late enough to hear the voice on the intercom frantically announce that guests had 15 minutes to get their liquor out of the store immediately. That prompted an interesting conversation between us and the associate checking us out. I guess the police up there have been known to sit outside the store just to catch people walking out after 1:30am with alcohol. Hmh.

We hit a heck of a sale at Toys R Us and well, let's just say that it looks like I am the grandmother of twin Cabbage Patch Kids named Emmalee and Haleigh, but my oldest daughter doesn't know it yet. My son will probably grow up to be a sniper (Hopefully for the good guys - like a SWAT team or something) because of the laser tag guns he's getting and my youngest child will end up with an eating disorder from all of the Barbies she will soon be in posession of. Man, Christmas is awesome. As usual, my mother picked out most of her presents and we're both okay with that. The woman has everything and it's just easier to let her pick out her own gifts. She acts really surprised for the sake of the kids, I gotta give her that.

The sleepover on Friday night really was fun. I was just so durn tired when I wrote the previous post, I didn't realize how much fun I had had.

Two of the boys, plus Sam, got off the bus here, Chandler was already here, Tater brought out Jen's boy and we picked up Mrs. Coach's son. On the way to Mrs.' house the boys pretended we were in a roller coaster and kept their hands in the air every time we went up or down a hill. There was much "ohhhhhhhhhhh"ing and yelling. Then the talk of flatulence began at dinner and Tater and I were rather entertained, if not disturbed, at their fascination with bodily functions.

Case in point: One little boy asked for a napkin. Another said, "Eh, I don't need no napkin - I just use my sleeve." (No, Mrs. Coach that one wasn't yours. It was mine.) Then my darling nephew pipes in with "Hey! We could use the napkins to wipe our butts!" And oh the laughing that caused. It was disgusting, not in the least bit funny, yet they all were holding their stomachs, doubled over laughing at it. Then as the laughter died down someone farted. (Yes, Mrs. Coach, that one was your child.) It began anew. The whole night was like that.

We took them to see Chicken Little and I really have to say that it went well. Surprisingly well. They were hopped up on chocolate and the sugar from the Sprite (at least there was no caffeine in the pop) and I was leary as to how it would go down, but I shouldn't have been worried. They made their mommas proud. The movie itself was rather intense. And while the mother didn't actually die in the movie, as per usual Disney movie tradition, the mother chicken was dead. And there was a lot of alien violence, tense moments and downright scary stuff. Chandler sat on my lap and shook through most of it. When it was over I asked Jen's son if he liked it. He threw his arms around me and said, "Those alien guys were SCARY!" And Chandler would've given it a thumbs down if he could've stopped shaking. Sam said it was good, but "a little scary for a cartoon." We'll own it because, personally, I laughed my butt off through the whole thing. I love it when animated films have things in them that kids don't get, but are highly amusing to adults.

After the movie we came back here to the house where Paul had a roaring fire going in the fireplace. Tater had gone with me to the show as backup, (My main concern was that someone would need to go the restroom during the movie and what would I have done then?) so she went off to the farmette and Paul and I settled in to put together the many Ninja Turtle vehicles that our son had become the proud owner of. (Ugh, that's the second time I've used a preposition to end a sentence in this post. I'm losin' it, people, losin' it.) By the time we finished all that I had to move to the kitchen because the living room was so hot I wanted to puke. The boys had army guys battling Ninja Turtles, there was a GameBoy tournament going on, PS2 was being fought over and a good time was generally had by all. Owen, one of the boys in Sam's class, couldn't get enough of my homemade chocolate cake and asked if he could take a piece home to his mom. (She called me last night while we were in Joplin to get the recipe.)

Finally by about 11:15 my eyes were crossing, Paul had to go to work and he had worked that day as well, the boys were starting to snip at each other and the farting just wasn't as funny anymore. By 11:45 the lights were out, there were six very tired little boys crashed all over my living room. All was quiet on the western front. Then I hear my nephew say, "Hey! Let's tell funny stories and see if someone snorts when they laugh!" I said, "Hey! Let's not! GO TO SLEEP!!" And they did. So did we. No one even moved until 7:30 the next morning.

From the time my tired feet hit the floor it was nonstop action. I made pancakes for everyone, oversaw the dressing and the finding of socks, rolling up of sleeping bags and the cleaning of the syrup off of everything. My plan was to leave my house at 10 to start taking everyone home. We made it out of the driveway at 10:07, so I wasn't too far off the mark. It took nearly an hour and a half to deposit three little boys at their respective houses. Tater met me and took hers and Jen's to town and Sam and I went back home. Tater also picked up our girls from the sleepover/sock hop that had taken place at Jen's house. At 12:40 the sitter arrived and by 1 Tater and I were flying down the driveway in a giddy kind of runaway excitement that only comes from the prospect of a night out with grownups.

Today I haven't done too much. Two loads of laundry, one load in the dishwasher, food put up in the pantry from the Angel Food Ministry thing we tried this month and several short naps while I was supposed to be watching one kid or another play PS2 or Gameboy. Abby said, "Gosh, Mom, you must be tired - you can't hold your eyes open for nothin'!" The snot started late this morning and the coughing started this evening. Kady is also hacking and barking and rattling to beat the band. I did manage to fix dinner because Paul was threatening divorce if he had to eat one more sandwich and well, I'm still in my pj's at 9:28pm.

There are only two workdays this week!!!

Tuesday I'm buying The Polar Express, Wednesday the trees are going up, Thursday we'll eat turkey and watch The Polar Express and Friday I think Paul and I are going to see Saw2. Yeah, "Happy Holidays, here' s a saw to cut your arm off with."

Dangit. Dang prepositions.