Sleep, Freckles, Nativities, and Leaves

This morning found me messy-headed and stiff-limbed and asleep on our couch. Sort of asleep. I’m not a great couch sleeper. And there was one lone fly in our house that was determined to ensure that I stayed that way.

Meanwhile, my large king-size bed had been forfeit to one small, blonde, six year old. The whole bed. All hers.

She’d wandered into our room around midnight, and, without even fully waking to find why she was there,  I snuggled her into Mike’s side of the bed (as he was out of town) and curled back into my covers to sleep.

But then, she started coughing. And coughing. And coughing. I’ve never heard so much coughing. She seemed to be mostly sleeping through all the racket she was making, but several hours in – and with a pillow held tightly over my ear – I gave up on trying to sleep through it myself.

I didn’t dare carry her back to her own bed – for fear of making her room-sharing sisters have a miserable night’s sleep. So, off to the couch with me.

Luckily, poor though my  couch sleep was, it didn’t have to end prematurely. My youngest child never requires early morning attention. Despite his 8:00 pm bedtime and lengthy mid-day nap, he’d sleep in ‘til 10:00 am if I’d let him.

Sadly, this doesn’t do me a lot of good during the week when I have kids leaving for school as early as 6:50 (yipes). But weekends are lovely with Mr. Sleeps-A-Lot.

In other news:

“Freckles for President!” I love her freckles. And I love when I get a shot capturing the details of her face well-enough to show them off.

And, I’m pretty much done with the Nativity Slideshow I’ve been working on with the 50-some-odd kids that I currently work with in the Primary organization of my church!

Goldie (trampolines make for some fun angel shots ):

I wish I could share more pictures, but since they aren’t my kids and this is a public place, I probably shouldn’t without permission, but it has turned out so fun!

My sister Shannon pulled all the scriptures together into a nice script several years ago when she did this same thing with the grandkids in our family. She compiled scriptures from the usual New Testament spots, as well as a few from the Old Testament, and even scriptures from the Book of Mormon where it tells of the Nephite people who were also anxiously awaiting the sign of Christ’s birth (particularly anxiously since the unbelievers had set a day to kill those who believed should the prophesied sign not be given).

Years ago Mike’s Aunt Leisa made tons of costumes – shepherds, wise-men, angels, and even Nephites – that I was able to use along with a few items from my mom’s Nativity costume boxes. My room has been over-run with all of this dress-up stuff for several months! I think Leisa’s passing is partly what made me want to do this – making use of something she’d put so much time and energy into. Of course, I wish I’d done it last year when she was still here. She’d love how it’s come together.

When I started the project I was worried that it might be one of those things where I would get half way done and realize I would never be able to finish it in time. And it did prove tricky to get pictures of that many kids involved in sports and a million other activities. We have some kids who don’t live super close by – but come to church with their grandparents, etc. It meant that I had to settle for taking pictures at not-perfect picture taking times, etc. But it’s done! And it’s only mid October! I’m so happy about it!

Also, our backyard leaves are crazy gorgeous right now. I need to get more pictures of them before they fade and drop, but looking out and seeing these shocking reds against blue sky every day is just . . . I don’t know . . . just kind of unreal.

Well, that was a lot of miscellany. Plenty of it for now. I’m off to haul nativity costumes out of my bedroom!

Happy weekend y’all!