OK, how could I forget all the little details in my post that have made me smile this week.
1. Santa is still alive and thriving in our house.  I finally sat Spencer down this week and revealed the magic behind Santa.  Something I swore I would never do, but I don't think he would have gotten it otherwise.  I felt like I was stripping him of his dreams as he just stared at me with these big sad eyes.  But he started getting into the spirit of things and figured out how he could help.  He volunteered to take care of Santa's nachos and leave lots of crumbs and a note.  Glad he can be so thoughtful :)  You would have thought the nachos left on Christmas Eve would have been a dead give - away but to Spencer that made total sense.  Allison on the other hand asked me slyly that it seemed very suspicious that Dad thought Santa would prefer nachos to cookies.

2. Allison had a lengthy dentist appointment this week.  She was ready to pay $20 out of her own money so she could have the option of nitrous.  She is the one kid in our family who can handle nitrous.  I wondered how much of a guilt trip we put on our kids for their cavities and how much we spend at the dentist.  But she spent two hours quite high and tired out while they worked on her teeth.  She was either half-asleep or was keeping up a running dialogue "Mom, what's for dinner?  we need to buy some raspberry juice, I like raspberry juice, it feels good when you squeeze my leg when they are doing the shots, I like having you here, I want yogurt, my cheek hurts..." all said without breath, in a teeny-tiny voice.

3. Last Sunday Spencer gave his talk.  Did pretty well.  Hardest part for him was the sitting still on the stand afterwards - one of his big obstacles in life.  The talk after him asked if we could picture anyone who was ungrateful, how they would be unhappy and grumpy most of the time.  Robyn turned to me and said in a LOUD voice, "that's easy.  That's Spencer."  Sadly true a lot of the time lately.  Maybe when he isn't spending every day making up math work after school, life will improve.

4. Yesterday I ran an errand while Jeremy was home supervising kids.  He yelled up to Robyn and friends, "what are you doing?"
Robyn: "playing"
"what are you playing"
"doctor"
"wait, what? does everyone have their clothes on this time"
"yes dad.  you can count on me"
(we have had to explain a couple of times that we do not actually reenact doctor visits - just pretend)

once again, love, Heather