04 DEC 25

Oxbear is gone to the dentist before eight...

...while there's a squirrel fight being conducted in the attic... hmm... seems a little cruel to kick them out now... with the windchill being in the teens and all...

Kids are sitting with math work sheets after breakfast... Yali using Patience's baby lip gloss as a ruler for splitting shapes into fractions... occasionally booing Patience at random for no reason...

While he's on break with a pack of face paint crayons in the bathroom... “Mom?” he calls from down the hall... “what would you say if I wanted to dye my hair blue... temporary blue?”...

So while Yali returns for lunch with streaks of blue face paint combed through his scalp... after secretly adding seventeen hours of screen time to his tablet for the remainder of the day because he's very busy creating special effects in video of himself throwing lightning bolts out of his hands...

...Patience and I zoom south for play therapy and the library while I explain a consolidated two thousand years of church history to her because she wants to know...

Home again for kids stacking snowmen parts in the front yard...

Bloom of low winter light in the west as Patience creaks out another attempt at “Gavotte” on four strings...

...and Puck exits for a frosty drive over to St. Charles county with friends...