Man, is it Friday yet?!?  Oh, it is.  Whew, that’s good.

You know it’s been a crazy whirlwind of a week when I don’t even get to post a picture on Wednesday (and I had so many good ones to choose from, just no time!)

So, in roughly chronological order since my last post, here are a few things that have kept us busy this week:

• Saturday.  The girls and I put together our shoeboxes for Samaritan’s Purse‘s Operation Christmas Child.  We’ve done this in the past, too, but this was my second year doing the shopping and boxing up with the girls.  (This year we did three.)  It gets us all in the Christmas spirit and (I hope) reminds us all how incredibly blessed we are in this part of the world.  I explained to the girls that we needed to give dolls to the girls we were sending our shoeboxes to because they probably had never had a doll before.  Then with each item we put in, Pippa asked, “Mommy, she doesn’t have any crayons either?…  She doesn’t have a toothbrush?”  Then after we’d packed up all the things we had bought, she asked me, “What can we send for the Mommy?”  (Have I said how much I love this kid?)
• Sunday – Trevor was at a training course in New Jersey all day.  Blech!  Having him away for a weekend day throws me off worse than missing a Wednesday with my mom.  He was actually at a conference at the same venue all week, so it’s been an even crazier week for him than for us.
• Monday… Tuesday… no idea.  I know we were busy and also that the internet was inexplicably crazy slow.  Oh, that’s right.  I had a crazy clean-a-thon (crazy for me, that is, probably just normal weekly cleaning for the average housewife).  I think maybe I’m nesting.  Or maybe that was it.  I’ve nested, and now I’m done.  We’ll see.  I even gave the dog a bath before Trevor got a chance to tell me how bad he smelled.  Then Paige and her friend came over for SAT-prep tutoring.  I’m going to be doing this every Monday afternoon while the girls are napping/resting until the new baby comes, which, handily, should be just a couple weeks before the SATs.  It was fun, and will hopefully slow the effect of all these pregnancies turning my brain cells to mush.  Don’t laugh: it really happens apparently.
• Wednesday morning.  Pippa’s 4-year-old well visit with the pediatrician.  All is well with my girl except that she is now officially terrified of shots.  She seemed a little nervous that there might be shots involved today, but I could never have prepared her for the fact that there would be *five*!  She was crying before the nurse even started, and on the very first one, she reached around with her other hand and *RIPPED OUT THE NEEDLE* as the nurse was giving her the shot.  There was blood right away but it looked worse than it was.  It ended up bruising pretty badly, but there was only a scratch on the skin.  Both the nurse and I were totally blindsided – neither one of us could’ve guessed she would try something like that from her demeanor moments beforehand.  I guess desperate times call for desperate measures.  Of course, for the remaining shots (still five, since the nurse didn’t actually get to inject the first one), I had to hold every single flailing appendage while she wriggled and wailed.  It was awful.  I might start having to read up more on these vaccination conspiracy theories and see if I can be convinced that they’re actually super-dangerous anyway, because I don’t know if either one of us will be able to endure something like this again for a long time.
• Wednesday all day.  Paige’s 16th birthday!  Happy birthday, baby sister!  We went shopping with my mom after Pippa’s traumatic morning (she cheered right up once she found out she got band-aids, princess stickers *and* a lollipop), and ended up back at her house where Trevor was able to meet us after leaving work early.  The plan was that we were all going to go out to dinner after Paige and my Grandmom got home, but it didn’t quite go that way.  Pippa was devastated when I told her she’d be missing Awana to go to dinner, and although she conceded that she would go to dinner after much peer pressure from all of us, she was still so visibly sad about it that Trevor decided just to take her to Awana.  It worked out for him to meet us at the restaurant later, so all was well.
• Thursday.  Ladies’ Bible study followed by trying to squeeze in all the school we missed while playing with my mom on Wednesday.
• Friday.  8:40 AM: Trevor and Pippa go to the dentist.  Apparently, she was a star for her first official check-up and cleaning.  I was sorry to miss it, and would you believe Trevor flat-out refused to take a picture for me?  I know! While they were gone I scurried around to get the other two dressed and fed (and me, too) so that we could drop off the van to be serviced as early this morning as possible.  As soon as they were back, the girls and I piled into the van, took it to the servcice place and walked home in a beautiful (if very odd for November…) winter wonderland.  Rest assured, we were sufficiently bundled for the occasion, so it actually was a lovely walk home.  We also picked up some construction paper while we were out, but you’ll have to wait for my next post to find out what that’s all about!

Wow.  A whole week in one post.  Just think how much time I’ve just saved you.  Hope you all have a lovely weekend!