You want to know what it's like having a fourth kid?

Imagine you're drowning, 
then someone hands you a baby.

(Jim Gaffigan)

TRUTH.

I could say that the last year has been some sort of grand experiment in testing the limits of human endurance. It greatly amused me to see that my last post, from 11 months ago, referenced Peter starting to sleep better and Thomas working on potty training. Well, 11 months later, Peter generally does not sleep through the night, and Thomas was fully potty trained... finally... in May. Nevertheless there is a general sense of getting our heads above water. We'll just refer to 2013 as "the lost year" and leave it at that.

(no, George isn't colorblind to have chosen that outfit, it was "crazy mixed up day" at Invention Camp)

This has been a lovely summer of playing outside, science experiments, Harry Potter, and Lego. I've learned my lesson about not overscheduling and we leave lots of space for things like this:

Here's hoping we can hang on to the relative tranquility for a while!