Uno

I've been playing a lot of Uno this year. When I say "a lot", what I really mean is that I play at least three rounds of it every day. Barak is four and can't get enough of the game. I think it might have something to do with his delight over the chance he might be dealt a whole handful of "power cards", which is what he calls skips, reverses, draw-twos, and wilds. Or maybe he just likes having my full attention for a bit. We usually play while Lizzy is at school and Sebastian and Henry are napping, so it's just a cozy game between the two of us. Sometimes we also play in the evening, when Lizzy's home. She likes to shout a triumphant "Uno!" as much as Barak does.
Once while Barak and I were playing, he was starting to get sad because I was winning, so I tried to reassure him. "It's okay," I said. "I've only won once, and you've won three times, so you're still winning overall." He paused in the act of playing a card and looked confused. "What overalls?" he asked. Since then, we've decided that whoever has won the most games for the day gets to "wear the golden overalls." Barak, being who he is, likes to try to add a golden sword or two, especially if he's winning (which he usually is). I wish a could capture this time with my little boy and hug it close to me forever. He says the funniest tings and makes me laugh so much. There is no one on earth like him, and I am so grateful to have him as my Uno rival.

Disorganized chaos

We left all but one small bookshelf in Oregon, as well as the kids' dressers. They were ugly, beat up, and not in great repair, so we decided to just replace them once we got here. We're still working on that. As you can probably imagine, our house is not currently the most organized place on earth.  Clothing in our home spends most of its time in laundry baskets anyway (whether dirty, clean, or folded and waiting to be put away), so I am content to wait on the dressers a little longer. The books are largely hanging out unpacked in the garage, so I'll wait on the bookshelves, too. Somehow, though, we developed a toy problem. Toys never lived in dressers or bookshelves, and yet there is suddenly no where to put all these things.
We currently have all four children sleeping in one room while their toys occupy the bedroom across the hall. We started out with the older kids in one room and the little guys in the other, but first Sebastian moved over (because he was lonely without his big brother), and then we dragged Henry's bed in, too (because it seemed ridiculous to lavish that much space and privacy on an individual weighing less than 20 pounds. Also I don't want him to get used to sleeping in silence.) So now we have a room full of toys, and no organization for them.
Yesterday I learned something while playing hide and seek with the kids. If your six-year-old can lie down on the floor in the middle of the toy room and you can't find her, you have officially reached the point where Something Must Be Done.