It's been quite a week for us. Two of our three boys have pneumonia and I have been laid low by some kind of energy-sapping head cold. Our oldest boy, Thing, had a good Halloween and got a whole pile of candy. He dressed as a pumpkin. He received many compliments on his hat, which was crocheted by my wife. She is pretty handy when it comes to making things with yarn and fabric. We didn't get pictures of him in his costume, as he wasn't feeling well and went straight to bed after trick-or-treating.

Yesterday was Thing's third birthday, but no one was really feeling well enough to celebrate, so we postponed it for a day. He got to decorate a cupcake with some toppings of his choice, open a couple of gifts, and also watch Cars 2, which was one of his presents. His little brothers, Hulk (left) and Wolverine (right), woke up from their naps in time to eat a few bites of cupcake. They enjoyed that quite a bit.

He also got a Human Torch Mighty Mugg action figure and a Hot Wheels Criss Cross Crash track with some cars to go along with it.I gave him the Hot Wheels set last week, partly because he was feeling sick and needed a good inside activity and partly because I couldn't wait any longer to play with it. Overall, I think he had a pretty good birthday experience.

Yesterday also marked our 7th wedding anniversary. I am not sure when we will actually get to go out to dinner and celebrate that, but we agreed that forcing the issue while I am feeling so low wouldn't be worthwhile. Whenever I transition back up from a corpse-like state to my usual zombie-like state we will do something to mark the occasion.

This picture of Wolverine is my favorite of the night. I'm glad I was able to get a picture while he was still making this face. He enjoyed his first taste of cake, although he was rather picky and only went for the pieces that had frosting on them.

Hulk ate all of his cupcake pieces, and spent the rest of the time scouring his tray for any leftover crumbs or smudges of frosting. So far he is the only kid who has avoided illness, perhaps the gamma rays have made him immune to pneumonia?

I didn't go to the D & D Encounters session this week. I didn't think the other folks would appreciate me bringing my plague with me. I spent most of the week being a slug and lazing about. I watched a whole pile of Top Gear episodes on Netflix, and that's about it for the week. This was the sort of week that you're just happy at the end of it to still be among the living. I am hoping that I will be up and running by next week so I can get a few things done around here. Next weekend will be taken up by mandatory Army stuff (even though I am still on leave), so I would like to fill the weekdays with things on my to-do list.