When it rains, it pours...

...and when your washing machine is broken you can pretty much count on your cat to accidentally get trapped in the family room and have a raging case of the runs all over the couch, leaving you unable to wash the cushion covers.

David discovered the mess first, declaring that the baby had "pooped on the couch". I'm generally pretty good about keeping a diaper on Isobel so I was certain it wasn't baby poop he'd found.

Anyway, it was pretty gross. And then we discovered more of it, in other places. All in all, not a pleasant ending to the day.

Then today I re-strung a new set of lights on the tree since the set we've had for over six years finally decided to die two weeks after we put them on the tree. It's really hard to take lights off a tree without removing all the ornaments in the process. And knocking the tree down. Yes, it's been a banner couple of days.

On the bright side I've taught the kids to sing the "Twelve Days of Christmas" and they are doing splendidly. They make up their own lyrics, like most people tend to do. I overheard something about "Five golden big butts" and "Three French doofus heads" or something similar.

We are all doing our part here in the Burden household to make Christmas just a little bit brighter.