Early morning romp in the bed

Getting up at 5:30am to run with friends is fine with me. Being awakened at 5:30am by my children is not. Such was the case this morning. The husband was out of town, so Ava was in  my bed. She's always in my bed when her daddy is traveling. I make her go to bed in her own room, knowing that sometime in the night, she'll be with me. And really, that's fine. I kind of like having her in there. 

I'm sure I've mentioned before that my kids are pretty good about sleeping in. When Ava was sick a few weeks ago, she slept until 10am one day. Normally, they're up between 7 and 7:30 (often closer to 8 for Ava), and that's fine. This morning, Davis starting yelling for me at 5:30. It was "Mommy! I need you! I need you! I neeeeeeed you!!!"

Naturally, it did not occur to me that he would be ready to get up at such a ridiculous hour. I mean, it was dark outside. But getting up was exactly what he wanted. He was quite specific in his request, in fact. "Mommy, can I please watch 'Max & Ruby' in your bed?" Hmmm. What would Max & Ruby's parents do in this situation? Oh, never mind. They don't have parents. But you know Ruby wouldn't let Max get away with that crap. Me? I just wanted to get back in my bed. And if two kids were in there with me, then fine. 

It took only a few minutes of the light and sound from the TV for Ava to rouse from her sleep. And then, something amazing happened. Something that can only happen in the early morning hours, when everyone is too sleepy to think clearly. My kids were so amazingly sweet to each other. And in their Christmas pajamas, with sleepy eyes and bed head, they looked utterly adorable to me. I tried to capture the love on camera. These are more posed than I like, but here you go:

Then we had to get up and see what kind of trouble our elf, Simon, had gotten into. All I know is, he better clean this mess up.