meeko

Growing up, Patrick had always known he wanted a large family. It was part of the reason he went into teaching middle school social studies, along with his love of history. But he had never imagined the possibility that he and his wife would struggle to get pregnant. Arlo, their now six-year-old, eventually came about via means of IVF. Their family still didn't feel complete though, which is why they had eventually turned to fostering.

Cameron leaned into her when she pulled him onto her lap, resting his warm little face on her shoulder and putting an arm around her neck as she stood up.

The young blonde rubbed his face into his stuffed dragon and tugged on his left ear a bit as he entered the room and crossed over to his mom's bed. He crawled up into. "My ear and tummy hurt," he said quietly. "And I miss daddy."

It was still dark when Cameron woke up, the only glow in the room

Greyson thought carefully, thinking Sea World was a good answer.

Greyson patiently waited for the towel to be placed over his shirt before grabbing his fork and digging into his pancakes. Pancakes and waffles were always tricky business because of the dripping syrup, even when he was trying to be careful. This morning he waited for the syrup to stop dripping before moving the fork over to his mouth.

Andrew peered in on the twins to make sure they were

"Oh! Yeah, let's get those out," Greyson agreed. He liked building rockets out of the Magna Tiles the most, especially since the square and triangle pieces made it super easy. He went over to the light box and found their collection of tiles.

Greyson grinned at the idea of Christmas baking. There'd be chocolate chip cookies! And

Greyson puffed his cheeks out slightly at the warning, but slowly released his grip on the chocolate chips and pushed them over towards his sister. "Yes, mommy," he agreed, not wanting to give up his chance to go somewhere fun. "I'll be good," he promised.

Greyson frowned as his sister stomped her feet, keeping his arms over the chocolate chips. Now that he knew that she wanted them, he wasn't planning on giving them up quite so easily. "It's cuz I always touch them first," he informed her. "Whoever touches them first gets to put them in," he said.

Now that Magnolia wanted to add the chocolate chips, Greyson decided that's what he absolutely had to add. "Noooo, they're mine," he declared, laying his arms over top of them. "You can add them next time," he said, unable to remember if that's what he told her last time or not.

With the twins helping Diana, Andrew got started on setting the table, getting out the needed dishes and silverware.

"We are," Andrew answered Magnolia with a grin. It was impossible to get anything past these two anymore. "You need to be really good and eat all your breakfast, and then we'll tell you. But maybe we can slip a few hints in during breakfast and see if you two can guess."

Andrew helped Magnolia tie the apron in the back, then scooted the two tiny

Andrew grinned when Magnolia realized a key ingredient was missing. "Yeah, I guess they wouldn't be pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes without those, huh?" he asked as he got a mixing bowl out. "Now all we need is a big spoon and

Andrew chuckled slightly, sliding the canister over to the can of pumpkin. "I think I saw it in the pantry..." he said, locating the bag of sugar and handing it off to Magnolia. "We don't use brown sugar as much as we use white sugar," he explained. "And we also need pumpkin pie spice and vanilla. We keep those with the other spices," he said, locating them amongst their other spices and handing them over to Magnolia to set on the counter. "And then we need the last two things -- milk and an egg," he said, keeping his expression neutral. He had purposefully forgotten an ingredient -- the chocolate chips -- and was seeing if his daughter would call him out on it.

Knowing the routine, Greyson stayed perfectly still as he was cleaned up before rushing over to his dresser to pick out a pair of undies that were dotted with tiny fire engines. He put them on quickly and was about to go rooting for a pair of sweatpants before he realized he realized his mom was picking out his clothes for him. He tilted his head. Those didn't look like stay-at-home clothes or even going to the store clothes. "Heyyyy..." he said, growing suspicious. "Are we going somewhere?"

"Yeah..." Greyson agreed slowly, brushing a strand of his hair out of his face. As much as he wanted to help right away, he was also conscious of the feeling of being wet and didn't like it one bit. He reached for his mom's hand.

"Pumpkin chocolate chip!" Greyson answered excitedly, bouncing slightly too. Chocolate was even better than blueberry.

He grinned at the praise. "Can we make pancakes? Maybe with blueberries in them?" he asked, turning towards Magnolia. He was already starting to forget their little disagreement. "Hey, Maggie, do you want pancakes too?"

Greyson shuffled his feet and crossed his arms over his chest as he listened to his mom talk. He really enjoyed playing with the iPad and didn't like it when it was taken away. That was even worse than when Daddy made him sit in the time-out

"Hey now," Andrew said sternly as Greyson tried to shove Magnolia back, pushing his cup of coffee away from the edge of the table so it wouldn't get knocked over by a flailing limb. He shifted Magnolia over to one knee and grabbed the back of Greyson's footed pajamas, gently preventing the boy from climbing up onto his lap. "We don't hit in this house," he said, doing his best to keep the struggling tots away from one another.

Greyson hadn't meant to scare his sister. At least not quite that much. Rubbing his arm where she had smacked him and with his penguin shoved under his arm, he ran after her.

(Private family Roleplay created for