"Daddy, do you have a favorite daughter?" Five year old Mari asked out of the blue as she sat with Nick at the kitchen table, making a gingerbread house for Christmas. Nick was concentrating on gluing a Twizzler to the roof of the house when his youngest daughter's question caught him off guard. He glanced momentarily at his wife in the kitchen, who gave him an amused look, indicating he was on his own on this one. Nick could practically hear her telling him, Good luck with this one, Nicky.

Nick bit his lip a little bit as he contemplated how to answer. Mari, with her big blue eyes, stared back at him, waiting patiently for an answer to her genuine question.

"Why do you ask that, baby?" He first inquired, dabbing on a bit more of the edible glue that wasn't holding this house together too well. The walls had collapsed twice already.

The kindergartener, and youngest of the Stokes clan, shrugged her tiny shoulders, though she knew perfectly well why she was asking. Mari just wanted a totally honest answer. She had a favorite hamster, a favorite TV show, and a favorite food. Mommies and Daddies must have favorite children.

"Parents don't have favorites, baby. I love all four of you the exact same." He explained honestly. Each of his children were unique, and he loved them all without question. It was hard to explain to a young child, though, how you couldn't ever love one more than the other. Mari had an inquiring mind.

"But how about the girls?" She asked, noticing a piece of icing caked to some of her hair. She carefully picked it off and touched the sugary substance to her tongue. It was so hard not to eat that gingerbread house right now. "Don't you love Mally more?"

Nick put down his glue and looked at his five year old. He motioned for her to come to him, and she carefully hopped down from her chair opposite him and scurried over to him. Moments later, she was in his lap, waiting for him to explain.

"Sweetheart, I know it's hard to understand, but I love you all the same." He started.

"But you've known Mally the longest and it was just you and her for a long time." She pointed out smartly. It was true that Nick had a very special bond with his oldest daughter for that reason. He had raised her by himself up until he and Sara started dating when she was eleven. It was a special relationship, but he loved her no more, no less than the other three.

"That's true. But when I think back to when Mally was five, and when the twins were five, I love you all the exact same. I may know more about Mally and have done more with her, but I still have that to look forward to with you." Sara was listening curiously from the kitchen still, thinking he had some pretty good answers to their precocious daughter's inquiries.

"But Bailey is the baddest. Do you love her less?" Her little mind wondered. Nick smirked in amusement. Bailey had gotten into more than her fair share of trouble over the years, and was definitely the most challenging of the bunch. She was maturing now at the age of ten, but still got herself into trouble on a semi-regular basis.

"Well, I don't like it when she misbehaves, but that doesn't mean I don't like her. It's the choices she makes that I don't like. I still love her the same."

Mari nodded in understanding, looking down at the array of candy on the table, all within her grasp. She reached out and picked up a jelly bean, popping it into her mouth, then turned to grin up at her father.

"You're not supposed to eat those, squirt." He chided her in jest.

"I can't help it." She grabbed another one and held it up to Nick's mouth. He smirked and accepted it. Mari tossed it into his mouth a little harder than necessary for comfort.

"Thank you, baby."

Sara had been opening mail in the kitchen and came across three envelopes from the kids' school. Progress reports, she assumed. She had already opened up Mari and Aidan's, which showed very good progress in their assigned grade levels. Aidan was in Academic Challenge at school, so his classwork was a bit more challenging than his sister's, who was still in regular education courses. Still, as she scanned Bailey's report, he managed to pull better grades.

Sara let out an amused chuckle as she viewed the grades. Nick looked over at her, with Mari still snugly sitting in his lap as they worked on the gingerbread house. "What?"

"Is there something we don't know about Bailey?" She started, walking over to the kitchen table with the paper. "She has a B+ in Spanish, and a C in English."

Nick took the paper from her hands to scan the marks for himself. Sure enough, their daughter had scored better in a foreign language than her own.

"That's peculiar." He commented as he scanned her other grades, mostly B's, a couple C's, and one A. Nowhere near her potential. "Why are they taking Spanish in elementary school anyway?" He handed her back the paper.

"It's easier for kids to learn a new language. It's fairly new at their school." Sara explained, waving the paper back and forth in her hand softly.

"Do I get to take Spanish?" Mari asked hopefully as she stole a gum drop from the table.

"Stop, you're not gonna want to go to sleep." Sara reprimanded her lightly. "And yes, in first grade you'll get Spanish lessons too. Did you get a look at her behavior marks?"

Nick shook his head, and Sara held the paper out for him to look at. "Wow. She actually improved." He commented, seeing good behavior marks in her regular classroom, and all her specials, like art, music, and Spanish.

On her previous report card, her behavior marks had taken a dip. It turned out her medication for ADHD had lost its effectiveness. Her body had gotten too used to it, so they'd recently taken her to the doctor and upped her dosage. The results indicated that seemed to be working, at least for now.

Sara smiled at him. "Go figure."

Nick smirked and chuckled a little. "Did I do good Mommy?" Mari asked, swinging her feet a little.

"You did very well, baby." Sara tousled her hair a little, smiling about the fact she was so excited about school still. All her marks had been satisfactory, or outstanding, and she had very good citizenship skills.

"Bailey! Aidan!" Nick called the twins, who were both up in their rooms, hopefully doing homework and not playing video games. All four of his kids were doing well at the moment, and he wanted to take a moment to just bask in that realization. He and Sara were doing something right, to have a twenty-three year old daughter excelling in her first year of teaching just outside of Las Vegas, ten year old twins that were doing well in school and behaving, and a delightful little five year old, who loved blowing bubbles in her chocolate milk.

The twins came down a few moments later, wondering what their dad wanted. He seemed to have some sort of a smile on his face. They walked into the kitchen, Bailey leaning against the counter, and Aidan tipping one of the chairs. "Yeah?" He asked.

"Just wanted to say good job on your schoolwork." He told them both. "Your progress reports came."

Aidan smiled a little, and Bailey seemed surprised. Usually, there was at least something negative on her report cards and progress reports, but her father seemed pleased with her this time. She knew she hadn't outperformed her brother – she never would – but maybe she hadn't gotten that many C's this time.

"Aidan." Sara called softly from where she was in the kitchen now, looking at his progress report. He'd gotten straight A's so far this nine weeks, but she didn't want to say that out loud in front of Bailey, because she got upset sometimes that school was so much harder for her. Sara still wanted Aidan to be proud of his work, though, because she could see so much of herself in her son. He worked hard, but didn't brag about it. A shy kid that was a smart cookie, and didn't have any enemies to speak of. Aidan was a good kid, and she was proud of him. He smiled when his mother showed him his report and patted his shoulder.

"Way to go, buddy." She praised him. "You've been working hard again."

"Yeah. AC is hard, but I like it." He told her, scanning over all his A's again. Sara knew what that felt like – she lived for those perfect lines across the page, all in a row, all identical. All A's.

Nick had meanwhile summoned his middle daughter over and showed her her own progress report. He had his free arm around her now, rubbing her back as she scanned her improved grades and behavior marks.

"I did better in Spanish than English!" She exclaimed in amusement as she looked them over.

Nick smiled. "Yeah, how about that. Any idea why? Are you part Spanish or something?"

She laughed and shook her head. "Nooo, Daddy. Maybe I should move to Mexico when I grow up."

Though it was only a joke, Nick didn't think he could bear to have any of his kids move that far away from him. "We'll see, baby. Let's get you through fourth grade first."

Sara and Aidan joined them all in the kitchen, where Bailey had since joined in the construction of the gingerbread house. There wasn't much symmetry to it – gum drops, gummy worms, pretzels, Twizzlers, were placed in random spots on the house and in the icing-glazed yard. Mari's tummy rumbled, having looked at all this food at a good long while. Nick patted her stomach with his free hand.

"Is someone hungry?" He asked her, giving her head a kiss.

She giggled. "I can't take it much longer! I want to eat all the candy!"

Nick bounced her a little on his legs and couldn't deny just how temping that gingerbread and all the sugar looked. All his children were happy. They were doing okay. Why not celebrate a little?

"Hey, why not?" He decided, looking up at Sara for agreement. "We can make another gingerbread house tomorrow. I think we should all dig in."

His three youngest children looked at him in disbelief. He never let them do things like this – eat inordinate amounts of candy, and right before bedtime? They checked his face, though, and he seemed serious about it enough.

"Really?" Bailey asked, her mouth gaping.

Nick shrugged as if to say, why not? Sara just laughed and shrugged also, not seeing much harm in it. They wouldn't get a full night's rest, but that wasn't the worst thing in the world. That's what naps were for.

So, the five Stokeses, minus Mally who was busy with her teaching work across town, dug into the remains of that gingerbread house, partially handcrafted by Mari and Nick. They picked off the Twizzlers, the Hershey's, and the M&M's, taking time to savor each bite, laugh together, and take a minute to remind themselves just how great life was together.