Can you say, "Mosquito Bites!!!!"

The other night Joe and I went to bed pretty late, after midnight, and woke up at three in the morning. Why, you may ask? Mosquitoes...hundreds of the little buggers! We had our window open, but the screen was in and apparently they were getting in AROUND the freaking screen!

Joe and I each had a few dozen bites and we were itching like CRAZY!! At first Joe said they couldn't be mosquito bites because he never gets them. The first mosquito he saw on the wall he squished and it spewed blood ALL OVER, Joe had an immediate change of heart. It became a race to the death. We were banging walls, jumping on the bed to hit the ceiling and making quite the racket! I was actually very surprised we didn't wake up the whole house!

After we'd beaten every mosquito we could find, our walls looked like we'd splatter painted! It was so gross. I got the bug spray out and started spraying us both down, which is gross to climb in bed all stinky and slimy, but better than being EATEN ALIVE!

We had to sleep with the window closed the rest of the night and we both woke up in a puddle of our own sweat...ewe. The next morning we took some deliciously wonderful black tape and put a thin line of it in the window - sealing the screen to the window. No more mosquito bites!

Herein lies the tragedy, we only sealed our window. This morning Jack and Ali woke up covered from head to toe in mosquito bites. I'm talking chicken pox looking mosquito bites...they're EVERYWHERE!!! Joe forgot to close their window last night and I killed about twelve or more mosquitoes after the kids woke up. I found a couple more dead in Jack's crib that he must have gotten in his sleep (I'm so very proud of him for that)! Needless to say, I spent some time this afternoon sealing the children's windows with black tape to protect them against the darn little mosquito buggers. I know the kids will probably heal pretty quickly, but I'm still worried about West Nile and any other nastiness those darn things may have brought with them. Time will tell.
The kids were all asleep before I thought to take photos so they aren't great, but if you look close, you can see all their spots...poor things!

Jack looks especially bad because he hasn't quite healed up from his Hand Mouth and Foot virus. He is just covered in spots! (His pj's covered everything but his face and feet, I didn't want the flash to wake him so this is all you get!)

So, this is my question, what bug spray have you all found most effective, without being harmful to young children or nasty, slimy feeling? Anything out there that could come close to fulfilling these requirements? I've never found anything, but I'm pretty willing to try about anything! We need protection!!! Help!!!

Will got sick today...poor kid. He had a fever of over 103 and really bad diarrhea. I felt so bad. He was doing better this afternoon, but I have no idea what he's got. Hopefully he's better tomorrow. He fell asleep on the couch and I'm pretty sure he was about to fall off when I took this picture....It has always amazed me how children are able to make sleeping look so uncomfortable!