"Is it Christmas Yet? How Many Days Until Christmas?"

Although we kicked off Christmas early in our house, I am outrageously late in posting the evidence.  We picked out our tree the day after we returned from our Thanksgiving weekend.  Don't the girls look excited to be...out of the car?  They had a lot of fun roaming the aisles upon aisles of trees.  We attempted a picture of all four.  They're all there.  That's about all I can ask for these days.  You'll see another example in our Christmas card ;)  

And, all of the tree-pickers got Starbursts.  Daddy hands out the treats to the masses.  I'm pretty sure this was the highlight of the day!

And, a few days later, we had the tree decorated and Christmas jammies on for the full effect.

Our next Christmas festivity?  Santa came to SI, just for faculty kids and grandkids, and we could hardly wait to meet him...

Some of us were thrilled when the big man walked in the room,

and others...not so much.  This is Annie losing it.

Tessa couldn't even bear to make eye contact with me, never mind Santa!  She had her face buried in Matt's chest for most of the visit.

Bridget and Megan were more than happy to pose with Santa,

while Tessa clung to Matt for dear life.

For our family shot with Santa, Tessa still hadn't recovered, and Annie was equally traumatized.  Maybe we'll have better luck next year!

I'm not sure where Megan had run off to for this shot, but at least I got a picture with most of my girls :)

Oh, and the night before the Santa visit, Matt had his faculty Christmas party, where they graciously had babysitters on hand.  We took advantage of this for the first time.  They might place a limit on the number of children per faculty member next year.  I don't think they were counting on any one person bringing four kids ;)

More Christmas festivities to come!

Mommy in Training

How does a baby feed her baby?

After a weekend spent with Aunt Sara (and baby Molly)...she nurses her, of course!

She also may demand that her onesie be unbuttoned if necessary.  Luckily, Annie is wearing a shirt with easy access in this photo.

Someone get this baby a Hooter Hider!

First Cuts

You never realize quite how shaggy your kids look until you get their hair cut.  This was definitely the case with Tessa and Annie's first haircut.  We held off until Thanksgiving weekend so Mop could go along for the experience.  I'm really glad I didn't try to do this by myself.  We really needed three adults to have four haircuts (the girls got a trim too)! 

Shaggy Tessa 

She was very tolerant of the haircut, mostly because Dora was playing on her personal TV as she lounged in a little rocketship. (Kids these days have it so rough!)

Annie was up next, and wasn't so sure about these scissors coming near her hair.  After all, she had just witnessed her mommy yelling at Bridget for this same behavior earlier that day (I know, I can't imagine her mommy yelling either!).  She's trying to decide if this is cry-worthy.

And...yep.  Turns out is was scream-worthy, in fact. 

All while Tessa was calmly getting a blow-out in the next rocket over.

When the dust settled, we had two bobbed little toddlers, looking suddenly older!  Here they are at the park the next day.

And, in case you were under the impression that we are adventurous with our girls' hair, I've provided some evidence to the contrary: photos of Megan and Bridget after their first cuts.  I didn't realize quite how predictable we are.  They all had their first haircut between 20 and 22 months, and they all had essentially the same cut. 

Megan, January 2008

Bridget, April 2009



Turkey Day

We have so much to be grateful for this year, namely all of the little turkeys in our life.  We were lucky to be able to drive down to Mop and Pop's house in Orange County for a Raley Thanksgiving with -- count 'em - seven grandkids!  The number of kids underfoot for Thanksgiving weekend was, under the best of circumstances, equal to the number of adults.  Yikes! 

The kids table has literally pushed the adult table to the side in Mop's and Pop's dining room.  The only kid not present in this picture is baby Molly, quietly avoiding this chaos.     

Notably present in this picture?  Tessa and Annie made their kid table debut, and did shockingly well sans high chairs!

One more kid shot --- again, Molly wisely avoided this scene:

The babies made themselves comfortable quickly on this trip.  By the second night, they had perfected their little performance on the fireplace hearth.  This included "singing" their favorite storytime song, complete with all of the hand motions, and climbing onto and off of the hearth about a hundred times.  Here they are plotting their next act:

Meanwhile, the big kids kept themselves busy with craft projects and the usual mayhem.

And, while it's fun to hang with your cousins, sometimes enough is enough...at least for Bridget, who continues to have a love-hate relationship with Clara.

 

We said our goodbyes a full 11 hours before we reached home!!!  Yes, 11 hours.  Not nearly enough of that drive included sleeping kids.  Road trips continue to stress us me out.  I'll just choose to remember this moment from the trip:

and not the 127 times where this happened:

I settled into my seat, turned on my Kindle, and read one sentence, at which point someone needed something, poked someone, dropped something, or needed to go pee.  All of these requests involved me performing gymnastics to get to the back of the van, and then reversing the stunt to get back in my seat...just in time to read one more sentence in my Kindle, and then repeat the process over and over again.

We're realizing how lucky we are that kids needing to pee on a road trip is our biggest problem. We have a lot to be thankful for this year, and had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Thanks Mop and Pop!!

Zoo Fun

We've been taking adavntage of our zoo membership lately, but now the girls come armed with something only their Daddy would dedicate hours to making for them:  a custom animal checklist to keep track of what they see and document what each animal is doing.  If this sounds like something only a big (nerdy) kid would come up with, then you're right on the money!  But, I have to give that nerdy husband of mine some credit on this one.   He scored some major points from the girls (as if his point column wasn't already brimming!).  They literally ran with this idea (okay, they strolled!) and loved circling their animals, and filling in the sheet.  Clever Matt even left quite a few blank boxes for the girls to scetch the random animals he didn't think of (hornbill, anyone??). 

This idea is right up there with our token system at bedtime, also Matt's brainstorm, which is absolutely genius!  I'll bore you with that sometime.  Let's just say we gained a minimum of an hour of kid-free time in the evening with this system.  Needless to say, sometimes dads really do have the best ideas with a totally different perspective.

Bridget shows off her Daddy's handiwork last weekend:

Pretty soon the babies will each sport their own clipboards, too. (Yep, you read that right.  This little activity even includes clipboards!)

After exploring the zoo for much longer than the girls are usually up for, thanks to the checklist, we made it to the playground to let our animals loose.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, Annie.  This judgy look after your sister tried to eat that dirty playground platform will have to do. 

Look for Matt's checklist at a zoo giftshop near you :)

Tessa and Annie - 20 months

I realize I'm on the verge of "by the month" overkill with the twins.  I think I can get away with a few more, though.  Maybe until they're two, and at that point, they're old. Too old for these milestone updates.  After all, by 20 months, Bridget and Megan were each child laborers mommy's helpers.  If I had blogged back then, I would have bragged about Megan throwing away Bridget's dirty diapers at 16 months.  Meanwhile, Bridget was babysitting two kids at 20 months.  Tessa and Annie have had it soo easy.  I can hear the future therapy conversations already.

But, back to our babies, who have nothing more to worry about than which doll to carry around, or which car seat they want to sit in.  No younger sibling vying for attention or needing a burpcloth.  Such is life when you're the youngest.  At 20 months, the biggest change in our house has been the lack of baby gates on the stairs!!  We still use them occasionally, but only for the purpose of corraling kids, not protecting them.  The babies each have their own method for taking the stairs.  Annie prefers to walk down while holding on to the railing, and Tessa slinks down on her tummy --- perfectly fitting of their personalities!

Other skills they're perfecting at 20 months include:

Hugging and kissing each other

Coloring, at the library and at home

Gymnastics

(on the "hanging things" at the library - Bridget's words, not mine)

Sharing a doll cradle :)

Analyzing every Dora episode ever filmed.  She is real, isn't she? ;)

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Hangin' with the big girls for movie nights

Playing a game called How Many Objects Can I Fit In My Arms?