Waiting on Five

This may be one of our last family photos as a family of six. Matt and I enjoyed about 24 hours away from home (kid-free!) for our friends' wedding in Carmel a couple weeks ago. We got this shot before we left the girls with Mop and Uncle Kyle. We had a great time at Carla and Tyler's wedding, and appreciated the chance to get away before we're homebound again for a while after this baby arrives!

Four Girls at Play

Maybe I'm just being sentimental as our era with four little girls is nearing an end, but I can't resist collecting  pictures of all four girls playing together, and putting them all in one place.  We're so lucky that they do play together nicely (most of the time), and seem to enjoy almost all of the same activities.  There's something very unique about them being all girls and so close in age.  They all even get a kick out of the same cartoons (no eye-rolling at "baby shows" yet, although I'm sure that is coming soon).  They all love everything princess, playing school, playing doctor, reading, playing with baby dolls, coloring, tea parties, and dancing -- really, everything girl!  In no particular order, these are the things I've captured them all doing lately:
 

 

Reading books (in various states of undress)

Huddling in some sort of secret club on the front walk

The beginning of a tea party 

Playing with Little People post-bath

Hard at work coloring in the kitchen

Getting some use from our long-neglected treadmill

Having a dance party on the hot tub cover

Playing "train" on the slide

Of course, we'll have many more pictures of our five playing together, hopefully just as nicely.  I'm really wondering whether there will be cars and trains in those pictures, though!

More Zoo Fun

We hit up the zoo again recently, and relished one of our last outings as a family of six.  It's funny how my perspective has changed so much.  Suddenly, four kids is very manageable, and five will be a whole new kind of chaos.  Our annual passes are still valid at the zoo for a few more months, so we're taking advantage, especially since the girls really enjoy it there.  Tessa and Annie even got into their checklists this time.  Annie was very serious about checking off each animal.

The children's farm was a bigger hit this time with the twins, too.  They loved petting and feeding the goats, which was a big change from our last trip that involved hysterical crying when the goats came close.

By far, though, the highlight of this trip was the unlimited carousel rides for zoo members on the day we went.  Score!  Yes, the girls love seeing the animals at the zoo, but even the baby gorilla's somersault show can't compete with the irresistible carousel.  So, when it's free, we're there!  They were able to ride maybe 4 or 5 times before we had to head back home for naps.  Of course, 5 times is not enough when they were pretty sure they could go "infinity times."  Another wonderful outing ended in tantrums. But, there were smiles, which is what we took pictures of!

Soccer Comes to an End

Our first soccer season is over, and we've had fun!  I have to say that the biggest challenge to this first activity of ours was getting there on time. I had to wake up all four girls from naps to get to practice on time (We paid for an activity to cut naptime short??  What was I thinking??), and I always underestimated how long it would take to gear up two sleepy, cranky kids, change two more kids' diapers, and load all of those kids in the car.  Invariably, we were the last to run onto the soccer field.  I really need to work on my time management before I'm juggling five kids' activities!

Time on the sidelines during practice often looked like this.  The twins were pretty occupied with sippies and their own soccer ball while we watched Megan keep up with the boys on her team, and Bridget play sharks and minnows with her team.

Games on Saturdays were a different variety of chaos. 

The first step before getting out the door was getting dressed, Megan's favorite part.  This was especially true when her game days coincided with Matt's baseball games.  He'd be rushing out the door, and missed a few of her games because of his baseball schedule, but his absences were completely made up by the fact that they coincidentally shared the same number.  Thank you, uniform gods! :)

The next step on game days?  Getting there.  It would seem like an easy task, especially since the games were played on a field in our neighborhood, a short five-minute walk from our house.  Of course, like everything else, this simple task was always harder in our case.  When Matt was free, it was great!  He would help Megan on her bike,

and I would pull the girls in the wagon.  Why couldn't they walk?  Good question.  Pure laziness on their part, I guess.  Why walk when your very pregnant mom can pull you?  All you need to do is act like you could run out into the street at any moment, and she'll jump at the chance to contain you, even if it means that she may go into preterm labor from the workout.

Sometimes, Megan was willing to help me out.

But, there was more than one time that I carted all four girls back from the game in the wagon.  Megan can definitely squeeze herself in there when she's tired enough!

As for the games themselves, Megan officially made contact with the ball twice!  She also played goalie once.  And, she did lots of running!  Even though she was teamed up with some boys that had been playing soccer for a while, this little beginner wasn't discouraged.  She fell more than a few times on the field, and got right back up for more each time.  I'm not sure if she'll be overly eager to play soccer in the fall with her kindergarten class, but we gave it a whirl.

We're already on to the next activity - swimming lessons at SI!  Megan loves it, and is slated for four weeks of lessons, with lessons four days a week.  So far, we've survived week one.  There's no wagon involved on the sidelines here, just lots of holding hands and preventing toddlers from jumping in the water.  Three more weeks to go, assuming I don't go into labor before those three weeks are up!

We Have a Graduate!

Megan graduated from preschool today!!

Part of me is very sad that this year is over and that she's going to be a kindergartner before we know it.  That part of me should also have cried at the cute little ceremony the kids put on.  Even the teachers were crying!  I was just too busy trying to get my camera to take a decent picture, all while holding a coughing, fidgety Tessa, that it didn't even occur to me to get weepy.  What kind of mother am I?  I guess too busy to even shed a tear at my own kid's momentous occasion.  Maybe #5 will get my undivided attention as they are handed their tiny diploma, and I'll have a moment to feel sentimental.

The other part of me (and this part won out) is just overjoyed at the fact the year is over, and I'm really glad that it's summer vacation!!  Running out of the house five days a week with these four girls in tow has become more and more exhausting, especially as this pregnancy has me becoming  less and less mobile.  I am more than ready for some lazy summer days around this house!

Our little graduate was all smiles today, and was so happy to finally show off the dance moves her class has been rehearsing all month.  She's been asking for months, "When am I going to be done with the Starlite Room?"  I think it was clear to her today that she is now officially done!

Here she is in the middle of the line-up, yawning, just to show what she thinks about preschool now :)

I couldn't resist getting some pictures of Megan with her closest buddies that will be going to kindergarten with her in the fall.  These girls are among a handful of kids that she'll know from preschool and church, and she'll be in the same class with them for the next eight years, since our parish school has just one class per grade. I'm hoping they get along!!  It'll be fun to compare these preschool graduation photos with their 8th grade poses.

 Megan and Arianna

I promise that Megan is a very average height and Arianna is a very tall girl, but, oh my gosh, Megan really looks shrimpy here!!

Megan and Bryn

These two have been making little notes for each other for the last few weeks.  They have a really cute little friendship. Bryn is the youngest of four kids, and Megan is (temporarily) the oldest of four kids.  Maybe they can compare notes over the years and see who's worse off!

This next picture could simply be entitled "Jealousy."  Actually, Bridget was upset that Megan got to hold the flowers in this picture.  This makes me want to cry. Poor girl.

 

She was much happier in the next few pictures!

Since Megan's graduated, we decided it's high time she start pulling her weight, er, maybe pushing some weight around here.  

The OC, continued

Before we head down to Orange County yet again in less than a week (these girls are spoiled!!), I need to get the remaining pictures on here from our Easter trip.  We had an amazing time, and while the girls may be spoiled by their Mop and Pop time, I'm also pretty spoiled down there.  For this Easter trip, I was alone with the girls for a few days while Matt's baseball team played in a tournament in San Luis Obispo.  Normally, I would be terrified of multiple days alone with all of the kids (yes, did I mention how spoiled I am? Obviously, Matt rarely travels for work so I'm not often exposed to this horror), but Mop actually met us in San Luis Obispo to help me with the rest of the drive (and with the girls!).  Having her in the van with me to crawl in the back and break out the potty, fetch dropped lovies and reload the DVD player made the trip way faster and more enjoyable!!  Of course, having Mop's and Pop's help once we arrived was appreciated, too!!

Before we left San Luis Obispo, we loaded up on hamburgers and hotdogs and the girls burned some energy on the outdoor deck of the burger joint.

Our first activity, once we were settled the next day, was hitting up Pretend City in Irvine, a children's museum that looks like a little town, complete with street signs, little cars for the kids to drive, stores, a fire station, a post office, a construction zone, a restaurant, a little house, and an arts and crafts area.  The kids could "work" in all of the different locations to earn pretend money, and even stamped their time cards at each job.  They had a blast!!

Megan and Bridget are working at the grocery store here,

and Annie (left) and Tessa are driving their little car.

The house under construction kept Bridget and the twins busy for a while,

and all of the girls made themselves at home in the completed house. 

We all had a great time until we were walking out.  We were under the impression that there would be an area for the kids to buy little trinkets with their pretend money, and that turned out not to be the case.  Instead, we were herded right through an overpriced gift shop, where the girls each wanted to pick out something to buy with their money.  Pretend City quickly became Tantrum City as we had to forcibly remove four crying, cranky kids.

Luckily, the crankiness didn't last too long, and the girls were pretty well-behaved the rest of the trip.  Everything is fun at Mop and Pop's house, from the "fort" at the top of the stairs that Megan and Bridget sleep in, to feeding Charlie ice through his dog run gate, over and over again.  Even the barstools in the kitchen are neato :)

Playing dress-up still ranks pretty high on the to-do list for the girls.  They love to raid Mop's closet for all of her fancy shirts (that become dresses on little people), jewelry and shoes, and then put on a fashion show.

Bridget's even sporting some extrta hair here, courtesy of a fake ponytail in Mop's fun stash :)

As always, we managed to squeeze in some swimming, despite less than ideal weather conditions.  It rained every day we were there, but the sun came out briefly one morning, and Tessa and Megan proved that they are definitely the water babies in our family.  Unheated pool water does not bother them in the least!

Annie was much more comfortable in Pop's arms later that night :)

With my downtime, I even managed to get a photo of me pregnant!  Here I am at 27 weeks:

The fun always has to come to an end, and on our last morning, the girls busied themselves playing with the old Fisher-Price toys.  Annie surprised me with a little imaginative play I overheard that morning.  She's talking so much now that she has little play talk between people, princesses, and even her own fingers.  She has a lot to say, and can't be bothered to find a sister to share it with.

In the final stages of packing the car, we resorted to a Diego episode to keep these two occupied. 

The drive home wasn't as traumatic as it's been in the past.  We even scoped out a little playground and had a picnic lunch to break up the drive.  Not a bad trip when you can look into the back of the van and see kids either smiling or snoring!