Park Play

This post is brought to you by my iPhone 5, without which I would have no pictures of this impromptu after-school park visit.  I am so grateful for the technology that allows me to capture pictures at any time, whether or not I have my "big" camera along.  And the pictures are so clear!!  Before I upgraded my phone, the pictures from my old phone were bad.  These are great, and show just how excited the girls were to be surprised with a park trip.

At almost 18 months (eek!!), Mary is no longer content to just hang out in the stroller while the girls play.  She wants out, and furthermore, she doesn't want in to begin with.  She is so squirmy and demanding nowadays when confined to the stroller, and we didn't even use it for this park trip.  She was free as a bird, and loved every minute of it.  She now knows the word "park" and if we ask her if she wants to go to the park, she grunts, "Yuh!!"

Look, pretty darn happy to be set loose!  I love this picture!

Of course, we had clambered back into the van, mostly unwillingly, before I realized that I didn't get any cute pictures of Tessa.  That's what I get for trying to keep Mary alive, help with monkey bars and push girls on swings, all the while trying to take pictures.  One girl slipped through the cracks.  Here she is in her car seat saying "thank you" to me for taking her to the park.

Anytime, Tessa!

Christmas Brunch

As I sifted through the pictures we've taken over the last few weeks, I realized I never got a picture of all of the girls in their Christmas dresses on Christmas Eve.  What was I thinking??  I know I take plenty of pictures of the girls, but I feel so badly that I forgot the Christmas shot!  

These pictures will have to suffice.  The girls wore these cute outfits on December 23rd for a wonderful Christmas brunch at Grandma and Grandpa Stecher's house.  Thankfully, I got a group picture before we left.  Okay, I got more than one picture.  And, you can bet I'll post more than one here :)

Once we were down at the brunch, these five silly kids ate together at the little kid table (not to be confused with the bigger kid table).  Charlie is a perfect playmate for the girls, and I'm always amazed at how well they all play together with him in the mix.  On this day, they were more than happy to have a "king" in the group for a change.  They were downstairs in basement guest bedroom playing king/queen/princesses/servants for a long time after brunch.  They even tired to blockade the door at one point.  It was a very secretive kingdom they had going.

Of course, that game was no match for present time!  They came stampeding back upstairs when they heard gifts being sorted out.  Most of the family gifts were exchanged at this brunch because it was the one day when everyone was together.

Lucky girls!

Little Angels

December was a busy month for us, and one of my favorite moments was the night of the girls' Christmas pageant and choral performance.  Everyone got dressed up to head to St. Stephen for the two shows.  Bridget's kindergarten class put on a nativity musical that was adorable, and Megan's class joined the rest of the school in a lengthy (read: only parents can appreciate it) Christmas carol performance.  It all started at the girls' normal bedtime, so we're lucky we survived with no serious meltdowns in our entourage!  

I managed to get a few pictures of Tessa (in red) and Annie  (in green) dressed up before we left.  These remain some of the only pictures of the girls in their Christmas dresses...a serious mom fail on my part!  Christmas Eve came and went without any pictures of this cuteness x 5.  Ah well.  I guess this blog o' pictures slightly makes up for one occasion without the camera.

Bridget made the cutest little angel for her play!  I snapped these pictures in her kindergarten classroom before the entire "cast" headed to the hall to perform.  Bridget had practiced all of her songs and was a pretty confident actress.  All of that line memorizing effort has since been redirected toward learning Taylor Swift's lyrics, for better or for worse :/

Megan (with her little friend Bryn) was excited to see Bridget perform the same play she did last year.  And although she was happy here, it took a lot of wrestling and tears earlier that evening to get Megan to wear this cute dress.  Bridget will gladly wear anything we ask her to, and with a smile.  Megan, on the other hand, is so finnicky about what she thinks looks "weird." or too "fancy."  (She was convinced no one would be wearing tights, for example.)  I may have to take her on a special shopping trip to pick out her own outfit for the next special occasion, instead of expecting her to wear whatever I say, or whatever we inherit in the way of hand-me-downs.  Sigh.  My dictatorship is cracking, I suppose ;)

Bridget did a great job singing with her angel posse!

How could she not with this supportive crowd?  And Grandma and Grandpa were there, too!

 

Megan's show started afterwards in the church.  We were in the way back on account of being part of the kindergarten crowd, so Megan was a little speck in the middle of the bottom row that we observed from a distance.

Well, we were also watching this little one in the pew with us, as well as three other little monkeys.  

The girls were so proud of their performances, and it was a special way to kick off the holidays.  We'll be attending more than a few more of these over the next several years (15, I think?), and we're thinking that Mary just might get the lead in the kindergarten play, based on her name alone :)

Clean, for a Moment

Bath time in our house...

Quite the process. Sometimes in shifts, sometimes all at once.  Always an adventure.  Lots of hair washing and lots of blow-drying afterwards.  Many Barbies.  Just as many princesses.  The occasional pooping baby bringing a new level of fun that we've somehow never experienced until now.

But the promise of sweet-smelling clean girls makes it worth it a few times a week.  (Anyone who thinks we do this with five kids nightly is crazy!)

Before I took Megan's picture, she wanted to make sure that she and her doll were waving "hi." She's too cute!  And, she's showing off a front tooth that is hanging on by a thread!

Right after this set of baths on New Year's Eve, when they were squeaky clean and not even blow-dried, Annie, Megan and Tessa began puking.  Not that we had plans or anything.  But, we certainly could have rung in the new year nice and healthy.  Luckily, the girls got sick in intervals, with about an hour difference between each onset.  Bridget had just gone through the same thing two nights before (at Grandma and Grandpa's!) and we were naive enough to think that the others wouldn't catch it.  Ha!!  The only positive here was that Matt and I were healthy while dealing with near-constant vomit for about six hours.  We had many the heart-to-heart chat with cute, flushed girls sitting on the stepstool in the bathroom, waiting out the next round of throw-up.  Hours later, by the time all three had gone through at least one set of sheets and several towels, and were settled back in bed with some reprieve, it hit me with a vengeance.  Thankfully, it did not affect Matt (or Mary, beyond having horrendous diapers!), so he took charge for a full 24 hours!  Our New Year's Eve  last week of Christmas vacation turned into a basic survival operation.  

That flu shot that seemed unnecessary a few months ago??  That would have come in handy, since this was the second flu virus to visit our family in less than two months!  Here's hoping for a healthier new year!!

Family Pictures

Matt and I agreed to not purchase anything crazily expensive for each other this Christmas, but we also agreed to splurge a bit on professional pictures of our family of seven.  It's very rare that we get a shot of all of us together, so these pictures are treasures for us!  We signed up for a "mini-session" with a budding photographer, Lorraine Murphy.  She lives in our neighborhood and did a fabulous job on Mary's newborn photos.  She's also got such a thick Scottish brogue that the girls thought she just might be Merida from Brave.  She was as apprehensive as we were about how we would wrangle smiles from five little girls in such a "mini" amount of time, but to all of our surprise, it worked!

We met Lorraine at Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park, and it was a beautiful setting!  I'm ashamed to admit that I'd never been there before.  But, it's now on our to-do list to head back there and rent paddle boats with the girls...on a warmer day.  It was absolutely frigid for these pictures, which explains some bluish skin, especially from Bridget.  And that cold weather made the smiles that much more miraculous!  We were set up on a pretty main walking path, so we had to pause a few times for people to pass by.  But, a lot of people ended up stopping to count all of the little girls :)

Mary surprised us by being quite the ham!  I really thought she would be a troublemaker!

Bridget was, surprise surprise, Little Miss Model.  And, Megan was as cute as ever.  

This is the picture we used for some of our Christmas cards.  (We used a Halloween picture for some that we had printed before this photo session.)  I love that everyone is looking at the camera!!  

Annie was full of normal smiles, but Tessa (right) kept doing her goofy "cheese" smile.  When we asked her to just smile, she put her hands up and said, "What?! I am!"

Doesn't Mary look just like a little sprite in the woods?

Bridget insisted on a Mommy/Bridget photo because we were both wearing blue.  I'm kind of wishing I had done this with each girl!

Yeah for pictures of all seven of us in one frame!