Everyday January

Eleanor tried lots of new foods in January! Green beans are not her favorite, but everything else she gobbles up. I’ve been experimenting making baby food in the Instant Pot… she still prefers store-bought pouches because she can feed herself.

GIVE ME THE SPOON.

 

 

January alternated between lovely, sunny days and freezing, rainy ones.

We attempted to teach Meredith the concept behind leapfrog.

She decided riding on her sisters was more fun.

Eleanor giggles at her sisters’ antics.

Every night before bed, Meredith asks to give Eleanor a little hug. She’s been begging to let Eleanor sleep in her room too, but that won’t happen for a while.

Rest stop on a hike.

Perfecting magnatile towers.

On one rainy Saturday, Jake took the girls to do crafts at Home Depot. They were proud of their Valentine’s box creations.

Eleanor continued to crawl backwards and even learned to spin around, but still didn’t quite get how to crawl forwards.

The girls created a car for themselves out of a huge box and styrofoam.

Meredith loves to fill the basket in her bike with random toys to bring to the park.

Samantha and Amelia went to Harper’s birthday party at Zoomars and spent almost the entire time feeding and petting every single guinea pig.

We had one week that was straight up torrential downpours every day. After school one day, I announced we were having a read-a-thon. I had to explain what that was a million times, but the girls eventually went along with it. We pulled out all of our bins of books and binge-read picture books all afternoon.

Eleanor’s favorite toys.

Playdate with Maple and Gavin inside on a rainy day!

Wearing one of Maple’s old size 2T sleepers!

We got to meet Amy’s new baby– sweet Carter!

Meredith’s playgroup for 2016 babies. Many of the moms also have 2018 babies like Eleanor, so both toddler and babies have some friends!

Art and projects from school this month:

At teacher conference, Samantha and Amelia’s teachers showed me the little word books they’ve done recently and said how impressed they were by the drawings! I’d say those are pretty detailed for a five-year-old!

 

We practiced catch and batting to get ready for the upcoming softball season. Hit a home run, Amelia!

 

Lots of love,

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Newborn Eleanor Week 2

Newborn Eleanor Week 2 was another very tiring blur of feed/pump/change diapers/wash bottles/feed everyone else/sleep/repeat. Eleanor was still sleeping most of the day and waking up frequently at night, so we were basically zombies just trying to survive. Luckily, Grammy was still there to help out and Grandpa also came to visit and meet the baby, along with out three other little “mommies” who couldn’t get enough of the baby. In Amelia’s words, “A REAL baby is SO much better than playing with our dollies!”

The girls did lots of swimming, park days and lounging around!

Nice to meet you, Grandpa!

No one, apparently, wanted to be in this picture.

The cousins came for a visit and went to the waterpark!

Dinner out in San Juan Capistrano– the kids were occupied by the trains passing by and all behaved really well!

Eleanor and I hung out at home while the cousins were out and about.

I want to go toooooo!

Queen Eleanor received many royal visitors every day. Pleasure to meet you, Phi and Sheela!

Maple is always the sweetest with Eleanor.

Meredith wanted to be a baby too.

All of the “babies” swaddled up!

Meredith had her own private beach morning with cousins Noah and Hailey while the twins were in preschool.

Magnatiles and trains are always a winner at our house.

Nice to meet you, Lily and Avery!

Walks around the neighborhood were the extend of Eleanor’s outings the first few weeks!

 

With school out, the twins were really excited to see some of our friends again, and Meredith had to learn to share with the crowd!

Lots of love,

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April Happenings

Here’s a random April photo dump!

Samantha and Amelia are SO silly– particularly when they don’t nap (we still do quiet time for a minimum of 1.5 hours a day, even if they don’t fall asleep). They literally walked downstairs on a random Tuesday after quiet time was over like this and I started filming– it’s one of their funniest videos of all time. And in case you are wondering why they are wearing sports bras, they convinced Jake to buy them each one on a random errand run to Target (because they are manipulative and know they can convince Daddy to buy them anything!)

I have a feeling Amelia was the instigator on this one.

Our friends, the Erpeldings, got a new bunny, Mango! Meredith and the twins could spend hours over there cuddling him.

Meredith and Gavin on a “date.”

The girls always make me the prettiest bouquets.

Meredith loves to make cakes and cupcakes for me at the park.

Toddlers not interested in the games their mommies want them to play!

The days where it is just Meredith and me can be the most challenging. The twins are really great at distracting and entertaining her, so when it’s just her and I at the park, she’s bored out of her mind!

 

So strong willed. This happens 5.8 times a day.

Easter crafts!

We worked on refreshing our table manners because meal times were driving me absolutely crazy with all the getting out of seats, bouncing up and down in seats, elbows on the table, talking with mouth full, etc. We instituted a short-term ticket system where the girls were able to earn tickets to a private “Manners Tea Party” once they reached a certain number of tickets for good table manners. The twins were so excited for their tea party (Meredith obviously did not earn enough to join us!)

A fun taco, s’mores and movie night with Kennedy and Sebastian!

 

Daddy daughter date checking out a fun new park.

Meredith loves gymnastics and is very strong compared to the other kids.

Daddy daughter date to the Bubblefest show at the Cube and dinner out afterwards.

One of Meredith’s favorite pastimes is dumping out the contents of my purse. She loves to sneak away after breakfast when I’m distracted getting the girls ready for school and cleaning up and usually runs under the dining room table, going through lipstick, my wallet and any other treasures. Here she is caught red-handed!

Good thing you are cute, Meredith!

Lots of love,

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March Recap

Here’s our random March photo dump:

While almost everyone else stayed inside or went to indoor play gyms with their kids on rainy days, we took full advantage! It doesn’t rain very often and the girls always get so excited (plus, I wanted to get as much use out of our rain gear, which mostly gets neglected the majority of the year). The girls love to walk to the top of our neighborhood, place leaves in the gutter and run all the way down the street, following their journey downstream.

Singing in the rain.

Lots of spring cleaning happened, especially on rainy days.

Amelia: “Mommy– do you want to have kids so that they can do work for you?”

Me: “Yes, Amelia. You’ve figured it out!”

Rainy day fort building.

In between the rain we had some random hot days!

Checking out a new park with Gavin.

We go through about 1.5 billion pieces of construction paper per day as the twins LOVE to color/draw/paint, and Meredith tries to copy them (although she is not allowed to have markers anymore until she learns to put the caps back on consistently). The twins’ favorite is drawing hearts, rainbows, our family, cats, and themselves. They’ll run up to show me their creations and even though I’ve explained where they can hang up their most treasured works of art and that we can’t possibly save every single one of the drawings, heaven forbid they find them in the recycle bin! I have to be pretty sneaky about it.

On St. Patrick’s Day, Samantha, Amelia, Meredith, Maliyah and Allie created a “leprechaun nest” at the park in order to hopefully attract leprechauns. On our next visit there, the nest was mysteriously missing, so the girls concluded their experiment to lure leprechauns was a success.

Meredith and Sheela get some one-on-one time.

Our weekly Tuesday park date group!

Cupcake, yum!

Lazy day harmonica playing on the swing.

Park playdate with Parker, Maple, and Jenny.

Bug hunting.

The girls were so excited to have Great Grandpa over!

Post-church walk around the creek.

Meredith is the youngest out of the kids in her little gymnastics class, but she keeps up and can’t wait to go whenever we tell her it’s gym time. Her favorite part is putting on her leotard.

 

Check out my new shoes!

Making waffles on a Saturday morning.

Samantha and Amelia got it into their heads that they absolutely needed to perfect their cartwheels and practiced non-stop.

The twins attended their first baptism for their friend, Kennedy, and now they pretend to “baptize” each other in the bath.

Meredith on her Strider!

I normally don’t include stuff on this blog that doesn’t involve our whole family, but Sheela’s surprise 40th bday party is an exception because the girls helped out with the cake tasting, decor and other party planning shenanigans for months! Sheela’s husband, Todd, booked an awesome private room at a restaurant and was great with putting together the catering menu and so many of the little details. I was very impressed with his party planning organization! Phi, myself and our families had a blast in the months leading up to the party putting together the decorations, doing cake tastings (the husbands and kids were not complaining about that one!) and selecting the desserts. The party turned out amazing and Sheela was so surprised and loved it!

Todd ordered these hilarious “Sheela” face cut-outs, so this is what Sheela saw when walked into the room:

Phi and I were sad when it was over because we had so much fun with the planning! Between Sheela’s and the twins’ party, it was a March full of big events interspersed with everyday fun!

Lots of love,

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