Here's a standard morning with Patrick, who has changed his mind on what he wants to eat for breakfast three times and finally settles on eating the eggs I had made for myself and some breakfast sausage.
Patrick: I got a new kitty
Me: But we already have three
Patrick: Now we have four! There it is (points at Sookie walking by)
Me: What a nice kitty. What is its name?
Patrick: Monster (starts cackling with delight)
I'm lucky though, some mornings are a little more difficult when Patrick is feeling contrary and would rather not eat his breakfast at all. I was trying to talk him into eating the other morning:
Me: Do you want to be a big strong Patrick or weak wussy?
Patrick: Weak wussy
Pray for me.
Patrick wearing two coats, shorts, and boots on a Target trip. This is how he dresses for the cold.
A favorite Patrick phrase he uses whenever he's playing with one of his siblings is "we're playing a playing!" It covers pretty much anything fun you want to do and it's pretty sweet to hear him beg Eleanor to do more "playing a playing" with him.
But then he gets so tired when I tell him to read on the couch while I work on something during Juliet's naptime. He's big but he's also so little.
Patrick generally has a gleam in his eye. We're lucky that he's generally desperate to please everyone around him, there's a lot of spunk in this boy and we're hoping he uses his powers for good. We're starting a family Secret Santa tomorrow where we're going to give each other cards and drawings and maybe even do a few treasure hunts. Patrick has been creating art in preparation for this for the past two weeks, his top drawer of his dresser is filled with beautiful creations for whoever his lucky secret buddy ends up being.
Bradley loves showing off his Lego creations and always wants me to take pictures of them. They're pretty ingenious, it's easy to be a fan!
I told Bradley and Eleanor the truth about Santa right after Thanksgiving. I was curious as to how they would take the news but they did really well. Hurray for having a "lame Santa" who only brings a candy cane full of candy, a book, and a low level toy for each child each year. Bradley's first question after being told the news was "Wait, have you been eating the cookies?" I said, "YES, and please keep leaving us out some good ones."
Bradley took notes on the big news.
He also immediately gave me his letter he had written to Santa, about which I had no prior knowledge.
He also wrote an amazing school assignment about perseverance, and how he gave Patrick a pony ride even though he was so heavy.
Colleen and Kerry came to visit the weekend before Thanksgiving. The kids had a blast, as always, working on crafts with Grandma.
Such fun reading time.
And then we made it to the Ceramic Café for a special outing to make Christmas mugs and a handprint tile for Juliet.
Juliet was less than enthused about the creative process.
The rest of the gang had a great time and begged to go back.
Bradley had his first basketball game while Colleen and Kerry were here, which was fortuitous timing.
Bradley is so cute to watch.
We're really grateful that my dad generally takes Juliet and walks around with her during basketball games. She might not be a super fan just yet.
We had some nice weather and the kids had a blast playing jump rope with Grandma Colleen and Kerry.
Bradley is actually quite the impressive jump roper. I think his record was 27 jumps or something close to that.
Group shot to end the trip!
Following this we were visited by my brother Daniel and his wife Stephanie and the greatest visitor of them all, cousin Katie.
She's just 6 weeks older than Juliet and she has quite the fan club with her cousins.
We went to see Charlie Brown Christmas at the Coterie Theatre and then went out to lunch and to Union Station. Big kids loved the toy train ride.
And loving on the babies.
We got a family picture in front of the big Union Station Christmas tree.
And played outside a bit, despite the cold.
But oh man, cousin time was the best.
Eleanor in particular was Katie's best buddy and chose time with her over watching video games.
Katie and Stephanie together. I'm pretty proud of getting this sweet picture.
The baby cousins were crazy cute together. And Katie took her first steps during her visit!
She was not much into festive headbands.
Pushing Juliet in her walker. We were all cracking up as this happened. Both Katie and Juliet loved this so much.
We went out with Daniel and Stephanie and the three big kids to the Kyoto Hibachi Grill.
Watching Patrick try to catch food in his mouth was a highlight. Super adorable.
But not quite as adorable as this, somehow.
Juliet loves being in on bedtime books these days.
And look at our great tree decorators! Kudos to Nathan for his decorating work, I didn't put up a single Christmas decoration this year, Nathan did all of it while I was running around doing errands. I forgot how hectic Christmas can be when you have an infant. Funny story, they were getting out decorations for the mantle and Eleanor and Patrick ran up with their E and P letters for their stocking. They couldn't find the B for Bradley so Nathan sent them back to the box to look for it. They found a C for the cats and an A for Anne and then another E? Nathan put all the letters above the mantle and said "Aha!" Once rearranged they spelled "Peace." Oh my. We've had that up for three years in a row now but apparently it hasn't been memorable enough.
The three girls in their matching dresses. I love this picture so much.
More cousin playtime.
Eleanor was willing to put up with anything because she loves the babies so much.
Katie took her first steps at my parents' house! She was willing to walk for my phone.
Meanwhile, Luigi's Haunted Mansion 3 in the basement for the boys.
Thanksgiving was very fun, we had special hats for everyone.
Festive Juliet!
Cuddles with Uncle Thomas, who also came to visit.
Cousins playing an upside down game together.
And then nonstop battles over toys. Katie had the age advantage and dexterity but Juliet had persistence.
Me with my girls at bedtime - Eleanor, Juliet, and Meg.
We went on a sibling + significant other outing to Q39 so the visitors could experience the best of KC BBQ. It was pretty amazing. No children accompanied us, thank you grandparent babysitters!
Came home to this.
Eleanor insisted on this picture of her as the mouse king and found it beyond hilarious.
The next day we went back to the ceramic café to make ornaments for grandparents and to get Katie's handprint tile done.
The babies were less than enthralled with the ceramics but enjoyed each other's company.
Katie's fan club followed her around even when it was clearly a meal break.
Cute painting crew.
The kids are lucky they're so cute at this place.
Big kids had a blast.
Juliet says boo to Ceramic Café.
We went to the luminary walk at the Arboretum with everyone, despite it being a rather windy evening.
We got a cousin group pic.
And the only group picture featuring everyone who was in town for Thanksgiving all at once.
It was our first year doing the hay ride. I think Eleanor was a fan.
Hay ride group.
In a Christmas miracle, we discovered that Juliet is the only baby who loves Santa. She's usually so clingy with me and she wouldn't go to anyone else while we were at the Arboretum. So I didn't have high hopes when I handed her over to Santa. But she rubbed his fur coat and looked up at him with a look of absolute delight.
Despite having been told the truth about Santa two days prior, Bradley still enthusiastically read him his list. Which was then handed to me after he was done. Gotta cover your bases I guess.
We love going on this walk every year, it's so pretty.
The next day we went out on another sibling + significant other outing to see Potted Potter. High culture!
Juliet bonding with her Uncle Daniel and his shiny phone.
Exciting and wild car rides with Uncle Thomas.
It was funny to hold both babies at the same time. Katie is 90th percentile and Juliet is 14th so there's a bit of a weight difference.
This is an accurate photo.
Juliet showed Katie how to open the cabinet under the tv console and it became Katie's mission in life to throw all the DVDs to the ground, even if it meant stepping on her grandpa.
We took a picture of Uncle Thomas with his nieces and nephews. Please note that Eleanor is wearing my crazy cat lady sweater, because she's 6 and is already stealing my clothes.
Cousin photo! It was a great trip, we're hoping Thanksgiving in KC becomes an annual tradition.
And then it was back to normal. Addison has a new member of her fan club with Juliet.
Juliet likes getting in an adrenaline rush whenever she can.
Juliet needs close supervision these days, because she is so so naughty.
She throws books onto the ground whenever she's near a bookshelf and pulling towels down is a joy to her as well. As you can see, she was trying for the dish gloves here and was unrepentant at being caught.
I legitimately cannot leave this baby on her own for even 30 seconds.
This is a standard minute of Juliet activity.
But at least she can do stairs on her own at only 10 months old!
She only ate a little sand when we were at the Museum of Prairie Fire recently. Great success.
She and Patrick are pretty awesome buddies.
We had our annual cookie swap a couple of weeks ago. We don't invite that many families but we all have enough kids to make it a pretty reasonable crew.
Fortuitously, I got a few new games through Tryazon that we got to play at the party. We had many eager game testers.
Julia, Julie, and Juliet are going to form their own club. I mean, it's obviously a pretty fantastic name for the best of the people.
Headbanz. It was pretty cute.
Juliet loved Henry.
Most of the crew for our picture with the games.
The next day we had another fun time with a Santa at our MOPS photo booth I helped set up at church.
Once again, Juliet was a huge fan. So sweet.
What a good looking crew, right? I've found that when I put the boys in flannel and the girls in matching dresses then everyone is happy.
In the next level of Eleanor borrowing my clothes, the other day she decided my skirt was her new cape. She then called herself the angel of Christmas. "Everyone is going to know I'm an angel now! I'm going to have to grant wishes!"
Some days my baby and I match and it's as adorable as it sounds.
Patrick continues to build traps thanks to watching Home Alone. That's a string across the entrance to the office. You don't want to know how much tape has been used taping it to my one good chair across over to the cat tower.
Patrick also showed Bradley how fun it was to jam your hands down your pants instead of in your pockets. They then decided to play human bumper cars against each other until, shocker, Patrick fell down and got hurt. After he stopped crying he wanted to play again and I had to ban this new fun game.
Eleanor has learned that Juliet already knows the magic of flippy sequin shirts and likes to show off her fancy shirts for the baby.
Juliet is doing a lot better at sleeping through the night, although we sometimes get thwarted by an idiot cat. One night at 2am I got up to go to the bathroom and apparently Meg heard me and started yowling for freedom in the room she was trapped in. I checked Eleanor's room first and then with dread, approached Juliet's room. However, when I opened the door, Meg didn't run out! But the yowling got a lot louder … She was in THE BABY'S CRIB right by Juliet's head. Still yowling. Juliet was very confused but delighted to be awakened in such a manner and I got to nurse her back to sleep while a love starved Meg kept jumping on my lap and purring loudly enough that it distracted Juliet from nursing and she kept grabbing at the very exciting kitty. It ended up taking an hour to get the baby back to sleep. I'm really glad we kept the baby's door open when she was itty bitty, it's a little jarring to go in and find a cat asleep by the baby. Not a big deal now but it would have been when she was smaller.
Now she is not exactly large and in charge but she's big enough to be almost walking and to know how delicious books are.
The big kids' church Christmas program went so well. Our church is amazing and they do such a great job with the kids. Here is one of two songs the preschool sang.
Bradley got big laughs in the big kid play with his three lines as a guard and Eleanor got to be part of a singing trio for a part of one of the songs so she was excited about her part as well.
Bradley's part is the first 40 seconds of this video.
Eleanor's singing part.
You can skip to 2:30 for Eleanor.
And Bradley's solo which we only discovered he had at the dress rehearsal.
Skip to 1:10 for Bradley.
Proud kids with goodie bags at the end of the performance.
We have an advent nativity set and the kids get to take turns placing an item every day. Can you tell that this was Bradley's day?
Seahawks game that afternoon. As you can see, Eleanor was full of team spirit.
How cute is this baby? She so smiley, it's pretty much the best.
She's so into everything the big kids do, they mostly love it except when she's pillaging all the hatchimals they're trying to play with.
And we had big snow this day too! Juliet had seen snow as an itty bitty thing and there was a tiny bit at Halloween but this was her first true snow experience.
She still hasn't technically touched it since I put her in her pink marshmallow outfit to play in it.
Bradley helped haul snow in the sleds in order to build a rather impressive fort.
Juliet really enjoyed being outside for a few minutes to check out what the big kids were up to.
Saying hi to Addison.
Me and the happy snow baby.
Digging out the igloo fort.
Nathan supervised. It was pretty awesome.
And then the next day the kids finally got to go over to the big sledding hill in the park behind our house. For the first time ever.
I could see the action when I looked out the back window. The kids loved it so much.
Grandpa even got in on the action.
This is afterwards, when everyone had come inside to warm up and Grandpa has read a few books and the kids are begging him to stay longer.
School had been canceled that day but in the evening Bradley still got to go to the Cub Scouts event playing bingo at a retirement home.
His favorite person from the previous year was still there and they were quite delighted to get to play bingo together again.
The next day was Patrick's Christmas program at his preschool.
He was so good and did a great job singing along and doing all of the motions.
We have a new favorite picture of him and Mabel from the end of the program. She wasn't at preschool two days later because her family had already left on their Christmas vacation and apparently he wandered around like a little lost soul without her. I don't know if I should hope they're in the same kindergarten class or not next year. There's just a rather overwhelming amount of Mabel love.
