So I spent some more time this morning photographing my neighbors for their Christmas card too. Here’s Little Zach getting bigger and bigger. I didn’t make the same mistakes as last time, I’m definitely learning as I go!
Let’s go back only a few weeks shall we, to Halloween. We had a nice little party with the ‘Friday moms’ as I call them as I met them at the Friday morning new moms group. We got together last year and the year before too. This year we got to take photos of the big and little kids, the little kids one didn’t work so well though. So here’s the big kids and our best attempts to get them looking at us, and by us I mean about 8 different cameras in different locations so no one can actually get a picture with everyone looking at them. The group should just hire a professional photographer 
This Saturday we met up with Lee, Lynn and Seth for a fun morning zoo trip at the Franklin Park Zoo. They graciously tolerated our lateness and we had a fun time walking around the park. We haven’t taken Josie to this one in a while, maybe not since last mother’s day. She spent most of the time asking to go on the carousel as that’s what she wanted to do. I think she enjoyed some other parts too though. The baby gorilla was crazy cute and the new budgie exhibit was fun because they sell some bird seed on a stick for too much money, but then the birds do this to you.
Josie dropped the first stick much to our chagrin, but we got the hang of it with the second one and Jordi had the birds literally eating out of his hand, and all up his arm. That’s Lee, Lynn and Seth in the background there. Lee and Lynn also accommodated my request to take a few family pictures of us in the beautiful weather, I’ll show those later.
Celia loved watching all the people and Seth, I’m not sure she noticed the animals too much, except for the Zebra, she noticed them a lot. Can’t wait until the giraffes are finally put out for exhibit, it’s too cold right now for them.
Last weekend we got a visit from the Delancey family and the Summers family hosted the CMU crowd at their fancy new house. This video isn’t amazing except when I think about how 10+ years ago we were all hanging out at school together and now we’ve produced a pile of children that can run around and play games together (thanks Steve for playing with all our kids while we socialized!).
They are attempting to play duck duck goose, but no one has quite got it down yet. Exhibit A: my daughter constantly running in circles. She has fun. At the end I think they’re all being animals.
To get away from the winter and have some quality time with our friends and neighbors we went to the Cape Codder Resort on Cape Cod the weekend before last. We first went two years ago for our anniversary. Last year we invited Christina, Chanh, Zach and Ethan and had another great time. This year we all drove down on a Friday and had a really bad trip for some reason, traffic had just been awful around Boston with the snowstorms and despite leaving at 2:30 we sat in a ton of traffic until we got far south of Boston, not arriving until after 5pm. This year we had one extra family member, or at least one more family body as I was actually just barely pregnant at that point last year.
I wonder how old Celia will be when she wonders why she doesn’t have a doggy like the rest of the kids? It was a great weekend away. We spent a fair amount of time in the pool but each of the kids at various times just weren’t feeling it and ended up sitting in chairs while the rest of us enjoyed the water. Josie was enthusiastic at first and then her interest dwindled each time. Hopefully she’ll be more excited next year. Celia liked the water fair enough and tolerated us bringing her in and out and getting splashed.
We had some nice meals and rode the merry go round at the Cape Cod Mall a few times. Most importantly we got a little grown up time to whisper to ourselves while the kids slept and we played a board game at night. We had ice cream sundae’s, fruity blended drinks, and yummy fried food (not all in one meal) to make it all really feel like a vacation. We stopped by the beach on the way home and got a few pictures that I’ve already published, and capped it off with lunch on the way home at Panera, Josie’s favorite. On the way back through Boston we actually hopped off 93 and went to the aquarium quickly since we have a membership now. Both girls really enjoyed it and we liked having an easy quick visit without the extra effort of schlepping downtown. A rare moment of spontaneity from this planner!
Next year we need to remember to bring smore’s supplies for the nightly bonfire.
This assignment was to photograph something that they love. While at times Josie is jealous of Celia (who wouldn’t be?) she is clearly enamored with her sister and is constantly thinking of her.
And while we haven’t gotten to see Zach as much this year as I’m not watching him once a week, Josie and Zach are still friends and are excited to see each other. Here’s Zach tackling Josie upon arriving at the hotel this weekend.
Here’s a snow day photo of the four kids all together!
Weekend that is. We enjoyed a relaxing trip down to RI to visit our friends Stef and Koos and their kids Xander and Zoe to celebrate the weekend with a BBQ and friends. We brought our bounce house which was a big hit and we were glad to be able to use it again. Amongst this group of friends I’ll only be the second one to have the second kid and their kids are mostly a couple of months older than Josie. It’s a very different dynamic getting to look at the older kids and see what they’re capable of in only a few short months beyond Josie. Toilet-training is in full effect with most everyone and the ability to hear what they’re all thinking is funny. It’s nice to not have to be eagle-eyed hawks over the kids too as they generally play better together.
The super-short video below is of the pinata. Josie was disturbed that we were purposefully trying to break something, given how often I warn her not to do something that might break something. She did a good job trying to whack though for her age. It took a couple of grown men (using only one arm) to bring it down though.
At the end of August we caught the end of the season at Springs Brook Park in Bedford for a birthday party with our friend Neal from our playgroup. Josie was having a lot of fun getting into the sprinklers. It was hard to pull her away even for cake and dinner!
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