Thanksgiving 2014

These laps are crowded!

Halloween 2014 (Yep, belated again)

First we journeyed to Volante to pick out our pumpkin:

The pumpkin-carving got rather solemn:

 Getting ready for trick-or-treating:

We had an Eagles football player, Iron Man, Tinkerbell, a gorilla and a jack-o'-lantern. A motley gang, but as I'm resolved to never buy a Halloween costume again, it'll be that way for the foreseeable future!

We went to our friends' house to meet up and then walk around their neighborhood. I think it will be our last year doing so, which is bittersweet, but the truth is that Will has amassed a lot of close friends in his short time in kindergarten, and next year Finn will join him at the elementary school. These school friends live even closer to us, and it'll probably be a natural transition to trick-or-treat in our/their neck of the woods next year. But this was still a fun last blast!

Finn and Bridget: The Preschool Kids

Finn started his last year of preschool in September, and Bridget started two toddler programs so she wouldn't have to spend every morning in the house with me and two napping babies. It has been great all around. 

Finn and Bridget are my typically-spaced kids. They are two years and six-ish weeks apart, and it shows. They love each other, and then they gripe at each other. Bridget demands that Will (who is kind to her, but often uninterested) be the one to hold her hand/help her with her jacket/unbuckle her seatbelt; five minutes later, she's whimpering because Finny didn't give her a hug. Likewise, Finn adores Bridget...until she dares to act more like an equal than a baby, at which point he grabs things out of her hands, barks orders at her, and expresses dismay at her not following his bossy directions to a T.

 Finny's preschool class is the same as last year, and they get along like magical, possessed pod people. They are all so loving and kind to each other. When they reunited the other day after winter break at a birthday party, the mom of the birthday girl reported that "They would have just kept sitting there, catching up for hours." They all act like they've been friends for decades--they honestly seem like people who've retired to the same nursing home and we (the parents) are their grown children whose visits they appreciate, but we're going to get back to bingo now, thanks for stopping by!

 Bridget is in a phase where she says "_______ is my best friend EVER!" about a new person every day, sometimes more. It's actually adorable, since all these people are her school friends and she does really enjoy their company. She comes from a long line of people who don't just want to have friends, they want to talk about their friendships as if it's riveting intel. But again: very cute.

Hopefully I'll catch up and be somewhat current with these posts in 2015!

Will's First Day of Kindergarten! (Just a little belated)

Back in September, Will started elementary school, and it has been awesome.

 He lucked out with great classmates, excellent teachers, and a routine that really works for him. His favorite days are Media (library) where he gets to borrow many books about various divisions of the NFL plus a couple about wild animals; PE, where he learns new obstacle-course-type games to play and recount to me; and yoga, where he practices poses he then shows off at home.

On his first day, though, he was a tiny bit nervous. He and I went out for a breakfast date beforehand:

And when he got off the bus that afternoon, he looked like this:

We celebrated with a schoolbus cupcake, and he has been 100% "on board" (sorry, I couldn't help myself) since.

Hadley Turns One!

Hadley is our little outlier. Our other four kids look alike, overall, and Hadley...doesn't. Our other four kids crawled between seven and eight months; Hadley crawled at almost ten. She's never been interested in standing or cruising until very recently, whereas the first four would've preferred to never sit. I joke that she was my first baby who spent months happily sitting on the floor and playing with toys...and she was of course a twin, so I couldn't reap the benefits (since I was always chasing Anders around anyway).

I referred to her as our "surprise fifth" once and my mother asked how I knew she was the "extra" twin. All I had to do was raise my eyebrows in response. Of course, she is still a Noon. Her mischief cup runneth over. 

She is so, so smiley and sociable. She wants to babble every moment she's not sleeping--sound familiar? She lights up from head to toe when someone picks her up. She has the throatiest, wheeziest belly laugh.

What Hadley looks like at twelve months old: She has brown hair that shows up ash blond in the sunlight (which is odd); hazelish brown eyes that have never gotten lighter or darker, as far as I can tell; her skin has a more golden tint to it (like Dave and Finn) than my lily-white children. She is 29.5 inches tall (61st %ile) and 22 lbs., 8 oz. (86th %ile) with a skull that knows no equal (99th %ile).

Hadley likes: Baths! People! Hugs! Dogs, cats, balls, dolls, food, getting tickled, laughing, peekaboo, talking, being held, eye contact, high-fives, tickles.

Hadley dislikes: Being put down, being woken up, running out of food on her tray (and apparently being tortured with headbands).

Who Hadley loves: Anyone who will make goo-goo eyes at her (so most people), but especially her siblings. Bridget dotes on her the most.

What Hadley loves to eat: She has the occasional disdain for green beans or peas, but she's pretty ravenous when presented with anything else. Her favorites seem to be cheese chunks, sweet potato and Cheerios.

What Hadley loves to read: Even more so than Anderson, Hadley thinks our reading to her is another of our great jokes. As I said, the girl likes to laugh. Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? is a book that gets her giggling, but it's when she cranes her body around to watch us make the noises that she really goes into hysterics.

How Hadley sleeps: Like Bridget, Hadley is an all-around sleeping champ. She sleeps twelve hours a night and would totally take a three-plus-hour nap if Anders would let her. (He won't.) She falls asleep in the car and then falls asleep again in her crib. She falls asleep chewing on socks and eating her lunch.

How we feel about Hadley: Like lovestruck fools--like she will always, to us, be the amazing plot twist baby who made sure we'd never argue over whether to have a fifth, because we already do. And she's awesome.