The End of Preschool :(

Cozy "graduated" from preschool shortly after little Tommy arrived.  Happily, he didn't arrive on the day of, because Cozette was traumatized enough that I missed the beginning of the ceremony.

Grandma heard her telling several people that I wasn't there because I just had a new baby. Well, I was in the car, feeding that new baby. New babies don't think preschool graduations are very important (that's one thing they have in common with my husband) 

and they can be quite tricky to feed. 

...but I made it to see Cozy's official exit from "Rockville Rompers". 

She loved it.

And she looked so adorable in her gown and cap.

Her name, with some of her friends'.

In 2013, Cozy won the most talkative award.

She must have worked harder in 2014. Most Creative.

Cozette has a boundless attention span for arts and crafts, so we weren't surprised.

James, posing with the cake.  He didn't care for preschool. Maybe his didn't have enough cake. ;)

Tommy snoozed and was generally admired .... 

...until we decided that it had been more than enough party for a newborn baby and recovering mom...and, not for first time....but certainly for the last, we pried Cozette away, kicking and screaming, from her preschool

Tommy

At the end of May, we finally got to meet the newest member of our family.

It has been so sweet.

We are all big fans of Tommy.

We love the funny faces he makes. He's just soft and precious and wonderful. 

Sofia and Annika were brave enough to be in the delivery room, so they got to hold their newest brother before everyone else. Sofia likes to scare us by saying things like, "three more years and I get to have one of my own!" I told her five more years sounded better to me. She and Annika have also been arguing about which one of them will have ten kids first. It will be interesting to see what comes of all of those plans. I'm just glad they weren't scared out of ever procreating (by witnessing childbirth). I want grandkids some day!

Anthony has always, always loved babies. However, he isn't the lullabying snuggler that the girls are.  As I think is pretty typical of men, he loves it once he can make the babies laugh and smile. Tommy starts smiling as soon as he sees his big brother coming toward him, cause he just knows what a fun party it's going to be.

Cozy was really hoping for a little sister.

Although she still thinks it would be fun to dress up a little sister, she adores Tommy.

"I didn't know how cute he would be....cause I didn't know boys could be cute...I guess

 when they're babies."

Sofia is very protective of her tiny brother. She was always concerned that I am not holding him right or being careful enough. Seriously? I'm pretty sure I have a handle on being careful with newborns.

When baby brother came home, we had an "instructional talk" with the little children about how careful you have to be with babies. Their necks are not very strong, so you must always be gentle and can never shake them. 

They obviously took it to heart. 

Cozy had nightmares about shaking the baby and having his head fall off. 

James told us that we should never get a doll that looks like the baby....and that if we do, we must be very careful with the doll, so as not to hurt Tommy. 

Funny, cause we didn't even have the "voodoo doll talk".

Before Tommy was born, James anticipated the baby being nearly as cute as our cat.

(Cozy has been granted to have this same "almost as cute as Matt the cat" cuteness status. She's cried about it. Some people are used to being considered the cutest things ever. I'd be pretty happy to be half as cute as Matt.)

In James' estimation, Tommy has now surpassed Matt in cuteness. The baby is officially the cutest.

My wonderful mother was invaluable during the new-baby-transition. Driving kids around, snuggling baby, cooking, and all of those other things you wouldn't even think to ask - she did them.

(Grandma even took the kids to the aquarium in Baltimore!)

It has been a happy, baby-snuggling time. 

Happy New Year

It's a new year....already....again. I'm not sure how it goes by so quickly. 

 Maybe it would go slower if my life were a little less full, but I can't think of a single thing I want to sacrifice. 

 Nope. Cutting back is not on my list of New Year's Resolutions.

Lucky for you (my one reader/Dad), blogging more is on that list.

I honestly love looking through my old blog posts and being able to reference previous years with the click of a button.  I may not have a scrapbook I can pull out to show my kids pictures of Halloweens when they were tiny, but I still have proof of how stinking adorable they all were!

So, why give that up?

I am going to make time for blogging and also give you a little peek into my six months of solitude (laziness), when I didn't bother to write anything down.

Mount Vernon

Since we were just sitting around, waiting for baby to show up, I thought I'd better take my Mom to do some fun, local things...so she wouldn't get bored. :)

Annika had been trying to get us to Mt. Vernon ever since her 5th grade field trip there, so off we went to visit George Washington's historic home.

James, with George....

....other kids, rudely standing in front of Martha.

Cozette kept asking, "Why are we visiting this guy? Why are we at his house?"

...even after numerous explanations and an orientation video about George Washington. (Maybe that's because she thought it was terrifying and was hiding her face for most of the movie.)

I don't think she gets the whole president thing yet.

Sofi took a mental health day off of school to come with us...and thank goodness! She did a lot of Cozy carrying.

I could barely get my big, pregnant self around the plantation.

We toured the house. It was lovely.

Sofia plans to replicate it some day on her own estate.

Lucky for her that George was a little thrifty: the stones you see on the side of his house are actually planks with shaped edges and a coating of paint and sand.

Faux finish.

Grandma Linda, on the river side of  the the house.

Some hooligans, looking out over the Potomac River.

Looking at the ferry that we didn't go on.

I loved the farm-y parts of the estate. I may, in fact, need to purchase a sheep. Check out the amazing job she's doing cutting the grass! It's nice and trim everywhere she can reach. On the other hand, I do worry that any sheep we got might suffer the same fate as the the sheep in Cheaper by the Dozen, who likely died from being ridden too often.

..and the lovely walled kitchen garden! It was full of cherry trees and peonies.

Climbing roses!

The whole thing made me want to go home and garden...but I was too gigantically pregnant.

Grandma bought Annika some artichoke seeds from the gift shop, so we'll see what comes of it.

We had a great time, in spite of the heat, and I didn't give birth at Mount Vernon. 

All in all, a fairly successful field trip.

James

Yay, James!

You made it to age 8!

Happy Birthday!

I don't know what happened to all of James' birthday pictures. Somewhere out there are images of our family destroying a "Bad Piggy" pinata. 

James liked Sofia's cake so much that he wanted the same kind. Ah, DQ ice cream cake. 

So yummy. So convenient. 

James was my most easy-going baby by far. He always had a smile ready for anyone. Really, he's still that way...slow to get angry, quick to forgive, and loves to make people laugh.

Here is a picture of my baby James, being held by my brother James, next to my father James (or Jim).

...and if my Grandpa Jim were still around, he could have been in the picture too.

James, at age 4, out to lunch with Mom, Dad, and Cozy.

Somehow, James being an easy baby didn't translate to him being an easy toddler.

Instead, he was uncommunicative and a runaway to boot. (Ususally to be found at the park down the street.)

He was very lucky to have a big sister who embraced his unique personality and could connect with him (even if their communicating was sometimes through acting out movie scenes).

...and now he now that he's big, James still tells Sofia that he loves her more than me. Stinker.

(At least she's taught him to deny it publicly.)

James, with my Mom, after his baptism.

He has grown so much, but he's still as happy and sincerely sweet as ever.

Harrassing the Cat

We found Matt buried in a tote full of stuffies.

You'd think he would leave, but he was just purring....

...and happy to be petted.

Sofi's Birthday

Sofi was our last April birthday.

We had chinese food and a big ice cream cake.

Silly kids.

...and we went to a friend's play that night.

We got Sofi some pretty random gifts. An itunes giftcard, her latest favorite Pokemon (which, lucky for me, her siblings knew and pointed out), chocolate (of course), and Tony's gift....

...that he had been assembling for quite some time. 

The zombie apocalypse survival vest - chalk full of helpful things like water filters, fishing supplies, and first aid kits. She was super excited about it.

I thought it sounded like it might be useful for your more run-of-the-mill emergency situations too.

(knock on wood)

Happy 15th, Sof!