Happy New Year!

Jumping right to the new year!

 

New Year's Eve this year was very low key. Matt was working, I was 38 weeks pregnant. No fun visitors this year. The girls were kind of bummed, but we let them try to stay up to see the ball drop for the first time. They did MUCH better than I expected.

 

But before that, we kept up our New Year's Eve lobster tradition. Matt and I were trying to figure it out, and we think this is somewhere around our 12th lobster. I picked it out myself for the first time ever :)

 

Uncle Ed introduced them to Shirley Temples last year on NYE, so we kept the tradition alive this year.

Again. Incapable of being normal.

Kate wanted a photo.

Cheers! It was getting pretty wild in here.

Pinchy!

Annie was much braver this year and held him without too much trouble.

Kate, of course, jumped right in.

Evie is not pictured because she would not get within 10 feet of him. Even when he was in the garage, the door between them wasn't really enough to make her comfortable. :)

 

After our dinner excitement, we stayed up watching Ryan Seacrest. It's so strange the girls have no idea who Dick Clark is but they will know who Ryan Seacrest is their whole lives. That makes me so old. :) Anyway, Matt was the first one asleep, followed by Evie who curled up next to him. Annie went down next, and then me! Kate kept kicking me to wake me up! She stayed up the entire time. She and I woke Annie up to see the ball drop, and then we all went to bed.

 

Happy New Year! Here's to happy and healthy 2015!



Merry Christmas!

Waiting ever so patiently for everyone to come down. (We only made them wait a few minutes. They slept in a LOT later this year, thank God!)

Annie

Evie in her nest.

She loves Minnie Mouse.

Annie

Checking out Kate's Shopkins. It was the only think Kate asked for this year, and all three of them are obsessed with these silly things. Obsessed. Annie has already requested more for her birthday at the end of January.

This was Annie's reaction when she opened a ticket to the Taylor Swift concert. She fell over backwards just after this photo was taken. It was pretty great. She asked me a few weeks ago if Taylor Swift was every putting on a show near us and if she was could we go. It was so hard not to give it away! Annie, Kate and I will be going in the spring. They are actually being great about waiting even though they are really excited.

The upside to terrible Christmas weather? Trying out some new toys! Kate struggle with this a little at first, but now she was the hang of it and has been flying around!

 

Those were all the photos I took that day. My family had to go back to Cleveland in the morning, so we just spent a lazy day at our house playing with toys and taking naps. Hope everyone else had just as lovely a Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Jumping right to the holiday :) I didn't take enough pictures on Christmas Eve. I forgot to take my camera to the church children's service. Kate and Evie were angels in the dramatization of the Gospel and Annie sang with the choir. They all did great and looked adorable. It was a long mass, but they were really good the whole time. And this year, Grandpa, Gigi, Aunt Jackie, Uncle Matt and Kyla all got to see them live in action. The girls were so excited!

 

After Mass, we came home for family presents and matching Christmas jammies.

 

Kate is ready for Santa!

It is basically impossible for all of them to be normal at the same time for my camera.

They did do a good job with Gigi, though.

 

Jackie, my mom and a super pregnant me.

 

 



Zoo Lights

 

 

A few weeks before Christmas we went to the Toledo Zoo to see the lights. It was a gorgeous night, not too cold and it was insanity there. Everyone in Toledo and southern Michigan was there, I think. Luckily, our years of living right there served us well and we were able to bypass the crazy traffic and get in the back way to see the lights!

 

Enjoying hot chocolate.

 

Even at night in the cold, sitting on these statues is the most fun.

Kate and Daddy

Evie, Mama and Annie

My silly girls.

I don't know why Evie looks crazy in every picture. Probably because she is.

 

Despite the hordes of people, it was a lot of fun and the lights were amazing!

Christmas Tree Fun

Oops. Seems like the month of December kind of got away from me. No posts at all. We had a very low key, as relaxing as December gets with holidays and kids and pregnancy and work kind of time. It was lovely.

 

I gave in to the pressure this year, and we hit the tree lot instead of cutting our own tree down this year. Kate was still with  me, I think, but I was tired and Annie was begging to just go to the lot. So we did. :)

 

Kate

Evie

Annie

Getting started.

Ornament supervision because I guess baby bump pictures can be fun.

It was Evie's year to put the ugly star on top of the tree. She was very excited.