The (weekend of the) Fourth

We started the party Thursday night, with some of our favorite friends and pizza on the grill.  This weekend was filled with family, friends, and lots and lots of activity.  My introverted side is ready for a cocoon, but the memories, and my sweet girls' smiles and flushed cheeks are so worth the weariness at the end of it all.

I love to have the girls all in matching jammies, sweetly cleaned up for bed.  Matching doesn't mean as much to my darling, and yet, they are still just as, if not more, adorable in his choices.

The fourth dawned, and my sweet girls got all stars-and-striped up, thanks to their Nonna's gifts of very American getups.  

Of course, getting dressed was quickly followed by playing with the hose and getting hilariously soaked.

Then came the: sit around half-naked until your clothes dry part of the day.  Anni's clothes had an extended wash and dry cycle after Colette spilled some water on her tray, and proceeded to grab the closest item (Anni's nearly dry dress) to mop it up.  Never boring around here, my friends!

Once everyone was washed, dried, and put back together, we trekked out to the park with my in-laws.  Anni rode her bike the whole way there... how in the world could she be so big?!

We headed back home just as the rain drops began to fall, and the men set the grill up in the entrance of the garage and proceeded to cook us a fantastic meal. 

 

That night, we went to see fireworks.  Anni has been talking about them since we went to the 3rd of July show in Denver last year (she loved it, it was fantastic).  This year, we went to a smaller show near us, and Anni, as she put it, "really didn't like it."  We weren't as close (some trees hid them from view), they were loud (not as loud as last year, but apparently it got to her more this year... at which point I kicked myself for not getting something to protect their little ears... don't worry, already ordered so we have them next time), and near the end, she desperately had to go potty, at which point she started shouting to everyone as we ran to the porta-potties "Help me!  Anyone, help me! I don't like it, I don't like it!"  Ah, well.  She has already admitted she wants to try again next year, and, while she didn't love it, Colette was absolutely enthralled.  All I have is the terrible photo below (we weren't close enough to get light from the show like last year), but oh, goodness.  She ooh'ed and ah'ed along with everyone else, and pointed, and giggled, and just generally had a blast.
  

The next day, we all headed to a Rockies game.  Here, Anni was as cute as possible as she cheered for our team, "GO Charlie!  You can do it!  Trust me!" and talked smack to the Dodgers, "Get out!  Go home and sit in your own seats!"  Ah, my baseball loving in-laws were so proud!  Colette mostly was passed from lap to lap and seat to seat and ran around with me in the air-conditioned food area. It was a bit long for this non-sports-lover, but I'm really glad we went.

Then, to round out our weekend, we went to bid adieu to one of the awesome digital campus missionaries that Daniel has worked with for the next two years.  He is headed off to join the Dominican order (you can find his bio here, he is "Jeff"), and while Daniel is really going to miss the joy he's brought to the office, we're so excited for his future!

Z Week

For Anni's birthday, she got an "animal adventure painting kit".  Which, of course, translated into a zoo for Z Week!  WE MADE IT!  Phew.  It was a good wrap up to the year, and she was completely intent on painting for quite awhile, even after her buddy had lost interest.  Her little "zoo" lives on our front window ledge now, and it's a good reminder that we made it through a whole year of school.  Our only plan for this summer is to work through this book (Anni has been begging to learn how to read). Happy end of the year, my friends.

Y Week

 

Here we have our yo-go, Y block, yak, and yellow paint representing Y for Y week.  One craft I have no photos of for some reason, but it was simply a painted coloring page of "Yahweh".  The other, was manipulating yarn into a "y" shape.

 

Happy Y Week!

365 Photos in 365 Days: Week 26

 

I got to take some darling photographs of this sweet couple as they announced their plans to adopt and asked for help in doing so.  If you have a moment, please check out their adoption website and consider helping them if you can http://truegoodandbeautiful.net/adoption.

Our sweet Antonia celebrated her fourth baptism anniversary.  We were in the depths of a nasty cold, so we managed chocolate ice cream and blowing out her baptism candle as a celebration.

 

Daniel often takes the girls and lets me sleep a few more minutes in the morning (yes, he is absolutely amazing).  I got little miss resting her head while helping Daddy cook eggs the other morning. 

Peek-a-boo with mommy's scarf.  Oh, this girl's giggle cracks me up.

 

Snuggles on the porch.  We got all dressed up even though we weren't able to go to Mass (serious snot-dripping cold germs).

  

Be-still my heart. 

Could she be any sweeter?  

Road Trip Survival Kit

As you may have noticed... things have been a little quiet over here, except for when I squeak my 365 weekly post in a week or so late.  We've been on the road: planes, trains, and automobiles.  (Not cool trains, just the ones at our airport).  The last big trip of the marathon of traveling was the one I was dreading the most.  11.5 hours each way. In the car.  With a 15 month old who often can't last an hour in the car.  Luckily, with the multiple trips before that under our belts, we were primed, planned, and ready.  We had several plans of attack.  Here we have our "toy box".  All kinds of random things I could grab and hand out to buy us a little time. It was actually supposed to have a few more things in it, but they didn't come in time, so I figured I would stick to what actually got us through the drive (and in-between times during the four days of wedding craziness while living out of a hotel).

Despite my fears, this trip went much, much, smoother than I thought it would.

To start, Monica recommended these Water Wow toys.  These were a HUGE hit with Anni.  She rotated them and could spend hours of the drive coloring the pages.  Probably the only issue we had was trying to refill the little water brushes in a moving car.  Even Colette tried it a couple of times, and while it didn't last as long with her (nothing did) it was still something.
 

Then, of course, were the old stand-bys: coloring and stickers.  We brought colored pencils (crayons can melt in a hot car... not a mess we wanted to deal with) in a tupperware box, a few notepads, sketchpads and coloring books, and a pile of stickers, and life was pretty good.  Again, both girls got some use out of this.  Colette was so excited she was allowed to use a writing utensil that she would spend quite awhile flipping through a book and putting her mark on it here or there.

We also got some lacing cards.  This was definitely an Anni only activity, but she really enjoyed it.  It wasn't super helpful to my car sickness to turn around every few seconds when she wanted to show me her progress, but it was definitely worth it.

Other than that, we had a big pile of books (you can see them tucked into the box in the first photo).  A little bit of everything, but especially some sturdy ones that Colette could flip through without destroying (also helpful to have good night books on hand).  We also had an entire box of car-friendly snacks (Annie's brand goodies probably took up over half of that box, in fact they probably could have sponsored that snack box), as well as a cooler with some cut up fruit, cheese sticks and trail mix (the chocolate got all melty if it wasn't in the cooler). 

We also did have the ipad.  We knew Anni could make it an 8 hour trip without any videos, but with it being a longer trip than we had attempted before, we wanted back up for both girls.  Colette watched some Baby Einstein videos on it a few times to get her through the last little bit before we made it to a destination, and Anni had it at random times either to help with the cranky factor or the "fairness" factor of sister getting screen time. 

Finally, we did try to time things so that we fit in as many naps in the car as possible.  We would leave after a meal/nursing/fresh diaper (or potty break) and a little running around and cross our fingers for some sleep.  There were definitely a few rounds of more than frantic singing of "Baa Baa Black Sheep" as we tried to calm the restless ones, but, overall, it really was probably the most successful road trip we had thus far this summer.  It also helped that no one got sick (until we got home), which definitely raises everything a few notches. 

Hopefully, I'll remember to grab a few photos of our distraction bag o' tricks for our flight to California later in July, because *that's* going to get interesting.