Taking a baby shower

Last week Sophia, Ella and I went to a baby shower for our nanny Veni who was with us from when Sophia was born until I stopped working last year. Sophia and I were very excited but Ella seemed apprehensive. This made no sense because she LOVES Veni and is always jumping off the walls when she knows Veni is coming over.

The night before the shower I was trying to encourage Ella that it would be a fun afternoon:

me: It's going to be so much fun tomorrow. You are going to have lots of friends there. Gosia, Michelle, Val, Emmy.

Ella: But not at the same time.

me: Yes, everyone will be there together with Veni.

Ella: But we can't all be there together.

me: Why not?

Ella: It's too small!

(at this point she is getting frustrated with me and speaking to me like I'm a toddler and she is tired of explaining why I can't have candy for dinner)

me: Veni's house?

Ella: No, the BABY'S SHOWER! We can't all fit in it!

We all started laughing and I explained to her that we weren't all going to actually take a shower.

Here are some pictures:

Happy Fourth of July!

We had an All-American weekend at our friends the Dold's lake house in Michigan. It was a weekend filled with friends and family. For the kids is was all about swimming, fishing, watersports, sparklers and s'mores.

Everyone caught their first fish:

Sophia was very excited
Until she realized the fish was still alive and it started flopping around
Here's Ella's whopper:


Ceci even got in on the action:


Life is good

Rick took the girls out on the jet ski:
Sophia went tubing and on the wake board:
Rick went waterskiing:
Well...he wasn't technically "waterskiing" since he didn't actually stand up on the skis but he did get pulled behind the boat a number of times. I think you can see his skis sticking out of the water on this one. The other shots were just a big splash.

S'mores were definitely a highlight:


The kids decorated the pontoon boat for the boat parade:

Katie was meticulously wrapping the streamers
Sophia and Harper made a lego flag:
Here are a couple more photos from the weekend:

Happy 4th Birthday Ella

Ella Bella turned four last week. She was so cute when she realized that she didn't have to wait for her party to turn four but that when she woke up on her birthday morning she was going to be four years old. She kept telling everyone on June 12 that "tomorrow when I wake up I'll be FOUR! Not at my party but when I WAKE UP in the morning!"

Ella is our little ray of sunshine. She has a quick smile for everyone. She's a great big sister and so sweet with Katie and Ceci. She has been my little buddy this Spring when we got to hang out together in the afternoon. While Sophia was at school and Katie and Ceci were napping Ella and I would play the Memory Game, Uno, Bingo, puzzles, etc. She loves to play games.

Almost every day she'll look up at me at some point and just say "I love you mom." It melts my heart.

She's a little speed demon on her bike. Still got the training wheels on but rides for miles (literally, ask Rick who has dragged Sophia and Ella all over town on their bikes).

Ella has a great sense of humor. There's a twinkle in her eye and she's quick to laugh and make light of a situation.

We love you SO much Ella!

Happy Birthday Ella Bella Cinderella!

Here are some pictures from her gymnastics party:



Then we brought the cake home for a family party:


The Bergmanns got her a light up Cinderella dress:


And a box of dress up shoes that Katie and Ceci promptly put on with their pjs:

Spring Concert

Sophia had her Spring Concert at school last week. We all went and I was sure they would have the Kindergarteners go first but someone decided it was a good idea to have them go at the end. All the younger siblings were getting restless and Katie and Ceci were leading the charge. A couple times Katie looked at me and said "I'll be right back" and just started walking down the center aisle by herself. I made a lot of trips up and back with her. Rick finally took them outside and they came back in to see Sophia.

Here they are on the back deck before we left:


Here are the Kindergarteners on stage. I was worried when I saw their "instruments" but no one tried using them as a light sabers and they all did a great job:


It was a beautiful night so we walked. We were regretting this decision on the walk home. Rick had to push the stroller with Katie and Ceci crying the entire 5 blocks. I stayed with Ella waiting for the show to finish but Rick bolted with the twins who were in full meltdown mode.

Halloween in May

Last night we were at the St. Joseph pasta dinner and cake walk. The girls wanted to skip dinner and just do the cake walk part.

Ceci was sitting next to me when all of a sudden her eyes looked like they were going to bug out of her head. She yelled "MAMA!" and pointed behind me. I slowly turned around wondering what she was so excited about and saw a table of nuns sitting next to us eating rotini. When I turned around to ask what she was looking at she yelled "WITCHES!"

It was hard not to chuckle. I guess it was obvious who the Protestants were.

Scared Straight

The Wilmette Police Department held an open house last Sunday. We had planned to go after church then Rick had to leave for three days for work (same trip he made last week I might add). I wasn't going to try to take all four by myself but my sister Elizabeth came over with Anna and we decided to go ahead with the plan. It's about six blocks away so I put Katie and Ceci in the stroller and the big girls walked. The stroller was impossible to push and we realized halfway there that one wheel was completely flat. I was sweating (not shocking) after pushing 60 lbs of two year olds with a flat tire and we decided to abandon the stroller and forge ahead instead of turning around. I figured Elizabeth and I could each hold a twin hand. This was somewhat successful.

The police station tour was fun for the girls. Here are some pictures:

Outside of the jail:

As I was taking this photo inside a jail cell Elizabeth started yelling "NO!!! KATIE!!!" as if she was holding a vial of the swine flu virus to her lips. Katie was lying down on the bed with her head on the jail blanket. I thought it was cute and was snapping pictures while her horrified aunt was yelling to sit up and get out. The officer said "We did sanitize everything" but I realized this was a situation where I should not have been so encouraging. I'm sure she thought Elizabeth was their mom and I just went with it to be safe.


Here are Katie and Ceci inside the police car. Hopefully we won't repeat this photo in 15 years:

And here they are on the Coast Guard jet ski:


The officer in the jail asked them to look around for a comfy pillow, warm blanket or Wii game. They all looked and couldn't find any of those. She let them know that in jail you have no privacy and none of the comforts of home. Last week Sophia had some poopy issues and said to me that she was "DEFINITELY" glad she wasn't in jail because there is "ZERO privacy in jail". I realized that that visit really had hit home for her. Now when she sticks her hand out of the car window I tell her we both might get arrested if a police officer sees us and she pulls it right back into the car. I'm sure that threat of getting arrested is going to work well for me going forward.

Thanks Wilmette PD!

Singing in the Rain

We had a couple days of rain. We're short a pair of rain boots so I suggested snow boots for Ceci and she was fine with that. It was about 70 degrees outside so I'm sure her feet were sweating but she was just happy to be wearing boots.