Say Hello to Our Little Friends

OK, it must be late because I can't stop laughing at the title.

We have been some lucky, lucky baby-lovers here at this household lately. We have lots of our own, live-action dollies to play with now! My friend Jo gave birth to beautiful, bewitching Annabeth Fe at the beginning of August:

Honest to God, this is the only picture I took of her alone. Wailing her eyes out and with her drawers all open and whatnot. Sorry, Annabeth.

You're right to look skeptical, Annabeth. That blonde bomber in the plaid dress really doesn't know how to hold a baby safely.

And as if that wasn't awesome enough, my friend Kari popped out (and I do almost literally mean "popped out" ... both Jo and Kari have ridiculous "Wow! I only pushed for two-point-one seconds" type of birthing stories) beautiful Abigail just a couple of days later.

She's not fresh out of the oven here, but I couldn't resist this little half-smile from a pic the last time we saw her.

Libby can't wait to babysit Abby. I think Libby really believes that this means Kari and I will be leaving Abby alone in Libby's care and not that she'll be helping me care for the Abster. Libby is beside herself with joy at the thought that she could be in charge of a real, live baby! (Don't worry, Abby, if you're reading this. I won't leave you alone with her. I'll make sure Emma is here, too.)

See? Emma will take good care of her, too. Kari and I could totally leave them alone while we go out and grab a few drinks.

And while those new, fresh-baked babies are great and all, we still just really, really like Linus and would like more time to nibble on his gargantuan thighs and delight in his gorgeous smile.

This is such a Linus expression. You would not believe what a sweet dumpling of a boy this is!

First Day of School!

Emma and Libby both started school last week. Allow me to repeat: Both girls are now in school. Friends, I have three mornings a week to myself now. Can I get a Hallelujah?

We somehow got very few pictures of the girls at the school on the first (meet-n-greet) day. Here's Emma on the playground on her kinda-first day of school!

And here's the Libster on the playground as well.

Emma and I going into her classroom. And then a few days later on her real first day of school, imagine this same scene but with me peeling a screaming and protesting Emma off of me.

We went to Hot Doug's to celebrate! Side Note: Libby insists on putting her barrettes in by herself most days. See the final result? (But doesn't she look so old and so positively adorable here?)

Madonna ... I mean, Libby ... picked out this outfit all by herself. 

Heading off for Libby's first real day! (Em's MWF, so she didn't have to go yet on this, a Thursday.)

Emma's thinking, "OMG, Libby going to be so embarrassed by this outfit when she's older!"

And then Emma's first real day! Sure, she looks happy enough here. The reality starts to set in in the car, and I start hearing, "I'm not going to go to school today, Mom."

Schoolgirl! (Looking increasingly nervous, you'll notice.) I'm glad to report that today, after her first full week, we had no tears when I dropped her off. Hurray!

We had some school friends over to celebrate the start of the year. It had to be seen to be believed. Absolutely amazing what a bunch of kids can do. (And also amazing how you can pull it all back together in the matter of an hour or so.)

Eat Me

Emma has the metabolism of a hummingbird and never stops eating. Never. Stops. Eating. She is a hobbit and insists on second and third breakfasts. She will often have a FIT when we are out because she's soooooo hungry. (Never mind that we just ate a meal at home an hour ago.)

As you saw from her last (mostly) naked picture on the blog, she's skin and bones; I have no idea where all of the food goes. (Apparently whining burns a lot of calories because that's what exercise she seems to do the most of these days.)

Here, a year of Emma with her beloved food.

Last year about this time. Look at how deliciously chubby she was!

Last year. Yummmy.

Who would sled when Goldfish could be had in the nice, warm car?

I took a picture of Libby and Ale celebrating their candy from the Memorial Day parade, and Emma then insisted on a picture each time she got a new piece of loot.

See what I mean?

I could go on (it was a very fruitful parade), but I think you get the idea. I especially liked how serious she was: "Please mark this as Exhibit R on why this parade ROCKS."

Chocolate is a favorite. As are strawberry and vanilla. And cherry. And banana. (Anything Aunt Kelly makes -- as with these cupcakes -- is sure to be a winner.)

This is a serious matter: We don't joke about ice cream.

Bonus: She's not the neatest eater you've ever seen.

And Temporary Merliners

Merliners = Marylanders, for all of you not savvy to the Maryland accent.

In the end of July, after visits to Vermont, Maine, and another en-route trip to Columbus, we headed to Maryland to see Aunt Marene and Uncle Jimmy get married. Woohoo!

Best quote of the night? Libby: "Aunt Marene is the bride, but who's the prince?" The kid has been reading and watching waaaaay too much princess stuff for my comfort level. Damn you, Disney!

The girls got new twirly dresses for the occasion. How much does Libby love the new dress? She's worn it three times in the last two weeks.

Peekaboo to you, Ms. Em.

Emma was just in it for the cupcakes.

Pretty Aunt Marene and pretty grandma.

Aunt Marene with the prince.

Temporary Buckeyes

We have traveled the hell out of this summer. The hell out of it, I say!

It began back in June, when cousin Adam graduated college. (So proud! So proud!) We traveled to Columbus for a quick three-day visit, but we packed a lot into those few days.

(I will warn those of you who have known my nieces and nephews for years now: Prepare to have our mind blown by how old they are....)

We raided Kennedy's closet and found twirly dresses. So we twirled ...

... and twirled and twirled until we fell down.

We had cousin Diana do up our hair. (How do you know your preschoolers have been hanging out with their teen cousins? Oh. My Gosh. It's, like, totally obvious. My favorite is that Emma picked up Diana's "Oooooh. That's nasty.")

We said goodbye to cousin Andrew, who deployed to Iraq the next week.

Vincent managed to put his teasing tendencies on hold long enough to earn Emma's trust back. (Usually he teases them so much that they won't go near him for fear of what he will do. Emma loved Vincent up this day, though.)

The obligatory Ohio dog cage shot.

Kennedy babysits Libby, tween-style.