Santa Claus came to Town

We took the girls to see Santa at the Burlington Mall. Wearing the beautifully fun Christmas dresses my mom brought at Thanksgiving. Elliot was a champ with Santa and our usually bold Samantha melted and refused to chat with him without us. I don't blame her, but Ben & I were not intending to be in the picture. We did however have better luck with photos in this little montage of them hanging out in front of Burberry was it? Carolling and otherwise soliciting attention of passers by. I love this little montage.

Telling Santa she definitely wants "clip on earrings for Christmas". He delivered. In all she received 3 pair from various sources, as of 12/29 2 of the pair are broken or missing, so these will be on the birthday wish list as well.

Time to start layering.

And it hasn't even yet snowed a flake.

Plymouth & Thanksgiving

Asleep at the big dinner.
Elliot's first turkey. And the first thing I have seen her draw with a face.
Samantha watching the rest of the parade from our front row seats in Percy's restaurant.

Walking backwards. Looks like forward on photos - not as cool.

Plymouth Rock. Really. That lump on the ground is the WHOLE thing.



My new thing. Post the pictures. Comment later. You can think of it like the New Yorker name the cartoon tagline. In fact, you can submit your entries and they may be posted. For now, suffice it to say, we had a GREAT time in Plymouth with my folks for America's Thanksgiving parade, and Thanksgiving was really fantastic too. It was nice chillaxing with Wendy Jeff & Kassi.

What, No Commentary?

These are just random shots from our fun fall. Playing in the leaves. Having Toddlers and Toddies at our house. And Elliot's first sleepover with Charlie (we posted the Pokerface video, but not the actual sleepover part.

On the teeter totter, teeter tawter? How the heck do you spell see-saw anyway? Below are the sleeping beauties who slept right through the flash. Elliot's bed is on the right, covered in toys. Sammy is tucked in her crib on the left, and Elliot & Charlie are sacked out on Elliot's favorite, "floor bed" (i.e. blankets on the floor). She slept on it for a week and did not want us to put it away.

Back at the park. Into the leaf pile.

Toddlers and toddies at our house. Baby Mia is above. Playing doctor with Kate and Zoe from school below.

Purple blanket became a magic carpet train ride all through the house.

Samantha standing in the aftermath of their bedroom.

Who doesn't love the kiddie table?

Haunted Halloween

We LOVE Halloween. Check out our scary pumpkins and give props to our carvers Jen and Ben from last weekends pumpkin carve-a-thon. But the stars of this show are Samantha, our scary giraffe - why scary? because everytime we put it on her, she says "rrrrooooaaaarrr!!". And our Bunny Fairy. Why bunny? Well since Halloween was 72 hours long this year (good point Beth!) we had several iterations of Elliot's fairy costume. The final one which made it trick or treating, we have no pictures of. Ben assures me, who cares, no big deal, but I assure you, I wish I had a pic of Elliot with her bunny headband instead of this blue one and of the makeup she directed me to put on her. Red. With lots of pink whiskers.



Look at Samantha working that runway above. She is seriously into trick or treating. Or would have been if not for being terrorized first by her grandma dressed as a witch and second by the giant zombie man who thought it was funny to walk toward our porch in a menacing manner - oooh tough guy, you scared a 1 year old. Yes you did. But in happier times, like below when we were at her school party, she lived it up with her adorable boyfriend devil, Liam.

Elliot is here with her classmates.
Auntie Kassi and cousin Alex join our ranks trick or treating at the Atrium Mall...which was lame. Very very lame. Except the part about being with our cousins and getting to dress up.
Ben looks normal, but the rest of us have our own level of crazy going on. This is about 8:30 PM after too much candy & trick or treating. Waiting for the stragglers to trick or treak on our porch.
And the next day: sorting the loot! I know as a mom, I am supposed to be all like, "oh no! what are we going to do with all this candy?!" But really, I was egging my babies on saying they could make it to one more house and "c'mon, you can get more candy than that!" And I am not alone in my house in this, as Ben was accused by a neighbor of being too controlling as he took a choco bar out of Sam's hand and traded it in for one he liked better. We have now instituted the "Daddy Tax" and "Mommy Tax" on all Halloween loot.

Fantastic Fall Friends Visit

This fall has really been spectacular - which is nice given how short and rainy was summer. We were very fortunate to have our friends the Kaspers visit us the weekend after the Johnstons and before Halloween. They have an almost 5 year old and a 14 month old who matched up nicely with our babies. Noah is a charmer and baby Grace won everybody over with her cuteness. Especially Elliot who asked if we could get a little baby like Grace, and name it "Costco".

Elliot got herself dressed for swim lessons. And looked generally at ease during this photo shoot (who took these? Ben? Kassi?) Anyhow, I missed this ensemble until I found it on the camera and it could be an album cover - maybe that's just the leg warmers as sleeves talking.
Samantha busted out of the sing along at Stella Bella to check out the train set. Chooo Chooo.
We got serious with the pumpkin carving and painting. Jen and Ben really took the cake in carved creations. Sammy & I were sorting seeds, which we all ate - and I still contend that someone should NOT have been giving the seeds to Sammy, but we all lived. We also painted pumpkins. Noah was really into it and only wanted to paint his red. All red. Top to bottom red. Why? Well it is blood he told us. A blood pumpkin and it will scare the robbers away. I am happy to report that it worked and for the week we had the blood pumpkin, through Halloween, no robbers. Let's hope that continues.

Ben is reading stories and going over the rules of the sleepover. Kassi is a superstar for kicking us out and putting all 4 babies to bed. You see a glimpse again, of the orphanage style slumber - the floor bed rules over the red bed any day. Duh!
Stroller brigade to Harvard yard.

Poker Face Sleepover with Charlie

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Apple Picking Shelburn Farms

A GREAT day in New England.