Baptism/Atlanta trip Photo Dump

It took us 14 hours to get to AtL.  We ended up stopping at Cracker Barrel for dinner 12 hours in.

The star of the weekend: Anna

Dad and Anna

Bath-tism dresses as Elia called them.

Uncle Ryan showing off his skills.

Grandma and Anna

God-Parents and God- Child

Gettin baptized.

Love this one.  Its like a family with 2 sets if twins and a baby!

The McHugh side

Sweet Uncle Ry holding back the hair.

I made bubbles for all the kids at the Baptism reception.  A pinterest find.  Bubble solution was great but the pipe cleaner wands didn't do as well as I hoped. 

Slippered cousins

G, as usual, always helping when a baby is around!

How cute is her swim suit!

Sweet action shot.

Skyping with Aunt Shanny and Baby Brendan.  All 4 cousins were pushing and shoving to be front and center.

It was a fabulous trip!  Plans are in the works for a 2 week stay at Aunt Megan's house next summer.  It is the perfect hosue for cousin camp.  Miss those crazy boys and sweet Anna too!

Weekend Shenanigans

Saturday started early with a garage sale at the McBrides.  She was wanting to have a sale and I had a lot of junk to get rid of so I brought all my stuff over.  I made cloud dough, a pinterest find, to help entertain children.  Chris had to work so there were only 3 adults to corral 5 kids.  The cloud dough was a hit but only lasted an hour before most of it got dumped in the grass.

We came home, rested, and then had a barbecue with the Carses, McBrides and Kiowskis.

For some reason a table full of children eating makes me so happy!

Then Sunday was as usual- cartoons, church, and lunch.  We took Daria to Lake Lewisville to meet Matt and Sarah's dog JuJu for some playtime at the lake.  Fun times!

Thanksgiving

My last day of work was right before Thanksgiving break.  We drove to StL the next day and spent the week there for Thanksgiving.  We fit in a lot of cooking, a trip to the Magic House, the library, and plenty of family time.

The whole gang went out for dinner on Thanksgiving Eve

We made tepees(courtesy of pinterest)

Grandma and Grandpa!

Fearless

Elia is fearless. She has learned to swim so well this summer (almost as well as G!) and it is because she has absolutely zero fear of the water. Gianna can swim very well but she gets nervous when she knows the water is over her head and clings to me. Elia fights me to get out of my arms and laughs when I frantically pull her out and she has swallowed a ton of water.

We went to the pool Saturday morning and G was practicing her "humpback whale", which is just falling flat on your back in the water. She is really good at it. Elia wants to be just like G so she tried it too. She was only taking a step back in the water and so on her second try, her face came too close to the edge of the pool and she scraped and bruised her nose. I think it could have been way worse (like hitting her head on the way down or hitting her chin really hard) but it is still really sad to look at.

The weekend was great otherwise. Uncle Patrick stayed with us for a little while en route to UD and they made some corn-hole boxes for his Old Mill apt. We got to go on a little date- to finally see Transfomers 3. Oh! And I made this, this, this, this and this. Pinterest gave me all my ideas, and now I have a freezer full of meals for a few weeks that will help me get through the hustle and bustle of the new job.

More Cooking Fun

Yesterday we made ice cream in a bag. Another idea from pinterest!It was so super yummy and creamy. Gianna had a ton of fun jumping around and shaking the bag. I ended up doing most of the shaking (workout for my forearms!) but they did most of the eating.

Later that afternoon, Gianna insisted on making Daddy dinner and laid out all the ingredients for him. She basically cleared the bottom three shelves of my spice rack. Mmmmm fish sauce, rice wine vinegar, canola and sesame oil dinner. Sounds good to me!

Pinterest

*Pinterest is becoming more and more addictive to me! It is worse than facebook, blogging, and email all put together. It gives me really good ideas, but all I was doing was just pinning the ideas and not doing or trying anything. So this week, we remedied that. We made homemade gold fish (so good they were gone before Chris got home from work) and sweet potato cookies. The girls have loved these cooking projects, and G especially like making the gold fish!

I

The best part of baking- licking the batter!!

In the next few days I'm going to try ice cream in a bag, homemade fruit roll ups and rainbow pudding pops! Watch out, Martha Stewart!

*Don't know what pinterest is? Let me know and I will send you an invitation. You will never be the same afterwards!