Maggie's Baptism

Margaret Frances!

Here are some pictures from her baptism ...

I ordered a 12-18 mo. dress.   Turns out there was no tag with the size in it, and the neck looked like it was a 3-6 month.  We got in on her without too much complaining. How cute is she? I can't handle the cuteness.

 

 Big brother wanted to get in the picture. 

She was sitting on the blanket that Jackson's Godmother, Jessica, gave to him on his baptism day. 

She had it monogrammed with his name and the date -

and we have done the same for the next three on each corner.

(blanket is full!)

Cooper joined in the fun and she was on the run.

Sweet snuggles.

I couldn't see her hardly at all, 

but I think she was trying to grab the water.

Didn't cry a bit.

Tried to grab the candle out of our hands.

Now that I look at the picture - why didn't I just move her to my other hip???

Kevin snapped this from a couple of rows back. 

Group shot.

Clearly Cynthia and I were very excited.  

Ha.

Double Ha!

She wouldn't stop grabbing Emily's mouth.  

Sweet moment.

How cute are they?

These kids are so well behaved and sweet natured. It was a wonderful weekend.

For some reason they were having cake after mass.

We decided it would be a good idea to eat some.

On the floor.

Uhm, there were crumbs everywhere. 

Not exactly a great shot of Ms. Maggie, but check out the banner.

Cynthia had that made for her!

Afterward we had an early lunch. 

Cynthia entertained the children with a book.

My boys (especially Cooper and Jackson) are borderline obessessed with the series of books by Mo Willems called the Elephant and Piggie series.

If you haven't read them, run to the library and check them out.  

So clever.

Charlie was most interested in chips and queso.

And making baby Ava laugh.

I didn't even make Maggie a cake... not wanting to waste any of the precious time with friends.

But, I did make some lemon blossums the night before. And threw some straws (graciously given to me from Heather  - leftover from Maggie's baby shower).   It was an instant party! ha.

What a fun day.   So glad that she is baptized and that she has incredible Godparents.

BFFs.

My best friend since high school - Emily - and her husband. Darren, and kids, Abby, Anna, and Ava, and nephew, Landon ... ALL came to visit us a few weeks ago!

We asked Emily and Darren to be Maggie's Godparents, and they agreed.  

We were THRILLED to have them come and stay with us.

8 kids between us - it was a blast.

They got in Friday evening, and first thing on Saturday morning we got all the kids up, dressed, and to the Dallas World Aquarium.

It was a bit crowded, and some of the areas get a little "congested," but it was fun.

Kids all loved it!

River Otters were a hit.   too bad the lady feeding them was clearly annoyed by the 8 of them hovering in front of her, and kept warning us that raw fish juice might spray on the kids. 

Lady, it's about the experience, right?!?

Charlie had a bit of, uhm, attitude.    He's been into the whole running off when we are out. 
Oh, and screaming things like, "No! Don't talk to me!  Don't do that!"  really loudly.

 

 

   

How cool is this. 

Kids were amazed.  And tried to pet it.

Got home and put some of them down for naps. 

We left the babies at home and piled in the van to the park in our neighborhood.

Kids ran and enjoyed the weather.

Wish they lived here!!!

Relaxing with a show.  

 

That night I needed to get milk and fill up the van with gas so we didn't have to stop on the way to the church the next morning.

The funny thing is that I took Colin's car.  

It's hard to fill up the van when you aren't driving the van.

I even pulled in next to the gas pump before Emily said, "Wait, you need to fill up Colin's car?"

We laughed and laughed.

It was completely typical of our friendship.  I feel like the last 15 years have been made of moments like that together. 

Pictures of Maggie's big day to come!

Maggie 9 Months. Like a month ago.

Maggie at 9 months old.

Which was over a month ago.

Don't really know what happened that month.

She's a great baby. 

And she talks alot.

Loves the play-food.

Spent a majority of the time turning around in the chair.

Have a really cute video of her just babbling away while i was taking pictures.

Can't get it to upload.  

I'm conceding.

She's 10 months now and I haven't even taken her pictures.

How is it that as she gets closer to one year i get more and more behind?  

shouldn't I be catching up?

will i ever catch up?

: )

Jackson came home from school today and looked exhausted (as usual).

 Then I felt his forehead and then checked his temperature - he had a fever of 103.4

Same exact temp that Charlie had on Monday...

before he tested positive for Type A Flu.

All of which is okay, and we can deal ...

it's just that they have all been REALLY sick here since a little over two weeks ago.

And I'm almost out of steam.
 

We just finished with a virus that kicked all of our butts.

 

Now we are on to round 2 of it all.

I'm praying for patience.

And for Spring to get here soon.

And for Maggie, Cooper, Colin, and I to somehow stay well.

 

New Years - Speckmans Visit

Wish I would have been able to keep up with all of the holiday posts and done this one a long time ago.   We had such a great visit from Tyler, Amanda, and Peyton for New Year's. 

We surprised the boys with a visit to Legoland in Grapevine.   

We hadn't been before, and we knew ALL the boys would love it.  

We kept it a secret and they had fun guessing where we were headed. 

As soon as we rounded the corner they were very excited.

Hard to really show this in a picture - but it is an entire room with scenes of Dallas built from legos. 

Went to the 4D show where we had rain, wind, snow,  and a couple of upset children : )

None of ours had ever watched a movie with 3d glasses, they sort of enjoyed it ; )

I was just worried about my camera getting wet.

Maggie was just worried about getting out of there.

 

 They got to ride lego cars.

Here's Jack - no problem.

Cooper - well, he cried.   Silently.  And was begging to get off.   Couldn't make it work.  Couldn't steer.  And the guys working there, did there best.

We cheered him on (we were on the other side of the fence) but he was very relieved when it was over. 

 

Poor Charlie wasn't tall enough for this or the play structure, so he was pretty unhappy.  

 

The boys could make lego cars to race down these cool ramps.  Jackson was in heaven.  He could have stayed at this part for hours.   He kept making changes to his car every time he raced it. 

Tyler took Maggie to check out the princess castle : )

After that we headed to the Rainforest Cafe for lunch.  

Kind of a bust.

Lousy service. 

Cooper was terrified of the moving gorillas that were making noise.

How cute are these two holding hands ???

The rest of the weekend, we just hung out.   Thought about going to get drinks on New Years, but we just stayed in like some old people.

We drank a little champagne, had a really, really hard time figuring out how to watch the Times Square ball drop - only could get Dallas's local version.  

One night I made everyone play Cranium.   Colin and Tyler weren't thrilled about playing, but they didn't seem to hate every second of it.   

And they did a good job, and didn't lose to us girls by too much : )

Here are Peyton and Jackson performing Christmas songs for us. 

Peyton is a little more of a "performer" than Jackson, 

but somehow he convinced Jackson to go along with it. 

We heard Jingle Bells alot.

: )

Cooper did his own thing. 

Played with the iPad.

Did some acrobats.

So happy that we got to spend some time with our friends.

Miss them! 

Ready for another visit, you guys!