Pinewood and Princess Mary

Saturday was a busy day for us.  Miss Mary turned 3!  Here she is enjoying her breakfast.

 Opening some gifts.

 

Saturday was also District Pinewood Derby day, which means Mike and Pat were out the door at 6am and I made multiple trips to Metamora.  Here's a group o Bears watching their race.

 Lia and the Lion even got to race. 

 Come on Lia!

Both George and Lia made it to the final round but Lia brought home some hardware.

It was a busy day but we ended with dinner at Pizza Ranch (as Mary requested) and some ice cream.

George is 9!

Two weeks ago this crazy boy turned 9.  He graciously let me take his picture.

Aunt Pat sent him this Lego set because it has something that blows up.  Just what George wanted. 

Mary wanted hot chocolate and Cheese-It for snack.

Catholic Schools Week was broken up a bit due to snow and subzero temperatures.  Mary managed to find her friend Lucy and enjoy the talent show.

 

Silly Cecilia wanted to see if she still fits into Mary's car seat.  If I asked her to seat there she would have had a melt down.

The kids, to my delight, weren't really into making fancy Valentine's Day boxes this year.  This is what they came up with.

The costume trunk strikes again!

Now I am all caught up on pictures.  Everyone has had their share of stuffy noses and coughs, but no major problems.  Even Becca managed to get through February 13th without an injury.  Come back soon for more crazy pictures.

Pinewood Derby

What would January be without building and racing pinewood derby cars?  It will be awhile until I find out with Lia making her first car this year.

 

Here is George waiting for his car to make its way down the tracks.

He came it 2nd overall in the pack, with a Lion taking home 1st. 

The girls like to wear matching clothes and have matching hair.

Teenager in the House

At the end of 2018 we officially got a teenager in our house.  

It was a low key celebration with donuts holes and blowing out the advent candles.

 

 Tilly has found some sun in the house.

George helped me out by shoveling the back slab.

 

Tilly enjoyed the snow as well.

Mary and Tilly like to snuggle up and take a nap together.

 I know I way behind on my posts.  It take some doing to get the pictures from my phone to the computer to the blog so cut me some slack.

Christmas 2019

We hunted again for the perfect tree at the Ol' Dairy Barn tree farm.  I saw this awesome shot and did my best to capture it.

Hi George!

Even Mary got a chance to saw a little bit.

After throwing up  in the van, Tilly enjoyed all the smells at the farm.

It was Becca's turn to put the angel top.  I don't think she'll need help from Dad next time. 

Ta da!

We also made our annual trip to South Bend to hang out with the Sullivan clan.  Or at least most of us did.  Poor Cecilia came down with Influenza A the day before the party so she and Mike stayed home.  Mary quickly rekindled her friendship with Katie,

Some smart person brought some magnet blocks to keep the kids(big and little) entertained. 

 

 And a coloring table.  I think Katie's trees are beautiful.

Mary was her shy, reserved self.

 The kids ended up building a whole mansion complex.  I took some pictures before they had to clean up.

We also had a sing-a-long by the fire.

 We stayed in a different house this year with a very long hallway.

The boys all shared an enormous room with an interesting bathroom.  The shower was very popular.

As we gathered in the living room for the gift opening, George somehow found his face very near his cousin John's foot.  I joked that the foot was bigger than the face, so they checked.  George claims he liked the smell.

Cecilia's sickness cleared up pretty quickly but then other's began to feel sick so we didn't get to see the Hatton clan.