december: round 1! (with littles)

Sadie getting her turn with the big rocket! (Actually happened Thanksgiving weekend but WHATEVER)

Me getting into the TimeHop app, haha.

3 car hit-and-run after getting Sadie to the eye doctor one Monday. :( No one was hurt, thanks goodness, but Sadie and I waited TWO HOURS for the police to NOT SHOW UP. UGH.

Emily's school project, which is legit AMAZING.

I MEAN, REALLY.

Our own Santa picture at the yearly Hesse Party! :)

Donut sweatshirt and cookie scarf!!!

I told R to get the train up and running this year, which was met with gusto. He and R3 had a blast getting it together!!! (There's a bigger video on my harddrive with the full set-up but here's a clip below!)

Sadie's first band concert! We got pants specially tailored and e'erything!

Not impressed we had to sit on the floor of the junior high gym, haha.

Emily, fingering along/reliving her youth. ;P

and Mema was came!

(Pic to prove I was actually there too, haha)

A final goodbye to my amazing hair/outfit that day, RIP.

Snuggling with Sadie on the last morning before they went to their mom's for 13 days!!!

Not pictured:

- Sadie loosing her bike lock, ughhhh.

- R and I going to see Ladybird and LOVING IT!!!

- Getting all the kids new clothes... me with Sadie, R with R3, and Meghan with Emily. WHAT A JOURNEY. (I needed R and R3 to go with me to give me the patience to deal with Sadie's particular brand of shopping, haha)

- A million work parties (pictures on my big hard-drive, who wants to remember work parties in the long run, lolz)

2017 family santa picture!

Easily our greatest Santa picture yet!!! The kids were bickering and griping the entire way up there, but after all these years they know when to shut up and smile for DAD'S FAVORITE PICTURE, hahaha. 

thanksgiving weekend :)

The upside to me being sick all weekend is forcing myself to be in bed/on couch all day (with a few loads of laundry to keep my legs from going numb! 🙃)... meaning I can throw up some pictures and video fairly quickly!

We've had a lovely little family weekend. Despite my ER visit early Friday morning, Richard still managed to clock in a half-shift at work and started working on rockets with R3 & Sadie right when he came home. That guy! 😍 So in between lots of movies and Great British Baking Show: Master Class, we took the littles out to the park to shoot rockets. And then Meggie came over for dinner unexpectedly!

Rockin' the park bench (before we moved elsewhere for rocket launching).

Ready to go! (Sadie and Richard's rockets were too small for this big launch pad - unfortunately! - so they moved their launches to another day) There's a big video of the launch on my hard-drive. :)

And then after a successful launch... we spent 30 minutes knocking on doors asking people if we could look in their backyards for our rocket, hahaha. (The wind pushed it so far over! And it was a $50 rocket!) But... it didn't land in the creek, fortunately! R just had to scale a wall behind a neighbor's house to get that sucker, haha. Thank goodness for friendly neighbors!

We got it! And did one more shoot before heading home. :)

Meggie stopped by for dinner! And all my littles in green shirts... :)

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Meghan also showed me all these pictures from June that I had never seen of the girls before... sisters and their photo shoots! More after the jump.

shanksgiving 2017!

We had such a lovely, chill, locals-only Thanksgiving potluck this year... complete with goulash! (Emily and I had MAHI, THO) There's a big video on my hard-drive, and approximately a million more hilarious pictures of the girls trying to get a GOOD PICTURE outside, haha. ;)

(This was the first family event in a thousand years where I had the emotional energy to bring out my fancy camera! Not all the pictures are 1000% perfect, not like they ever are!, but it's a step in my preferred direction, lolz)

Not pictured: lots of adorable family texting and a trip to the emergency room at 2am. WOOHOO.

Very Important: My Wes Anderson Thanksgiving Lewk.

Our pie situation #blest

Juju and Hoju went for a walk!

iPhone blessings: FaceTime from the creek (with Juju!) and snippets of Easy E!

DEM CHEEK BONES!

Mom brought some jeans for us to try, which Emily tragically rejected - BUT, she did let me capture this picture of her #LOOK and I will forever be grateful because it's SO DARN CUTE.

Meggie's baklava cheesecake!

Watching Sweeney Todd (after Seven Brides for Seven Brothers!)

And now the epic process of trying to get the Little Girls into taking a picture (MEGHAN HAS BEEN THOROUGHLY TRAINED/BEATEN DOWN, OBVS.)

We'll take this one! ;)

(Emily with her Pet Hand, haha)

"Y'all look at the camera!" Oh, thx. ;)

Feast!

The chef deserved an actual (non-paper) dinner plate. ;)

Important memories.

YUMMERZ.