MC Girls and Kids! (and some husbands too!)

We had an opportunity for all of our Meredith girls to be in Raleigh right before Christmas, so we planned to get together with all of our kids (a first!).  Kara & Christopher graciously hosted our wild bunch – which included 9 adults and 10 kids --- scary when they outnumber you… especially when they are all under 6!!!!  We had:

• 4 babies
• 2 toddlers
• 3 preschoolers….. would have been 4, but one little boy wasn’t feeling well :(
• and one 6-year-old
• -----and on the adult side of the equation-----
• 3 daddies
• and 6 mommies

Jackson and Nate were the first little ones to arrive, and Jackson made sure to give a quick baby-proofing tour (as in, let me show you what an eager-to-explore toddler will get into in your house tour).

We had a great dinner (thinking back….how did we actually manage to get everyone fed without absolute chaos?) --- yummy chili by Alisa for the grown ups and toddler-friendly chicken nuggets by Kara!  Well, speaking of chaos…. there was the incident at dinner where Jackson managed to get his head STUCK through the back of his chair.  About 30 seconds of panic for both of us, but all was fine after I wedged him back out.

Here are a few pictures of the fun – you can see more on Kara’s blog post and super awesome thanks to Kara & Christopher for taking and sharing the pics! :)

Me smilin’ at Nate

Kara, Amy P., me & Nate

Teaching the young ones bad habits…

First group picture --- kids are relatively alert and posed.

Second group picture (switch dads!) – kids are starting to get antsy and squirmy.

Third group picture with just mommies --- kids are over it! :)

Alisa, Amy P, me, Amy W, Kara & Jillian

For the last half hour while I tried to find my car keys so we could begin the 3-hour journey back home, Jackson enjoyed playing the (very nice) (why did they let him near it???) piano.    He sure did love it though :)

Other highlights of the evening:

• Watching Finding Nemo on the big projector / wall… and standing up to be in the movie, touch the huge Nemo, etc. 
• letting baby Caleb snuggle and sleep on me for a long time (while Jackson was napping of course!) --- I don’t think Jackson was ever that small!
• Jackson being so excited to play with Abby!  By the end of the night he was running around saying her name over and over again.  So cute!

 

We left around 9:00 pm, and Jackson surprisingly stayed awake for almost the entire ride home (sans DVD player or any toys)!  I guess he had such a great time, he was just too geared-up.

We had such a great time --- I hope we can certainly do it again! :)