After school, Amelia and her brand new brother Vincent joined us for a dinner play date. Amelia was still wearing her favorite princess outfit she had brought to the school performance, but our accessory bin helped complete the look.

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The kids of Choo Choo Train gave another spectacular performance for their families and friends. We were treated to self baked gingerbread men and watched our kids bring “Puff, the Magic Dragon” to life … complete with a larger-than-life paper dragon, princesses, kings, pirates and everything that fascinates today’s preschooler. They continued with Christmas Carols (as a group and karaoke style), until Santa Claus made his highly anticipated appearance with a bag full of gifts (books & lollipop). Tobin was fascinated, but barely stayed awake since the timing conflicted with his inner nap schedule.

… when you run into Santa Claus on Atlantic Avenue while trying to take an afternoon nap.

Tobin was only mildly amused, but Mika got all excited when i showed her the photo of our little Santa sighting (she didn’t meet him because she was busy getting our Xmas tree with Sung).

This is the weekend of ‘Bring Your Own Baby’: Today, Santiago brought baby brother Nico to our house. At almost 2 1/2, he’s such a big boy already and played very nicely with Mika. Nico grew a lot since we last saw him, but at less than 6 months of age he couldn’t quite keep up with Tobin, who kept practicing his walking skills (5 consecutive steps today!).

Tobin got even with Bruno, being a rather selfish host today. Bruno put up a good fight though and didn’t shed a tear. In the end, each boy got to play with their own light-up toy and peace was quickly restored.

Bring Your Own … Baby (what else?!)

Esme stopped by for playdate and dinner with her mom and baby Cleo. The big girls liked messing with baby hair – naturally Tobin had to take most of the heat.

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5:58 p.m. – View of my leg room while trying to finish dinner

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6:20 p.m. – Note to self: serve dinner well before 6:00 p.m.

Today’s after school ballet class was a bit challenging – for the teacher. Somehow the girls were all a bit hyper, unruly, and not the best listeners. Mika and her friend Hannah were no angels either, but towards the end of the class the surrounding madness must’ve gotten to them as well … which is when i caught the above moment.

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Literally.

This doesn’t count as walking yet, but it’s a giant leap in Tobin’s overall balance. To be continued…

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Mika has been taking her new bike for a few after school spins through the neighborhood and has been making nice progress. However, her cycling speed (and endurance) is just a fraction of her scooter abilities, so i got a bit worried when she begged to ride it home from school today. The first half of our long commute is going uphill on Court Street, which could have killed her enthusiasm – or my arm, trying to push Tobins stroller and her bike simultaniously. Bungee cord to the rescue! One end tied to the bike, the other hooked to the stroller, i could give her a little extra lift with no effort on my part.

Today Tobin ‘helped’ me bring Luna to the Vet for a routine checkup … only that he fell asleep 3 minutes into the trip and snored audibly during the actual visit. He missed the entire outing, but woke up refreshed when we arrived back at our doorstep.

Mika had 15 of her close friends and school mates over for a big party at our house. I don’t know who came up with the rule-of-thumb to invite “just as many kids as the number of celebrated years”, but our city babes sure can handle more than that! We kept them busy decorating real chef hats and preparing their own gourmet pizza dinner. They gobbled it up and had barely enough room to fit a cupcake in their tummies for dessert – as a result, the dreaded sugar high didn’t hit full force and everybody played nicely. Check out the whole gallery here.