Still a week behind, trying to organize my photos, my thoughts and my time enough to catch up. I’m on a mission to make this the year my house stops being embarrassingly cluttered in the background of all my photos. It’s going to take a LOT of trips to Goodwill.

Sunday:

Santa did good

Kitchen-obsessed

NO WAY BABY, that’s my hot chocolate with schnapps

Monday:

That’s his poop face

New kitchen towels

He asked for a “super cool” sweatshirt for Christmas

Tuesday:

Who is this teenager?!

Hand and foot

My infant’s photo shoot wardrobe cost more than any pair of pants I own

Wednesday:

Bonus Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa

Outfoxed (it’s pretty fun)

I looooooove magnatiles

Thursday:

Cookie thief

My OB-GYN has the coziest waiting room

EYEBROW

Friday;

Eighteen pounds of love

Goodbye Christmas tree

Hero Toddler

Saturday:

Snowing inside the Seaport

Oddly enthralled with The Tempest

New Year’s Eve fun

Now I’m only one week behind. But I also got my kitchen counters cleaner than they have been in YEARS and put several piles of stuff away where it actually belongs instead of in piles around the house. Unfortunately my meal delivery box hasn’t come yet today…so it looks like dinner is going to be popcorn and yogurt tubes. My children will be thrilled.

Surprise! I’m catching up on my blog so you get two of these in a row.

Sunday:

Caroline took 2 dozen Nutcracker selfies

The Garde Arts Center in New London

I’ve taken this same picture almost every day this week

Monday:

SO MONDAY

Totally normal way to drink water.

He really loves his baby oranges

Tuesday:

This Tuesday is also very Monday

First try! I totally forgot how to do it but he liked being up there.

MATCHING

Wednesday:

Parking lot nursing sesh

Daddy doing an Elsa braid

MORE MATCHING

Thursday:

Red velvet cheesecake thumbprints

Beautiful toddler cookies

Superman helps make dinner

Friday:

More of me NOT walking the kids to the bus stop

Static hairs

Skeptical baby is always skeptical

Saturday:

Winter wonderland

Super cool superman

Caroline and her new best friend Kit at her birthday dinner

I was looking for an old post on the blog this week and ended up scrolling through tons of these iPhone photo posts from weeks 210-220. It was SO fun to see what we were doing 100 weeks ago (Evan was getting head stitches, I wore Lincoln in a lot of wraps, Caroline smiled). So even though this is a full 2 weeks late, I’m vowing to catch up and do better in 2017.

Sunday:

Baking day!

Helpers

Most of these are gone now.

Monday:

You go to the bus stop, I’ll stay on the porch out of the snow.

Penguin wearing

Making kale salad (which was delicious)

Tuesday:

Kitchen helper

Seriously, my kids LOVE cooking

At the Polar Express

Wednesday:

Cute brother time

King of Bedhead

More cooking

Thursday:

Blanket? Scarf? Blanket scarf!

I keep wearing this kid so I never get to wear the baby

Cookie makers

Friday:

Very patient cat

Snoozing through the Velvet Mill Holiday Market

Stuffing his face with dinner cupcake

Saturday:

They asked me to take their picture and posed

Again, this was at Caroline’s request

BEBEH SUSPENDERS

That last picture is from the day we took our family photos so I could order Christmas cards. Today, most people should GET our Christmas cards in the mail, thanks to my quick editing, remembering to buy stamps last week, and Minted’s amazing addressing service (not sponsored, I paid them a ton of money for cards, but the envelope address printing is SO WORTH IT). Almost all the wrapping and gift buying is done too, so most of this week I just get to relax and do Christmasy stuff like more baking, planning fancy Christmas appetizers, and watching Christmas movies. I might even get a long winter’s nap or too, because E has most of the week off. IT’S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR.

I’m a week late, but in my defense I have four kids. That’s basically the reason for everything these days. Why does your hair look like that? Why is there a hole in your pants? Why are you eating corn chips for breakfast? Why can’t you remember to mail Christmas gifts? How come your Christmas tree looks like it’s losing a fight?

Four. Kids.

Sunday:

Christmas!!

I did not do this OR take this picture

Brothers

Monday:

Linc is obsessed with Octonauts

He also really likes my nativity

Tuesday:

Watching Octonauts

TBH we BOTH fell asleep face down on the couch

Gross weather

Wednesday:

Sleep smirking

We brush their hair and it STILL looks like that

Raise your hand if you are 3 months old

Thursday:

Pre-coffee tantrums are intolerable

Linc says these are Peso pajamas

I don’t even love them but this is REALLY good

Friday:

Skeptical of his hedgehog shirt

Perhaps rightly so

Piano lesson car selfie (why is it SO DARK at 5 pm??)

Saturday:

Horse drawn carriage ride in Mystic

Prettiest advent calendar I’ve ever had

Demanding more Octonauts

It feels like we – especially Linc – watch a lot of TV these days. But that’s because four kids. If there’s a chance Finn will sleep for an hour or two we are definitely staying home and I need them to not act like wild animals. TV is really the only way that happens. 6 months from now we’ll be at the lake every day again and they’ll forget what TV even looks like.

Happy Thanksgiving! I’m a little late and fully into Christmas mode now, which is my favorite part of the year. I’d like to just live in the 4 weeks before Christmas forever. We had friends here for the holiday and it was so, so great. They did so much work/child entertaining that it felt like a vacation instead of hosting.

Sunday:

Super excited to give this to Evan for Christmas

The extent of my Thanksgiving decorating

Sibling cuddles

Monday:

First snow!

Linc likes “helping”

Hello cutie

Tuesday:

Making his Christmas list

The most beautiful wrap in the world

Sunset = same time as bus pick up

Wednesday:

Shop til you drop

Don’t even care what they watch as long as they’re quite for 20 minutes

Thursday:

Men doing manly turkey frying

Potato masher

Caroline is the quality control department

Friday:

Black Friday Hanna shopping

Linc was SO into decorating, it was adorable

More gingerbread building

Saturday:

Christmas tree hunter

Small town adorable parade

Tree is up!

For the record, I am still sick. It’s now been 4 weeks with the cough, that has now become a sinus infection, most likely an ear infection and a weird painful bump on the roof of my mouth the internet tells me is probably related. I’m almost desperate enough to go to the doctor, although I’m still 90% sure they’ll say “it’s a virus, nothing we can do”. Maybe just MAKING an appointment will scare the virus into going away. I’m pretty sure that’s how viruses work.