Summer Fun with Grad School Friends

While I was in grad school, I was lucky enough to meet some amazing women, and we have stayed friends since school ended, through weddings, moves, new houses, children, new jobs, and more children. There are 5 of us, and when we met, two of us were married and only one had a child. Now, all of us are married and there are NINE children between us, all under the age of 6!

We try to get together whenever our friend, Megan, is in town since she lives far away and is always traveling. So, we met up yesterday at Caitlin's house for a fun, but hot, playdate! The only one missing was Lisa-- she had just returned from her honeymoon!

Mairead and Will loved running through the backyard- especially up and down the hill. Will's mom's name is Megan and our kids are only 3 weeks apart, so we have a lot in common. Also, she went to Stonehill, too!


Will, Mairead, and Dommie (Domenic) enjoying the treats that Caitlin made-- s'mores on sticks!



It is not easy to wrangle 9 very young children... mostly, it is not easy to wrangle MY very young children. Mairead was very cooperative, but very loud, sitting on the couch yelling, CHEESE! at the top of her lungs. Ainsley and Dom (the oldest of the group at 5 and 3) were good examples, and Will did a great job holding his 3 mos old baby sister, Kylie. Isabella (6mos) and Brielle (11mos) were perfect subjects, too!

And then there are the twins.... you can see Ben's head over the top of the couch while I try to corral Jack.



They are at least IN this picture, but only because they were trying to climb on the couch to get at the babies.

I guess this is as good as it gets for a group of this size and age, but it's still a whole lot of cute kids in one picture! I love this one because Isabella (far left) has the BEST smile on her face, Dom is snuggling up to his sister, Mairead is yelling, "Cheese," Brielle is very curiously looking at Will and Kylie, and my boys are trying to grab at Kylie's feet.

Outside, the boys gravitated toward the sandbox.

Can you see Jack's curls here? I don't want to cut the boys' hair in case they have very cute curls!

So serious!

My boys and Brielle. She is 5 mos younger than my guys, but she is a big girl and has no fear, so she jumped right in with the 'big kids.'

Oh, Ben.

I did manage to get a quick video of the kids and their favorite activity of the day- running up and down the hill in Caitlin's yard. There were a million toys, a kiddie pool, a water table, a sandbox, and a swingset, but just plain running was the most fun!

We had a really great time! Thanks to Caitlin for hosting and for everyone making the effort to be there so we could all get together. And, thanks to all the moms for helping me to chase kids around all afternoon! They are ALWAYS running in three different directions and when it's 90 degrees, it is REALLY hard for me to keep up!

Unrelated cute story- Dave hung up a framed print of Carlton Fisk waving the ball fair and Mairead pointed to it and said, "Daddy, it's a picture of you." Dave will take that as a compliment! How cute is that? AND she used a whole sentence, too!

Still no MRI results. I am beyond frustrated. I know the doctor she sees is supposed to be the best for pediatric stroke victims, he's a genius, etc, etc, but I would settle for 3rd or 4th best, or even 10th, if he just called me back in a more timely fashion. I will be stalking, um, calling, his office on Monday. And Tuesday. And Wednesday...