Wish You Were Here

But if you were, I don't know where we'd have put you!

My house is by no means a large house, but when you pack it full of friends and children it seems to shrink to Lilliputian proportions.

When it was just Eric, Caitlin and I, there was plenty of room. Then the twins came. Two of every sort of Baby Containment Device are scattered throughout the house because you must be prepared for when They Who Scream are tired of one sort of containment over another. Then Misty, Marlena, Oliver and Lee came and that was a good time (although sadly unphotographed). The house was full at that point and they weren't even sleeping over! Then Ed and Val came with their twins, Sebastian and Alexander who are only 1.5 inches shorter than Caitlin and possibly a pound or two heavier at three! Those boys are tall! My house was overflowing.

Steve and Sara came to visit and brought Audrey (Steve's mom), Hazel and Kate and then the house exploded. We all discovered just how much noise 7 children make.

Later, we swapped Steve, Sara and the girls for Scott and Sierra and the house shrank a little.

If you were here, it would have looked something like this:

Three women, three babies. Why are 2 out of 3 of them mine?

Ed plays with all of the big kids.

Audrey and Emma hang out.

Little Kate comes to visit.

Val and...Sebastian? Alexander? I am absolutely horrible at telling them apart unless I can really focus on who is who. I'm sure Val will let me know.

Boys like being hung from their ankles.

The whole gang. Three couples. Seven children. Clearly someone didn't get the message on baby-making. Here's the question: are we over achievers by having three or are Steve and Sara slackers for not having their own set of twins? Good question, eh?

Val bought Ed Guitar Hero III for Xmas and Ed inflicted it on us. Now I have Slow Ride stuck in my head forever. Many, many hours were spent playing and watching this game being played. Ed totally rocked it, too!

Scott the Elusive was tanking* the twins on and off all night. He's very good at it.

Eric working on dinner with Sierra assisting. I was busy nursing. As usual.

Eric works on the cherry port reduction for the pork tenderloin. Mmmmm! When we cook, we really cook.

Sierra goes all Martha on us with roasted green beans.

Caitlin had the best time with the twins. She went from complaining about being horribly bored the day before they arrived to being large and in charge! She loved telling them what to do and they loved doing what she said. It was great fun all around. She loved bossing them around so much that I think my twins will be in trouble in a few years.

Val snuggles Logan. At 13 lbs he was a feather weight to her compared to her boys at 50 lbs! She had to keep from chucking him at the ceiling when she picked him up. No, really!

Sierra discovers that Emma likes the taste of human flesh! Emma discovers that rosemary flavored fingers are extra yummy!

Ed shows us that there's nothing up his sleeves.
Actually, he is trying to ward off the camera here but fails his invisibility roll.
"This is not the Ed you are looking for."

Ed plays the guitar for us, even though "real guitars are for old people"**. It was awesome. It's been a long time, but he's still really good. Unfortunately he never got a chance to finish my favorite song. We did, however, get a really nice version of Old MacDonald. How things change once you add kids to the equation.

Then, after their twins passed out and my twins finally fell asleep (not before Emma through up on me one more time before 2007 ended!), we all turned on the computers that had been lurking quietly in the basement all day and played WOW until 2:15 am.

Well, OK, only Eric and I stayed up that late, everyone else wimped out earlier. Being short on sleep really does build character! Ba dum bum! Kssh!

All said and done, good friends, good food, good music, fun games and happy children rounded out the year. I hope 2008 is filled with more of the same.

What did you do?



* WOW reference. Roughly translated, it means he watched over them.
** South Park reference.

Updated to add: Eric objects to my definition of tanking and said that it's really the throwing of oneself onto dangerous critters to save the rest of the party. Which is what Scott did.