Babies Galore

It seems I'm always a couple of weeks behind posting events here. Well, at least I get to (most of) them eventually! Today, we'll go back a couple of weekends to a great visit from out of town friends and an exciting baby shower.

My good friend, Ana Maria, came to Boston with her daughter, Elise, and we had the pleasure of hosting them. Normally, she stays with our friend Tamara but given there's a new baby in the house, she decided not to impose on them. That was great news to me...that meant I got to spend a lot more time with her than I usually do on her visits!

To start the weekend, folks gathered at our house on Friday to welcome the gals to town. We all checked out our new patio that had almost been completed that day (more on the yard renovation on posts to come), ordered in some grub and had a nice time together. Dylan and Elise had a lot of fun playing with each other....well mostly next to each other but they stayed entertained non the less.

Elise, Ana Maria and Tamara
Dylan Flying High!

7 Week Old Elsa and Dad (Ross)

Elise and Dylan Having a Great Time On the Soon to be Folded out Couch

Elsa with Her Mom (Tamara)

On Saturday morning, Ana Maria and Elise left for the day and Dylan and I headed out to my friend Jennifer's baby shower. Jenn is due in August....with twins! Yep, she's going to have a boy and a girl. I seriously cannot even imagine how chaotic and wonderful her life will be when those babies come. I'm obviously no baby expert, but I will do what I can to help her out when that time comes. Given that she's just moved into my neighborhood, hopefully that will be a decent amount.

Dylan had an awesome time crawling all around the venue, flirting with all the ladies and eating practically my entire plate of food. It's funny, I used to dread baby showers and now I actually enjoy them. Maybe it's because all the gifts aren't so foreign and incomprehensible to me now or maybe because there's increasingly less time to spend with friends and any reason to get to see them is something to look forward to. In any case, even though I spent a good portion of the time running after Dylan, it was great to see the gals and I had a nice time.)

Jenn (Carrying Twins), Me and Dylan Saturday night, Ana Maria and Elise met us back at the house and we all had our traditional pizza and a movie night. Dylan and Elise continued to have a great time playing together. That night, we found out that laser pointers are not only entertaining to cats but entertaining to little tykes too!

Can You Get that Little Red Dot?

After a nice morning together on Sunday, Ana Maria and Elise packed up and went off to the airport to pick up the missing piece of the family, Theo. He was in town for business so they'd all be in a hotel together for the remainder of their stay in the area.

Monday night, we were able to see them one last time at a group dinner. This was Tamara and Ross's first venture to dinner with baby Elsa and, with so many young tots about, it was certainly going to be interesting. While I'm sure our surrounding diners didn't love us, the kids were mostly behaved and the parents all survived. But yes, it was a little bit crazy.

Elsa, Ross,Tamara,Elise,Ana Maria, Theo, Me, Mike and Dylan

Man, there were a lot of kids around that weekend. I suppose it's just a sign of what's to come. We're certainly not used to being surrounded by wee ones on friend gatherings, but we'll have to get used to it!