Time flies

I know, I know. I've been MIA this week and right after I promised to post every weekday. But it's hard to post when you aren't at home, even when you are visiting the Blogging Queen. Since I managed to get all four girls in bed by myself tonight (two are not quite asleep yet, but they ARE in bed), I thought I'd take a moment to review what we've been doing this week. I know it's Photo Friday, but you're going to get text and photos today. Hopefully you looked at the photos on Flickr, but if not, here's a few highlights.

Padyn, Katelyn and I flew into Seattle Tuesday morning. Lisa, Coley and Jalyn met us at the airport. We picked up the rental car (need a van now with 4 children between us) and stopped for lunch (not a good idea to eat at Rainforest Cafe with tired toddlers and preschoolers). We headed back to the W homestead for naps, played all afternoon, and had an early bedtime due to the small quantity of napping that occured. Coley and Padyn slept in the same room for the first time that night. They did surprisingly well. I think it helped that they were super tired. (And right now, as I type this, they SHOULD be tired, but I can still hear them quietly talking, even though the light went out an hour ago. At least now they are staying in their beds.)

On Wednesday, the girls wanted to go see Santa. So, off to the mall we went. But the seeing Santa? That was literal. Forget about sitting on Santa's lap. They didn't even want to walk up to the fence to say hello. They wanted to sit in their strollers, eat their snacks, and watch other child telling Santa what they want for Christmas. Naps were better on Wednesday, so that made for a more harmonious afternoon of playing and an easy time of going to bed.

Thursday we stayed home all day and played because the Mommies and Daddy got to go out and have some fun. We took lots and LOTS of pictures of playtime. You'll have to go too Flickr to see them, but here are a few. The one at the top of the post is from Thursday as well. The babysitter arrived at 3pm, and the adults took off for the Deck the Hall Ball in the city. 8 bands in 7 hours. It was a great time, and we saw a couple really excellent bands, but thank God for ear plugs. We must be getting old.

Five hours of sleep is not quite enough to function on, but that didn't stop us. We went to the zoo today for a few hours. I'll put the photos on the next post since I'm having trouble posting them here. The zoo was fabulous today. It was cold, and no one was there and there were a bunch of animal keepers wandering around chatting it up with the kids. The girls had a fantastic time. They particularly enjoyed the small otter, the walruses, and the tiger. All the animals were very active today. Maybe it was the weather or maybe it was because we were there during feeding time. Either way, it was great.

John and Lisa went out tonight, so that's why I had all the girls to myself. They are all down, I'm now eating dinner and I am off to finish my Mike's Hard Limeade. We head home tomorrow. Padyn will be so sad to say goodbye to Coley. Hopefully it won't be another 9 months before they see each other.