Controlled chaos

What happens when you take six children age four and under, six adults and one crumb-stalking dog? Chaos! But it's a good chaos... I swear!

Thursday evening, David, Noah and I went to the house of our pals, Em & Adam, and their kids Hannah, Charlie and Austin. Joining them were more friends—and Em's twin sister—Becky & Preston, and their girls Kaiya and Cassie. We were just popping over for dinner because we weren't able to make it to ANY of their kids' recent birthday parties this summer. And well, I just missed everyone.

Some highlights...

Austin (4.5 months old) smiles more than any baby I know. While I didn't manage to catch his gummy grin, which he flashed at me over and over to my delight, I did catch this angelic shot of him cozied in the bouncy seat.


Miss Cassafrass has such a big personality. She JUST learned to walk earlier this week and was toddling everywhere. You would never have guessed she was a novice. I'm glad I caught her sitting down for just one moment, because I think this picture is priceless.


Charlie, aka Char-Char, needed a little time to warm up to the crowd after he was prematurely awoken from a nap. But once he got going, he was an adorable crazy man. I watched him climb in and out of this Bumbo at least 10 times in half as many minutes. This particular picture was just after I had to get him "unstuck" from the Bumbo's foamish grip.


Two cool things that happened:

1) Bubbles! I brought along some bubbles for Kaiya and Charlie (who did not have b-day presents this time around), and they were thrilled when Uncle Preston produced clouds of them over and over.


2) Stair-climbing... while not cool to the parents, the small folk couldn't resist the appeal of the staircase. Up, up, up they went. And down, down, down their parents carried them. I have to say, I think Cass and Noah were the instigators.


And here's Noah loving on Hannah's giant stuffed doggie (?) she won from Build-A-Bear.


In this pic, he's chowing down with his (Hannah-proclaimed) girlfriend. Pizza was the dinner of choice! Hannah, I won't tell Owen you strayed... :)


Thanks, all, for a wild and fun evening!