McNamara Christmas

We celebrated Christmas with the McNamara side of the family yesterday, and what fun it was!
Andrew catching up with Grandpa Bill!

Gotta love those striped socks from Aunt Rose & Uncle Greg, especially with the polka-dot dress!

4 Generations of McNamaras

Transforming into pandas, thanks to the panda hats Grandpa Bill & Grandma Lourdes brought back from their recent trip to Bejing

Transformation complete!

Grandpa Bill & Grandma Lourdes

Andrew posing for "candid" shots by Margaret & Caroline

Margaret had a GREAT time trying out Lourdes' boots. Yikes!

The cousins

Nutcracker Encore

Well, we made it through a second season of The Nutcracker. Here are a few of the "behind-the-scenes" shots I snuck this year. Margaret continues to absolutely LOVE being part of the production, so I expect this will truly become a holiday tradition for us...
Margaret with her mouse friends, Katherine, Monica & Christina

Margaret's turn in the make-up chair

Hanging out in the mice/soldier dressing room area before the call for costumes

Tights & leos on... more waiting before putting on the rest of the costumes...

Helping each other with costumes

Playing handgames just before taking their places in line

Getting a pep talk from Mother Mary

Guns ready--off to battle!

Battle over. Waiting downstairs below the stage during the rest of Act I before going back up for bows.

Window Molding At Last!!!

With the help of our friend Jeff Barrette, we FINALLY have the molding up around the living room windows! Only about a year behind schedule... If it weren't for Mr. B, his tools, and his encouragement, who knows how long we would have gone with trimless windows! Just the kitchen & nook area left to go, along with the final puttying & painting! Yippee!

Ho Ho Holiday Fun

Checking out the trees

Riding the wagon around the tree farm

Visiting with Santa at the tree farm

Posing with the nativity scene at the tree farm

FINALLY - getting to decorate the tree

Margaret and her friend Katherine back stage during dress rehearsal week

Margaret captures two more mice, Monica & Christina, twins from her class at school

Caroline at the karaoke competition at the Barrette's annual Christmas party

Caroline getting her present from Santa at the Barrette's party... A Nancy Drew game for her Nintendo DS! Wow!

Margaret updates

Margaret got her latest book report back this week, and she did awesome! Thought we'd share...

Today she had her friend Sydney, from girl scouts, over for a playdate. Margaret had been wanting to bake a loaf of "turtle bread" (shaped like turtles) for quite some time, so that made for a good activity for them. The loaves turned out very cute.

Scrub a dub dub, two girls in a tub

They've pretty much outgrown bathing together, but every once in awhile they still want to play in the tub together. I couldn't resist getting a couple of pictures last time they did. I'm going to miss this...


fall 2007

Welcome cousin Logan!

Jennie and Brian have much better pictures of Logan, but we wanted to welcome him on our blog too. We got a chance to meet him last weekend, when he was 5 days old, and home from the hospital for just a couple days. Margaret and Caroline are VERY excited to have another baby cousin!

Margaret's Junior Girl Scout Camp-In

Margaret's girl scout troop had a sleepover this weekend, and it was jam-packed full of activities. I'm still recovering...
They cooked, and cooked, and cooked--their dinners, breakfasts, and an amazing array of healthy snacks. Here's Margaret preparing the strawberries for their smoothies.

They learned about accessorizing to look their best, and here's Margaret trying on a fashion forward hat and necklace.

On Saturday morning, they learned and practiced some new hair-dos. Here's Margaret giving her best friend Chloe a wrap braid.

The Young Scientist at work

Yesterday Caroline and I went to a Girl Scout science workshop: Intro to Rocketry. Caroline, our budding scientist, was in heaven! They engineered balloon-powered rockets and did some Alka Seltzer chemistry, and finally got to shoot off some cannister rockets outside. What a blast.



She can't wait for the Slime workshop in January!

Catching up... Halloween

This was the first year that Margaret was too "old" to take part in the Halloween parade at school, although the fourth graders still got to dress up and have a little party.

Grandma Gail and her kitty got into the act too...

Eskimo girl and Nancy Drew getting ready to head out and collect the goods! We trick-or-treated for a short time in Grandma's neighborhood, and then came back to ours where we went around with Maggie from up the street.

Nancy Drew inspecting the loot...

Awesome fall weekend

What a perfect fall weekend! Friday night the girls both had friends over for a sleepover. Saturday Caroline and I started in on making homemade applesauce after her friend left while Margaret continued to play were her buddy.

Saturday afternoon the girls and I went swimming while Jeff was at the Husky game, and we all regrouped at home for pizza night. Sunday we made our annual trek to the pumpkin patch, complete with petting zoo and hay maze.




Sunday evening was the pumpkin carvin' party. Both Margaret and Caroline did almost all of the cutting & carving themselves this year! Very impressive, although a little bit scary...