We were this close...

A few weeks ago we got the chance to go listen to Mitt Romney speak at a Town Hall meeting here in Maryland. Eegits that we are, knowing it started at 3:30, for some reason planned to arrive at 3:30. On the way there we were kicking ourselves for not planning to arrive earlier. I'm gonna blame it on the fact that it was the day after I got back from Texas, and my brain was still a little foggy.

Anyway, the place was totally packed and we weren't able to get inside, but he did come out and speak for a few minutes before going back in to do his Town Hall thing. It was so fun and interesting listening to him speak, and really gave me a glimpse of why people can get so riled up and energized about political candidates.

Those blurry people are me and the Nora, here's a better picture of Mitt:

So presidential...

We had planned to leave both girls with a babysitter, but took Nora with us at the last minute because she'd been having a bit of a cold. It was so fun to have some one-on-one time with Nora, poor little second child that she is. She was so sweet and cute, but unfortunately missed out on being the baby that Mitt held before he went back inside. I totally think she would have made such a better photo-op than that other baby...

Marc ditched me after Mitt went in, to go take some pictures, and a journalist started interviewing me about my opinions on Mitt. It was so nerve wracking, I felt like I sounded so dumb the whole time I was talking to him. He wanted my opinion as a young mom, and I'm pretty sure he was a super-liberal kind of guy, so I felt like I was on the defensive the whole time. Of course after we walked away I thought of about a million better answers than the ones I gave him.

Nora with her Mitt Romney sticker:

(On which our interviewer sardonically commented)

Isn't she cute? Her first political rally...

We stuck around a bit to listen to the broadcasted Town Hall meeting, but it was a hard to hear, so we wandered off and did a little photo shoot with Nora for her one year pictures, instead. We just love her so much, and she is so fun to photograph now, with her big smiles and "cheese"'s for the camera.

This one is my favorite:

The rest of the story.

I need to get the rest of our Texas pictures up here so we can move on to all the crazy stuff we've been doing since!

Nora was concerned about baby Ryan when he started crying, and she started patting him on the head. She's getting so good at listening now - she stopped before I got the camera out, so I told her to go back and pat the baby again, and she totally did it! So, yeah, the next pictures are totally staged, but still cute.

Nora thinks she's a big girl like the rest of the kids.

Almost-three-year-olds:

T loves to make cupcakes, and she actually got to do a good bit of the work herself this time. Nora appreciated it as well.

Nora smiles and says cheese for the camera now:

Marc's parents were able to come up and see us the last day we were there, and the girls had fun with them. Nora loooooved the hotel bed.

And ice cream pictures are always fun.

We had a ton of fun, but were glad to get home. I was worried that Nora might be a little hesitant with Marc, just because she had started getting a little clingy with me towards the end, but she was so thrilled to see him. Both girls were giving him lots of hugs and kisses, but the cutest thing happened when Marc was putting T's car seat back in the car. Nora was already strapped in to hers and was watching him work on getting Teresa's in, and she just softly reached up and started rubbing his cheek with her little hand. It was super sweet.

Oh, and a quick Nora update - we had her back in for a weight check this week and she is up to 18 pounds 8 ounces, which means she gained 1lb 6oz in 6 weeks, which was satisfactory for her doctor. And us too :).

The one with all the pictures

After a few days in Boerne the Mellor's showed up, and the girls had so much fun with their cousins. They spent pretty much all day everyday playing outside. Maire and Aine doted on both my girls, I think T drove them a little crazy with all her attentions.

I love these pictures of Nora.

Declan was such a cute little helper, too, he was following Nora around the yard, helping her up when she fell and helping her keep up with the bigger kids.

Teresa and Ciaran are 11 days apart, and they fought like cats and dogs the whole time we were there. It was pretty hilarious. They both kept trying to egg each other on, and annoy the other. In this picture T is trying to keep Ciaran from getting on the trampoline. She'd done this once before, and when I stuck my head out the door to make her let him on she just flung herself down and started sobbing about it. Don't feel too bad for him though, he gave as good as he got.

We also got in some park time:

Teresa went fishing in the cat's water bowl:

On St. Patrick's Day we started out with a nice long walk behind Granny and Grandad's house.

But first there was a huge gun battle:

Teresa loved playing with the boys and their guns. She would alternate between calling them guns and 'shoots', and when she would run around with them she would say "shoot, shoot", which would bother Ciaran and he would try to correct her "no, you say pew, pew", etc.

We tried to force some cousin love between Ciaran and Teresa, and it didn't start out too well...

But they got it figured out:

A typical interaction between the two looked more like this:

He was sweet as pie to Nora though.

Teresa was so funny on the walk, the day before Granny had helped her feel how fast her heart was beating when she needed to sit down and rest, and was explaining about all that stuff. So on our next walk T decided she needed a break, and kept saying "I just need to rest because my heart is broken". So the girls and I took a little break.

T showing me her broken heart:

Later that day we went to a little family fair in town. They had lots of fun and free stuff for the kids, including some 'exotic' animals to look at. T was busy looking at a porcupine and totally didn't notice the llama coming up behind her.

She took off running so fast when she realized what was going on. The llama was un-phased.