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Sophie decided that for her birthday party this year she wanted to have an America’s Got Talent – themed party, so we put together “Cynwyd’s Got Talent,” complete with the four judges from the show. My parents, Becky, and Ariana all come up for the weekend. At the party all of her friends performed a talent, and it was too hard to select just one winner, so all were winners!

Here are all of the performers. We enjoyed dancing, singing, jokes, a piano performance, and a magic trick.

Here are the judges, Dave (pop pop) as Howie Mandell, Dave as Simon, Becky as Heidi Klum, and me as Mel B. We all did our best to get into character.

Sophie’s friend Dior was the host, playing her best Tyra Banks.
Lauren and Ari had a great time at the party too. Lauren did a ballet dance to a song from The Greatest Showman, and Ari did a dance and song on roller-skates.

That next day we had a family party with everyone.

  • The birthday girl!

It’s been a while since I made a cake, but was happy to get back into it again. Sophie requested a chocolate cake with a salted caramel buttercream frosting. It was pretty good.

Happy birthday to our sweet Sophie! It’s hard to believe that she’s 9 already. We’re going to do everything we can to enjoy this last year of single digits!

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The weekend of January 19th was Lina’s last weekend with us. We had an amazing year and already miss her a lot. Before we took her to the airport on Saturday, she, Sophie and I went into Center City to march in the (now annual) Women’s March down the Parkway. We marched with a group of girls from Girls Inc., a nonprofit whose board I sit on.

It was a really chilly day, but also a lot of fun. We started at Love Park and marched with hundreds of others to the steps of the art museum.

The next day was MLK Day and the Philadelphia Girls Choir was invited to sing at a lunch event for the Philadelphia Martin Luther King, Jr. Association for Nonviolence. In attendance was mayor Kenney, governor Wolf, lieutenant governor Fetterman, and state senator Casey. It was a pretty impressive crowd and the girls did not disappoint. They performed three songs from their season last year.

After Lina left, Dave’s parents have officially taken over care of the kids before and after school. They arrive in the morning before I leave to finish getting them together and out the door, and pick them up in the afternoons to take them to their various activities and help with homework. The transition has gone incredibly smoothly and it’s great to have them here every day.

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At the beginning of the Christmas break I took the girls to see The Nutcracker performed by Pennsylvania Ballet. It’s been our tradition since Sophie was 2 1/2 (I still can’t believe I took her when she was that young). As always, it was beautiful and fun to get dressed up and go out.

Here are the goofballs before the show started.
With one of the dancers during intermission

After the show we walked over to the Ritz Carlton for hot chocolate. I can say this was hands down the most amazing hot chocolate the girls have ever had – served with about 8 marshmallows and a side of two cookies. I think we might make this part of the tradition as well 🙂

Two days later was Christmas!

We had a quiet morning opening presents with the four of us, Dave, Kathy, and Lina.

Here’s the set up after Santa came
Sophie got a new pair of skis
Lauren with her new roller skates
Lauren is currently in a serious unicorn phase. Here she is was an enormous stuffed unicorn.

After the low key morning we got ourselves into major hosting gear. By 1pm there were 31 people in the house! As he’s done the last two years, Dave cooked the entire dinner, this year with some help from his mom, which was much appreciated. We were able to fit everyone by bringing in two extra folding tables in the living room. It was tight but we did it!

After dinner Dave, Kathy, Sophie, Laure and I gave a short concert of Jingle Bells. Dave played trombone, Kathy was on clarinet, Sophie piano, Lauren tambourine and I was on violin. It was a ton of fun. Back in the day Dave’s family used to have Sharp family concerts and I’m working to bring them back!

After the concert we took the tables down and everyone opened presents in the living room. By 8pm everyone was gone and the house was quiet again. All in all a very successful day!

Two days after Christmas Sophie broke in her new skis, and Lauren used her new hand-me-down skis, and we headed to Spring Mountain. Both girls did amazing. Dave is looking forward to a productive ski season this year 😉

The ski bums
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The PGC had their holiday concert in the middle of December at Temple’s Performing Arts Center. It was beautiful, as it always is. Sophie is in the Etude group, which is made up of the youngest girls.

Sophie was front and center in the Etude group
The last song the entire choir performed together was “Believe” by Josh Groban. It was pretty amazing.
Here’s the singer after the performance.
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The Friday before the holiday vacation Dave and I went to Bala House Montessori to celebrate Lauren’s birthday with a traditional Montessori birthday walk. Students hold a globe and walk around a candle that represents the sun the number of times that they are years old.

Here she is sitting with the candle before doing the Walk.

She also made a poster of her first five years of life that she shared with the class, and then she read everyone a story before Dave and I read everyone a story.

Showing her class the poster she made.
Reading to the class

In our house, on December 26th all of the Christmas decorations come down and we move right into birthday mode. This year was no exception. By the afternoon of the 26th all decorations were taken down and put away (in the newly organized basement, which was one of the many staycation projects we did over the break).

Unfortunately it rained all day on her birthday so we made the most of it and went to Jump, an indoor trampoline park. Lauren, Sophie, Lina and I all jumped. It was really fun. That night we did a family birthday dinner with the Sharps.

Birthday breakfast in her stylish birthday wardrobe.
This year unicorn was definitely the theme. Here she is with the second large stuffed unicorn she received, wearing unicorn earmuffs (missing in the picture are the unicorn mittens she also got)
Birthday cake with the family

The next day was her friends birthday party at Kids at Play, an indoor playground. About eight of her classmates came as well as Ava and Emma Devine and Kishore. We had the place to ourselves and the kids had a blast.

  • Lauren with some of her friends at Kids at Play
  • Cake #2

After Kids at Play her friend Teagan and Norah came back to the house. Sophie’s present to Lauren was giving her and her friends a makeover. I have to say, she did a very tasteful job.

The makeover salon
The party ended with a movie (Star Wars VI) and more pizza.

With three separate birthday celebrations she is now officially a six year old!

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We arrived home from Virginia Saturday night and went out to get our tree on Sunday. We waste no time getting Christmas into high gear here. We headed to the same tree farm that we went to last year, called Yaegers. It includes Santa and a hay ride.

The girls with Santa before we went to get the tree. Lauren is still wearing those dress up glasses.

Hayride selfie.

The girls agreed on a tree pretty quickly, and Dave chopped it down with a little help from Sophie.

The team with their kill.

When we got home we realized that we got a little aggressive with the height of the tree and Dave had to chop off a significant amount at the bottom and top. But after some finagling and maybe some cursing, it’s up!

That evening we decorated it.

The girls and Lina putting on ornaments.

The final product. You can see that the star has been less placed on top and more shoved in there, but it works.

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We headed down to Charlottesville for Thanksgiving again this year. We left late Tuesday night and stayed until Saturday afternoon. It was a chilly weekend but really nice – not all of the leaves have fallen from the trees down there.

As always, it was a crowd with my parents house packed. Lina also came down with us and got to experience a Coughlin Thanksgiving in all its cramped glory. She slept on an air mattress in the playroom.

We did the traditional seafood boil on Wednesday night, which is always a fan favorite (at least for me).

Doug and Dave with the seafood bounty.

On Thanksgiving morning there is a mini Turkey Trot in the neighborhood. There were about 15 people who did it this year. The winner was a 4th grader, which Dave and I close behind him. The biggest difference between this neighborhood Turkey Trot and the big one at Boar’s Head is that Dave and I at least have a chance to place 😉

The Turkey Trot crew and helpers.

Dave did the cooking again, with some help from Nana this year on the stuffing.

 

The cooking fairy and his unicorn side kick.

The obligatory turning into the pot picture – of course I’m missing the most important person – Doug who has perfected the lowering after all of these years.

The girls put together a costume parade pre-dinner so that we were all in the right festive mood.

Here’s the group post-parade. It was truly magical.

The Thanksgiving table. Aleen and her mom, Yvonne, came over for dinner as well. You can see Lauren in the back holding up her turkey leg, which has become her favorite part of the meal.

Me and Becky. And the cousins. Lauren was given this pair of costume glasses and she wore them straight for about a week.

The day after Thanksgiving we did a long hike on the Monticello Trail and then his Pippin Hill vineyard that afternoon. It was an excellent few days.

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Over the last two weekends we have had the most amazing fall weather. Although I still have mixed feeling about living in the suburbs, one of the things I love is all of the amazing tress, especially in the spring and fall. Our neighborhood is just a rainbow of bright colors.

I took this shot at Chestnut Hill College when I was there for a meeting the other day. The sky was amazing.

Here are a few from a hike we did last weekend in Wissahickon Park.

And this weekend the ice skating rink at Dilworth Plaza opened, and the girls and Dave were one of the first skaters on the ice (I was happily on the sideline taking pictures).

The ice skating crew.

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We had the most amazing weather for Halloween this year. Perfect for Sophie’s annual school parade, where all of the classes parade around the athletic field and all the parents come to watch (and then take the kids home at 12:30 with a whole 5 hours to fill before trick-or-treating starts….)

The year the girls wanted to get their costumes at one of the pop up Halloween stories, and Sophie picked an alien abduction and Lauren picked a deer. As long as they’re happy…

The alien abduction herself parading around the filed.

Lauren with her friend Nora at her school’s fall festival.

The Tomasetti’s, who live next door, came over for some pre-trick-or-treating pizza and we got some pictures of the kids before they went out.

The neighborhood gang – Lauren, Maya, Emma, Sophie (unnamed alien friend).

We still had to wait about an hour after this picture was taken before they could go out. There was a lot of bouncing off the walls even before all the sugar was consumed.

 

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It’s pumpkin season and one of my favorite times of year!

A few weekends ago we went out to Milky Way Farm to pick pumpkins with Dan, Maithili, Kishore, and Ashwini. The farm also makes their own ice cream, which is amazing, so we waiting in a seriously long line afterward as our reward. It was worth it.

The kid crew at the pumpkin patch.

Sophie and Kishore decided to go to a part of the pumpkin patch where no one else was – to find the perfect pumpkins of course. They held hands the entire walk, it was really sweet. They also came back with arms overflowing with pumpkins, so I guess it was worth the walk.

Afterward we headed back to our place to do some carving.

Serious work here.

Sophie also got some good quality time in with Kish and Ash.

 

Second cousin snuggles and story hour.

I should have taken a picture of our pumpkins when they were all finished, but forgot, and now it’s too late because the stupid squirrels in our neighborhood ate them down to their stems! I couldn’t believe it. They were decimated in about two days. Next year we’ll keep the real ones inside and get some indestructible ones for outdoor decorating.

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