Life with Meredith and Jillian: Tuba Fest

This weekend we went to Tuba Fest- this is an event we have been lucky enough to be a part of for 6 of the 7 years it has been going in existence! Our good friend's dad puts on this event every year at the German restuarant, Henk's, and he plays the tuba and is accompanied by a guy that plays the accordian and sings some fun Polka songs. Okay, that maybe doesn't sound like as much fun as it is. But really - good German food, good German music, good German beer and we have some good German friends to add into the mix, so we have a great time! Neal even calls Tuba Fest his favorite night of the year! Meredith was equally as excited - she asked if she could play the tuba and then decided she needed to take her piano so that she could play along. Sadly we forgot the piano, but she brought it up on the car ride. I was bracing myself for tears when i told her we forgot, but instead she just said "I'll just have to shake my bottom!"

We had fun watching all the kids play, but after chasing them the whole time, we made a pact to hire a babysitter next year to really get the full effect. Plus, throughout the first round of songs and along the way home, Meredith was singing "In Heaven There Is No Beer" although we thought it was perfect at the time, we were hoping she would stick to some other songs this morning at church!

Which one of these things is not like the other? Lucky for Neal and Matt, the wives were on kid patrol. Not sure how I got stuck with two kids so Neal could hold a beer, but whatever.

The three girls - Meredith, Anna, and Matelyn. They are an adorable stair-step of cuties! Every year, Anna's grandma (Julie's mom) makes the kids matching dresses. We tried really hard to get a picture of all of them, but getting a 3 year old to hold her 3 month old sister, plus get a 2 year old and 1 year old to sit still wasn't very successful - here is the best we got!

Here was our brilliant idea to have the moms hold all the girls - this was less successful but still fun.

Daddy with his girls and sweet Anna

This year, Julie's mom got to try her hand at matching boy outfits since Joey and his friend Caden were joining us - baby lederhosen!

The tuba man, himself, Don

Julie and I with our littlest ones - look at them cuddling!

Aunt Julie and Jillian

Jillian wasn't sure about Don - our featured entertainer.

Daddy and Meredith dancing to a song that is without a doubt about beer somehow.

The girls favorite part was playing in the German grocery store and bakery at the back - here they are pretending to be puppies...

We turned around when we hadn't heard our puppies for a few seconds to find that the girls had opened a bag of bread loaves and were chowing down! They chewed on these things the rest of the night and the Spitzenbergers went home with the rest of the bag.