Cherry blossoms

We dared to do what no local probably ever does: we went to see the cherry blossoms at the national mall, on the peak weekend. I knew it was going to be madness, but we didn't have another choice seeing as how those blossoms did not cooperate and bloom during spring break last week. I'm glad we went at least this once. The blossoms are gorgeous! We met up with friends there and did a good bit of walking in the sunshine. As you can see from the photos, the kids did more than just walk. We may have tuckered them out a bit!

 

 

The kids earned their junior ranger badges for the cherry blossom festival. They took an oath to protect the trees, after which Claire promptly returned to her task of jumping and grabbing branches.

The kids loved running under the canopy of fluffy blossoms.

No trip to the national mall is complete without a spin around the old carousel.

Girls did as they were told. "Pose for a picture, ladies."

At least they were semi-upright. Things went downhill from there:

I would love to do it again sometime, but next time we'll pick a day when Brian can come too. (He's in California.) We miss you, Love!

Four!

Tyler is an amazing kid, and I wish I had all the amazing photos that he deserves! The poor kid really doesn't get enough camera time. We threw a fun party for him at a local nature center, with a frogs and toads theme. It was a dual birthday party with his best friend Marcus from preschool. Here is the very little that I captured in photos:

Here are the birthday boys (in green shirts) decorating froggy bags.

Then we played a fly-catching game with blow outs.

An educator brought in a frog for the kids to meet, then they hunted for bugs in the nature center exhibit.

There was some silliness. Ok, lots of silliness. It may have had something to do with all of the gummy frogs that were consumed.

Then cake time!



 

Two happy boys.

 

Tyler is our big 4 year old now. He likes to keep reminding his sister that he is NOT a baby. But he will always be my baby.  : )

Disney World

I'm sitting in our office, looking out the window at the snow-covered landscape. Brrr. I'm glad to be writing this blog post and thinking about sunny Florida right now! It wasn't as warm as we had hoped but it was better than Maryland. We did have a couple of days that were just right for the pool, which was nice. The other six days were spent in the Disney parks, meeting characters, watching shows, and going on rides. So yes, we were a little tired after this vacation!

 

Here was Tyler's go-to position on any potentially scary ride:

 

Certainly one of the highlights of the trip was the evening that Brian and I spent in the park without the kids. Don't tell them that though.

 

 

We finished the week of fun with some Disney races. Claire ran the 200 meter dash, Tyler did the 100 meter dash, and my sister and I completed the half marathon.

 

It's hard to say if Tyler's look is one of smug satisfaction or exhaustion. My sister and I were definitely all smiles when we finished. In fact, as we neared the finish line we realized that we had been smiling during the whole race! Disney races really are fun!

Six!

We are now the proud parents of a six year old. This definitely makes Brian and I feel old. We're already noticing that with six comes a ton of opinions, ideas, arguments, and bargaining. (If you let me do ____, then I will clean my room.) It's quite fun to see all the critical thinking going on in that adorable head. Somehow all of our shared silly faces, hugs, and hand-holding feel even more special now. It's like we earn these affections -- like she is graciously choosing to share them with us. I'm feeling really appreciated! Yay!

Claire had her party at the local conservancy, which has a nice nature center. She picked a fossil theme, then mulled over the idea of having Frozen princesses mixed in, then opted not to. Whew. As she does every year, Claire declared "this was the best party ever!" As we do every year, we hoped she would say that.

There was fossil digging, fossil making, and even a walk to see a 200 million year-old fossilized fern out in the barn. Sorry, I did not get a great photo of the fern trunk. Literally, the trunk was at least 12 inches in diameter. It was wild.

Why yes, those are paleontologist hats with girly stickers all over them. What else would you expect at a fossil party?  : )

Even though Claire threatened on a daily basis that she was not going to let Tyler come to her party, in the end she was ok with it. Ah, sisterly love. I have to say, Tyler was very well behaved too. Maybe all the threats paid off?

On wheels

Claire got an early birthday present: roller skates! She is obsessed with them and practices skating in our kitchen every day. Yesterday we took her to the local skating rink. She was in love! Claire is already as good a skater as I am. I'm pretty sure it has been 20 years since I last roller skated, so I was pretty wobbly out there. Sure was fun though!

Mostly due to her small size, Claire was the winner of the limbo contest:

 

Tyler put on roller skates for the first time too. He was slip-sliding all over the place, even when he was hanging onto the wall! After 15 minutes he announced that he was all done. I was proud of him for giving it a good go. Our little guy was perfectly happy running around the outside of the rink, and enjoying the dance tunes.

First snow day

There's something magical about the first big (relative to a small child) snow fall of the winter. We got a whole 3-4 inches, and it was enough to close schools. The kids were giddy and unusually cooperative with all the snow gear prep-work which takes at least 30 minutes. They ran outside squealing. Literally squealing!

The first thing Tyler did was to grab his lawnmower and start "mowing" the driveway.

Claire delights in stomping around in fresh snow, making tracks.

Tyler also loves pushing his dump truck through the snow.

Doesn't our poor Christmas tree look so sad, tossed out on our front walk? Excellent placement, Brian.  : )

After our morning of sledding we came inside and watched the birds while we sipped our hot cocoa. We were surprised to see that a red-bellied woodpecker is now a regular at our feeder.

That guy is pretty big. When he lands on the feeder it tips a bit! We're looking forward to seeing who else drops by for breakfast.