National Zoo

Last Saturday I took the kids to the National Zoo in DC.

top to bottom
left to right

a Panda
below the Panda, Baby X being a cutie
to the right of those 2 tiny pictures, Baby X excited about those little animals being near him
Buddy with an elephant/excavator construction sign
Buddy examining some cow poop
next row: Buddy and PS with the zebras
an elephant shrew... possibly the cutest thing I've seen
Baby X with his tongue out letting me know that this animal is a doggy
last row: the kids with a statue of a Panda
the kids with an adorable picture of a Panda
PS and Buddy in a mister


The day started out hot. The zoo is free, parking is not, but B had dropped us off so had about 2.5 hours, so mainly I wanted to see the Pandas, so that was the goal. I figured we'll go back again before we move (it is free afterall) so it wasn't important to see every animal and spend hours at the zoo that day. About an hour before B came and got us it started raining. We finished the outer loop of the zoo which is most of the animals, so we hung out under a tree for awhile until it was raining so hard that the tree wasn't protecting us from the rain anymore. Then we made our way across the zoo and back to the petting zoo area where B had dropped us off (got soaked) and spent the reminder of our time seeing the farm animals under the barn roof.

Impromtu Dance Party

Baby X "woofs"

Here's a video of Baby X playing with PS's Little Pet Shop puppy. He's making it go "woof, woof, woof" which is a step up from what he thinks a dog usually says, which is sticking his tongue ALL the way out a panting - see pictures below video.





Panting like a dog and kneeling.


Here he's not only panting like a dog, but also crawling
around on all fours like a dog.

Baby X "Dances"

Baby "dances" in his car seat by kicking his legs wildly. He used to only do this for The Killers song Human and he'd stop whatever he was doing, even if it was crying and throwing a tantrum in the car, so he could start dancing and laughing. Then expanded his favorite song list to their song Spaceman. Now he also dances for some Weezer songs. Here are some clips:

Spaceman




Weezer's Troublemaker




Human

*Sorry, I can rotate it in Picasa but it doesn't rotate in
"My Pictures" and that's from where the videos are uploaded.

Duck

Baby X says "Quack" or possibly "Duck."

Sound Effects

Baby X has inherited Buddy's awesome sound effect talents. Buddy is always making fire engine siren noises, or something. Sometimes even Baby X goes to the window thinking there's a fire truck driving past as Buddy makes his noises. Now Baby X has noises of his own. And his lips are so cute when he's making his fire truck sounds. I have a bunch of videos to upload but I've been having problems lately with getting videos on here. Just know that Baby X does an awesome car, train, fire truck, horse, duck quacking, dog (panting and woofing) and cow and that videos are forthcoming. Oh, and he's taken to crawling around pretending to be a puppy as well.

Yea... I think it worked:


Firetruck (note the cute lips and determined brow):




Car, Truck and sign language for fish:



Here he is as our puppy:



And be sure to check out this post from a month ago that I forgot was busily uploading a video and I hadn't yet published... Baby X says "ball."

Maryland and Delaware County Trip

B is of course itching to get all the new counties we live by now, so last Saturday we went on a little county trip. It was especially exciting because the kids all got two new states (Maryland and Delaware), B got Delaware and we all finished Delaware (since the state only has three counties).


We started off at the Washington DC Temple in Maryland.



Next was the Maryland State Capitol in Annapolis.



Then across the Bay Bridge (super exciting for Buddy) and the Chesapeake Bay (hooray, our first near glimpse of an ocean in years) into more Maryland... then Delaware and the Capitol in Dover. Fun fact about Delaware, is has more people in it than Wyoming. Who knew?? And no sales tax. On the way back, in Sassafras, MD, we had to stop for a draw bridge. If there wasn't also a super long suspension bridge and a tunnel on this trip, Buddy would have for sure picked the draw bridge. It was a toss up. That top corner picture of Buddy was taken as we're watching the draw bridge go up.

We also documented Baby X's left handed tendencies as he sat in the backseat "coloring." He's been throwing and eating with his left hand lately.

Camouflage

Where's Buddy?

Living Room and Upstairs

The entry way looking into the kitchen.


The living room.


The living room from the dining room.



The Stairs... no nearly as brutal as the steep stairs we had in Kansas.


Baby X's room/Storage
There's a row of boxes of outgrown kid clothes behind the crib. To the left of those are books that are staying packed up and a lot of framed pictures that we don't want to hang when our lease is short-term. Then a bookshelf of toys. So about 1/4 of his room is taken over by storage. Another 1/4 by crib and toys. Then openness, not pictured.


PS and Buddy are still sharing a room until Baby X is big enough to sleep on the bottom bunk. I couldn't wait for tidiness to take this picture, it would never get taken.


Upstairs bathroom. HUGE compared to the downstairs half bath.

Dining Room and Living Room and Backyard

Our front room is set up awkwardly. It's a huge room, and the door/entry way is right in the middle. Straight across the front door is about 6 feet of wall where our big bookcase is (we've since packed up the stack of books after choosing which books get to be on the shelf for the next little bit). To the right of the big bookcase is a coat closet and then the stairs. To the left is a narrowing that goes back to the dining room, and then on the right, the kitchen. Oh, and a miniature bathroom. We've chosen to split the front room into two tiny rooms. On the right is our humongous desk that's been living in B's brother's basement for 4 years. On the left is our couch/living room area. We sold our TV before leaving Kansas and haven't yet replaced it, so this room is mostly a couch. Notice our sideways family picture. We just had new family pictures taken and they are oriented the other way, so we got the picture frame ready. B and I think this is hilarious and can't wait for the Relief Society president or someone to drop by to get to know us. The kids didn't notice for almost an entire day.


Living Room-ish.


Dining Room taken from the kitchen.



Dining Room taken from the space between the living room and dining room... there's a sort of narrowing of walls to separate the two rooms.


From our back fence. To the left of Baby X is our storage shed.



From the dining room doorway. There's a strip of grass between our back fence and the apartment building behind us.

Front and Kitchen

Here's the front and the kitchen of the townhome we're renting right now. It's about 300 more square feet than we had in Kansas. With a tiny fenced backyard (which we are supposed to mow... not sure about that) and a tiny storage shed out back and extra storage under the stairs. We actually feel like we have a spot for everything... almost. We just need more wall space and more bookshelves for that wall space. I'll try to post more pictures when we get more stuff organized.


B probably thought I was nuts as I unpacked all of my kitchen stuff and was so giddy. I finally had a spot for everything!!! And the corner cabinets above and below the sink on the left, are SO DEEP. It's awesome.


Next to the washer/dryer is what we like to refer to as our Harry Potter closet.




This is the first time in years all of our books have been in one location. For awhile we had a few boxes of fancy books on display at B's brother's house and about 12 boxes in his parents basement. This is about 90% of them... most of our kid books were already unpacked and on little bookshelves upstairs as well as a lot of B's school books, so they aren't pictured.

She's 7!!

Princess Sparkley turned 7 last Monday. SEVEN!! I can't believe it. We celebrated her birthday at Grandma M's in St. Louis as we passed through on our move east.



PS has taken after both of her parents with her love for reading. I keep having to remind her that bookmarks exist and that she should use them. She's up late at night in her bed reading books. And often times, she's so consumed by what she's reading that she doesn't even hear us talking to her.



Opening presents on her birthday in Virginia.



One of her presents that she requested, from Buddy, was a Fairy Cookbook. Here we are making these tiny fairy cookies.


At Friendly's with her Monster Mash ice cream sundae.

Visiting Washington DC

I plan to take great advantage of living so close to Washington DC over the next few years... especially as far as our homeschooling is concerned. We made our first visit to the capital as Virginians on Saturday and took in some sights. The kids were threatened that this was a preliminary trip and their behavior would effect the possibility of all future trips when I would be outnumbered three to one while B is busy and we're on "school" field trips. They did... okay.


The Capitol.



Buddy and PS at the base of the Washington Memorial.



The kids at the Washington Monument.



Baby X signing "bird" to me when he spotted some ducks.



We made sure to find the column for Kansas at the new
(at least since last time I was in DC in December of 2002)
World War II Memorial.



Baby X at the base of the Lincoln Memorial.



Baby X at the Lincoln Memorial.
I especially like how his binky looks like a big Italian mustache.



Cute Princess Sparkley.

The Move

We rented an enormous Penske truck for the move. I followed B (who either had PS or Buddy with him) in our car with Baby X and whichever kid wasn't riding in the truck. I took pictures from the driver's seat along the way.

We're Not In Kansas Any More

We have arrived in Virginia. We're mostly unpacked. I actually cooked dinner tonight. And tomorrow we're setting off to explore our nation's capital. Our email addresses and phone numbers are staying the same for now. If you need our physical address, shoot me an email.

Baby X "talks"

Here is Baby X saying "ball."

He says Mama, Dada, PS's name, a sound that he attempts when we ask him to say Buddy's name. He has sounds for blankey and binki that involve the /b/ sound. He makes an attempt at "cracker" and sometimes "milk." He makes a quack sound. And a Moo sound which is mainly just "MMmmm" when he sees a cow. He pants for a doggy (and most other animals, or just the outside in general." He still screams a lot. And most of his words are just the beginning sound without the ending sounds. Buddy is an expert of car sounds and sirens, I'll have to film it sometime. Baby X has picked up on this and drives cars around saying "vroom" sounds and airplanes that go "fffhew." Sometimes a sireny noise as well.

He knows the signs for: food, please, milk, more, all done, moon, light, bird, fish, book, and thank you.

18 months

Our baby is one and a half.

The stats. He went to the doctor on Friday, July 24th (2 days shy of his half birthday). He's one ounce shy of 25 lbs. He's 34.5 inches tall (or in B language, 1 foot 10.5 inches). And his head is 19 inches (same as his last check-up). His weight is about 40th percentile. His height is 95th. His head is about 70th.

He's doing really well. His speech is delayed, but way more advanced than Buddy's was at this age. His doctor says it's probably a slight delay, and might not even qualify for the kind of speech therapy Buddy had. We'll keep monitoring him and see what he needs, but I'm happy with how he's progressing. I'll try to add some videos of him "talking" to the blog later.



Here he is at one week.


Here he is at 6 months


Here he is at 1 year.


And here he is at 18 months.




This is what the photo shoot looked like trying to capture of picture of 18 month old Baby X lying next to his alligator. When I got out the alligator B asked if I was going to take his picture with the alligator when he left for college. My response... I'm only doing the big marks now... I did one an now I'm doing one and a half. But it would be fun to have a picture of him holding it when he left for college or something. But really, he's not all that attached to it. Sometimes he pokes it in the eyes, but that's about it.



Some recent shots of him.

Ambulance

Buddy drew this ambulance. Those are flashing lights on top. He draws a lot of vehicles with flashing lights. He also drew an excellent picture on Sunday of a crane... I'll have to take a picture of it to post.

Sunflowers

For a music class lesson on Earth Day, I read stories about planting flowers to help the earth be pretty and then we recycled egg cartons making them into little pots for a sunflower seed. I ended up bringing home a lot of extra seeds and planting them in an 18 egg carton. When they were all 2-3 inches tall I transported 3 little plants to a larger pot. Right before we left for Utah, B planted them in the ground hoping they'd survive not getting watered daily by being able to pull water from the soil. And they survived!! Here are pictures of the first one that bloomed about a week ago. They are taller than my kids (one is almost as tall as I am).

To Do in Kansas

This is my tentative list of things to do in Kansas before we move:

Eat at Lidia's in Kansas City (Missouri).

Tour the Kansas state capitol in Topeka.

Go to the Kansas City Zoo (again, Missouri).

Visit the Moon Marble Company in Bonner Springs, KS.

Take pictures of my kids in a field of sunflowers.

Last weekend we went to Topeka to return library books, find Alf Landon's grave (this was on B's list of "to do before we leave Kansas," we were unsuccessful), and tour the Topeka Capitol. B, Princess Sparkley and Buddy even got to go to the top of the dome and outside to see all of Topeka from a bird's eye view. Unfortunately no one bothered to tell us that Baby X would need to be able to walk all 296 steps on his own or would not be able to go on the tour. We'd already been past security, and through the gift shop where the worker there (who ended up being our tour guide) directed us to where we needed to meet for the dome tour, but didn't bother to mention Baby X would be unable to go on the dome tour. So Baby X and I hung out eating fruit snacks while he tried to escape over the back of the bench we were on, to fall 20 feet down the stairwell. PS and Buddy went to the top with Jed and were both scared, but very brave.

Yesterday I took the kids to Moon Marble. I may have been more excited about this than my kids, but I think they (well, maybe not Baby X) enjoyed it as well. The guy who started it used to be a wood worker. He was making wooden game boards that needed marbles but couldn't find any of the cool marbles from his childhood anywhere. He finally found a company in West Virginia that would sell him some, but he had to buy 12 crates (I'm paraphrasing and may not have everything right). When they arrived, they came in a semi-truck and there were over 5,000 marbles. He says he's been in the marble business ever since that day. I'm not sure how he got into making marbles (Baby X was fussy during this part... I wouldn't recommend this for the littlest kids) but part of the tour is watching him make a marble. It's pretty cool. He asks that if you take pictures, you do so without a flash. This is not good news for me since my camera takes horribly fuzzy and out of focus pictures when the flash is off. I'll include pictures, but look here for better ones.

The marbles he makes sell for $30+. If you look at the marbles for sale on the website, they sell marbles from a variety of talented glass artists and some are as expensive as $350. They also sell a lot of vintage games and cheap marbles they buy from somewhere else.

My kids each got a, handpicked by them, tube of marbles and a shooter marble. Buddy is obsessed with the game.