Hurricane Sandy

With the preparations all of my Facebook friends were making and all the talk on the news and weather websites, I started getting nervous about Hurricane Sandy.  Then the storm approached and it never seemed to rain especially hard, just constantly.  Monday night the winds really picked up, but we've lived in Kansas and we grew up in California where Santa Ana winds are big and strong this time of year.  It didn't seem especially unique, just a bad storm, not a hurricane.  Tuesday morning we drove down to Richmond so we could Trick or Treat with the cousins on Wednesday.  I logged into Facebook and saw the pictures some different people from our ward posted of the field where the kids play soccer.  It's a giant lake!  The smallish river at the edge of the field over ran its banks and the soccer fields are sort of a flood basin.  The result:

 There shouldn't be any visible water on these fields.  There's a teeny stream that sometimes has water in part of it at the base of this hill.  Otherwise, the creek/river is at the far far end, behind the trees to the left.  Not visible at all, Buddy only discovered it was there last week because they were practicing at one of those fields and a soccer ball got kicked into the trees and it turns out it went into the river. 

Trunk or Treat

 Poor fourth child, I totally failed to get a picture of Mystery Baby dressed in PS's old Sweet Pea costume (we're saying he's a green bean to make it more masculine).  Good thing I still have regular Halloween to get a picture of him.  Unless Hurricane Sandy messes that up...

Angry Bird, Bomb Bird

http://mckaylaisnotimpressed.tumblr.com/

US Olympic Gymnast

Soccer Referee

 At the Ward's Trunk or Treat 10/27/12

A friend from church captured this cute picture of Little Guy.

Señor Perro and Perrito

With help from B, these two dog puppets have been tucking our kids in at night and waking them up in the morning for the past couple of weeks.  The kids think they are hilarious.  Little Guy cracks up hysterically over them.

Loving his little brother

10 weeks

10/16/12

Air and Space Museum

Princess Sparkley's Girl Scout troop visited a pumpkin patch yesterday afternoon, and rather than pay for the boys and I to get in ($9/person) we took advantage of the free parking at the Air and Space Museum (after 4pm) by Dulles.

We got there just before the Observation Tower closed at 4:30. It's probably our favorite part.

It was neat that we got to see the Space Shuttle that flew over us a few months back.

The museum closed at 5:30pm, we had to pick up PS 11 minutes away at 6pm.  Traffic was HORRIBLE.  It took us 50 minutes to make it to the pumpkin patch.  Luckily all the other parents were stuck in traffic also.  And then we still had to get home... 

Air and Space Museum visit - May 2010

Air and Space Museum visit -  September 2009

National Zoo

Mystery Baby's first trip to the zoo today and this is the only picture I got of him.  He spent most of the time in the Baby Bjorn on me.  And part of that time asleep.  

 

 I think we've taken a picture of the kids with this panda statue on each of our visits.  

Disregard the closed eyes, the sun was bright.

 Highlights: The pandas were out and one was super close for us to see.  The fall colors made the lions, elephants, etc. look especially nice.  We *almost* got to see a female orangutang use the "monkey bar" line that they use to travel between their "Think Tank" and their home.  We went in the butterfly room part of the invertebrate exhibit... I don't think I've been in there before.  We saw an adorable burrowing owl.   And the super cute baby gorilla was still there (he's now four years old) and still so teeny.

Sadly, we missed the new sea lion exhibit, but we were trying to be fast to get back for soccer practice, scouts, activity days and to drive my parents to their hotel for their early flight home tomorrow morning.

We saw an alligator, to which Little Guy had this conversation:
  "Hi.  I have an alligator at home.  He's green.  Next time I'll bring him and you can meet."

Sunday After Church

 

 Little Guy decided the other night he should read Buddy's Jack Russell Dog Detective chapter books.  B insisted they read them together.  He's doing great.

Grandma tickled Mystery Baby's lips with his toes trying to get smiles and giggles.

Red Velvet Cake

When my parents were here for Princess Sparkley's baptism two years ago, my mom celebrated her birthday here and we got a Red Velvet cake from Costco.  That introduced my kids to Red Velvet Cake and they love it.  For PS's birthday this year, she requested it.  Since I was 9 month's pregnant, we bought one with the promise that we'd bake one for she and Grandma when they came for Mystery Baby's blessing.  Today was that day.

All Dressed Up

This was Little Guy's coming home from the hospital outfit.  The weather has finally gotten cold enough that Mystery Baby got to wear it to church today.  So cute.  Except he slept through ALL of church (which is awesome, except) no one got to see how cute he was! 

Soccer

 Little Guy's Orange Tigers: Brady, Little Guy, Mason, Samantha, Mariana, Breanna, Marek, Owen, Danny, and Thomas blocking out another player.

Little Guy scored one goal.  He was about to score another goal when  one of the kids on his team came up and kicked it in for him.

Go Tigers!

 One of the moms teaches cake decorating classes at Michael's.  She was the snack mom.

Buddy, middle.  His team has decided they are the Barcelonas.  His team won!  This was their first win.

We filmed a bunch of stuff on the video camera of PS's and Buddy's games... coming soon.

Little Guy drop kicking and heading the ball during Buddy's game.

9 weeks

10/19

Smiley Baby

10/12 and 10/13

Museum of American History

My dad wanted to see the Museum of American History again, and, thanks to their handicapped parking pass, driving into DC and parking on the Mall wasn't so bad.  So, Mystery Baby went on his first out of state trip and his first trip to DC.

We have a picture of B, baby Princess Sparkley and I here from December 2002.  She's in the same Baby Bjorn, although I think we maybe angled it so the Capitol was our background rather than the Washington Monument.

And, from Princess Sparkley's camera: