B's sister called us up the other day wondering if we wanted to join them in DC for President's Day. Their original thought was the zoo (but we'd just gone on Thursday, and Monday's weather changed to rainy) so they suggested National Archives (which has been on my "do in February" list for a few weeks). We just finished learning about famous Americans and I thought seeing the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and Constitution would be a great way to spend President's Day (I was just slightly worried about everyone else feeling the same way). But it was great.
We met them at my brother-in-law's parents' house and drove to the the Metro Station near them (free parking on federal holidays) and rode the Metro in. We got off at Metro Center because of track maintenance and took a little bit of a walk rather than switch trains twice in order to move half a mile. It started sprinkling just as we got to the National Archives building, but the line was short and we were only outside for about 15 minutes. I don't think the kids thought National Archives was cool at all. They saw the documents, but it was crowded (I can't even imagine how crowded it gets when it's really crowded. And we always got stuck behind some woman who was going to read the entire Declaration right there in front of us blocking our view. Oh well. We can say we saw them, and I thought it was pretty cool.
Then we walked to the National Museum of American History because the cousins had never been and we hurried through it a year ago when we visited. The kids' favorite parts of the Museum of American History: Princess Sparkley: a Peanuts comic display and the First Ladies dresses. Buddy: riding the Metro, the helicopter in an America in wars display, and a tiny moving steam roller in a science hands on room across from Julia Childs' kitchen. Little Guy: riding the Metro, the giant dollhouse, a Dumbo from the Disneyland Dumbo ride.
Awhile back I was working on teaching Little Guy to say "I love you too" when any of us told him "I love you." Now he comes and gives me giant squeeze hugs all the time (usually around my neck or leg) and says "I love you, Mommy."
(You can see an elephant by Buddy's leg in this picture of all three kids).
The weather was wonderful last week so I advertised on Facebook that we were taking a trip to the zoo if anyone wanted to join us last Thursday. Five other moms came with 11 other kids and one husband. Plus B drove us there, took the Metro to the Library of Congress to get a library card (an assignment for one of his classes this semester) and then rode the Metro back and joined us at the zoo.
We went to the zoo in the late summer/early fall of 2009 when we first moved here and it was hot and crowded and we got rained out. The pandas are my favorite since they are sort of a zoo rarity. The pandas still weren't outside on this trip, but the crowds were small enough that we got a great view of them inside. In the films below, we were totally alone watching the second panda eating the bamboo for a few minutes before the crowd from the first panda joined us. There are only two pandas now. I think there were four last time we came but they went back to China (or wherever they were on loan from).
With no crowds and unusually great weather, we got a lot of attention from zoo volunteers explaining things to us about the monkeys vs. apes, the two year old baby gorilla and the giant silverback gorilla. In the invertebrate building we got to see a zoo volunteer feed a hermit crab and a spiked horned crab of some sort. There were seven lion cubs (born last summer/fall) that Buddy (our lion lover) was thrilled to see. It was a lot of fun. And the weather was fabulous. We went in the bird house... which I don't remember doing last time, and this giant blue pigeon-like bird (pictured above) walked past us. Little Guy liked him and called him the bird with sticking up hair.
You can mute this... although at the beginning you can hear Buddy giggle a little. There was a woman next to us talking nonstop about the panda. There are vitamins in the toy that the panda is trying to get out. They need vitamins since bamboo is all they eat and is a horrible diet.
Trying to catch Little Guy singing along to "Can You Find It?" on Here Come the ABCs by the band They Might Be Giants.
Little Guy was taking a bath the other night when he started singing a Weezer song in the bathtub. Awesome. What he's singing is, "Our life will be broken, our hate will be unspoken" from the song "Unspoken." He got shy once I turned the camera on and I couldn't get him to sing as loud or as much as he was before I got the camera out.
Valentine Bunting (I ended up moving the little bunting to my bookshelves.)
This was Princess Sparkley's creation from Hello, Cupcake! that she got for Christmas. We were supposed to use an old Valentine box but I found this tray that was perfect at Walmart for $1.50.
We adjusted the recipe and made brownie cupcakes instead of cake. And I added a Valentine themed cake bunting.
Little Guy made these Valentines to give away, stuffed full of jelly beans.
Princess Sparkley got her Valentine idea from here.
Our friends had us over for a little Valentine party. [Buddy, E, PS, H, Little Guy, and S)
Oh, and they had a huge hill in their backyard and even though the snow was melted their sleds were still out. Buddy discovered you could still "sled" down their hill.
And, apparently PS can hula hoop. This wasn't one of her best runs but it's the only one I got on film. And, you didn't get the full outfit because it was such a warm day, she'd stripped some of it off. The outfit: two shades of pink striped pants, socks that are nearly identical shades of pink and also striped, gold shoes, a long sleeved pink waffle shirt covered in various colors of pink and purple owls, over top of that, a yellow Snoopy t-shirt she got for Valentine's Day. AND, over the pants, she was originally wearing the bright pink and brown flowered bubble skirt I sewed her for the Cherry Blossom Festival last year. And I took her out in public like this. And to the doctor's office!
We got in the car to leave Richmond and B asked if I wanted to stop at George Washington's Birthplace on the way home. He's had it on his list of weekend drives for awhile and it's sort of on the way home (meaning, just a little bit out of our way)and the kids are learning about our founding fathers this week, and it's almost President's Day, so I agreed. Not counting the stop, it took us 3 1/2 hours to drive home and it's normally 2 1/2 to 3. Not bad. And totally worth it.
I loved it. First, it was free. Second, it wasn't a huge amount of space to explore (although I'm sure we missed a lot). Plus, there were only a handful of tourists there so we got a park ranger to ourselves showing us the reconstructed house and the kitchen. AND, we got to hear little pigs squeal. I'm not sure I've ever heard pigs actually squeal in real life. Very satisfying. And there were sheep and a solo chicken wandering around. Little Guy kept telling me he wanted to go say hi to the sheep. And he kept asking me where all the other chickens were, and why that chicken wasn't flying. I'm excited to go back in warmer weather and explore some more of the outdoors stuff and there's supposedly an old shipping dock/wharf or something down the road.
The weird, knobby tree in front of the reconstructed house is the oldest tree in the area. They think it is celebrating it's 229th birthday this year. It's a hackberry tree and they also think it is the result of the fire that burned the Washington's house down around the same time the tree sprouted. Somehow a seed from inside made it outside and started growing.
B enjoyed that the reconstructed house turned out to be built on the wrong foundation. They built it several years ago for a Washington anniversary of some sort certain that they were building it on the correct, old foundation. Later, they discovered the real foundation of his childhood home (the picture I took where you just see the white outline of the house on the ground) a few feet away, and drastically smaller. The old house could have fit in the entry hall of the new house.
Swearing them in as Junior Rangers after the fact. The Rangers forgot to give us the packets until after we'd already toured the park and were leaving, so they sent the packets home with us.
When the girl cousins get together... it's all CREATIVITY. This time, a spa. Aunt H was nice enough to go get a bunch of supplies (fake little girl nails, headbands, face masks, a cucumber, etc.). Ella was instructed to bring a robe, flip flops and any nail polish she had. Aunt H pampered the girls. And they had so much FUN!
This entire trip was created so that B had somewhere to go to watch the Superbowl. Not only was it a huge sporting event and he's a huge sports fan, but it was the Pittsburgh Steelers, his hometown team.
We of course had way too much food. First a delicious dinner. Then a plethora of snacks and appetizers to eat during the game (sort of).
I didn't realize both boys were wearing gray pants until I was taking the picture. And I totally forgot to get a picture before Little Guy went to bed, he was also sporting a Steelers shirt. The first thing Buddy asked when I woke him up the next morning was who won. Poor kid.
We went to visit family in Richmond for Superbowl weekend. My sister-in-law always has plans for fun things we can do. We got there Saturday afternoon in time to see the end of cousin S's basketball game (he informed us after the game that it was his team's first loss of the season). The rain that was supposed to stop early in the morning and not start up again until night didn't stop... so our plans of exploring Belle Isle Park on the James River were thwarted.
My sister-in-law took a nap, leaving the activity planning to those less creative and we ended up at Sam's Club because as B said, "It was the only suggestion they had unanimous agreement on (all five kids didn't want to do it)." Really, we tried like five other ideas first: 1. a movie - no good kid movies playing 2. Jumpin Jacks (a sort of bounce house)- only half the kids were on board, and one kid didn't have socks, which is a requirement 3. Chuck E. Cheese (which, much to my pleasure, had an enormous line coming out the door of the "restaurant." 4. a candy shop downtown (wanted to go with sister-in-law) 5. I don't remember anymore, but there were more ideas.
See, even Sam's Club can be fun.
Sunday, after church the weather was nice so we decided to finally explore Belle Isle. Before the Super Bowl, of course. Downtown Richmond. Little Guy as Darth Vader. The second LG picture is him giving us his bad guy "look." The pedestrian bridge. Brick wall left from Belle Isle's past as a prison for Union soldiers during the Civil War or before that when it was a village with a nail factory. B and LG. A lavender dog. Yep, a lavender dog. My brother-in-law works downtown and sees this lady and her dog all the time. He's not sure what she's doing, but she does pass out business cards. The kids all wanted to pet it. I think Princess Sparkley chickened out but Little Guy, Buddy and the cousins did. I love this picture because just as I took it LG left the back of the dog (you can just see him behind Buddy) where he'd been petting its' bum to walk around to his face where he bent over a little and greeted the dog. It was like he was trying to be polite and proper.
Rocks and water. The kids had a lot of fun here. There were some places where we had to keep them close because the drops were far but mostly they (except Little Guy) were free to roam.
B and Little Guy wandered off together and then I spotted them climbing this enormous rock. Only two kids got wet on this adventure, PS trying to jump across a stream that was a little too far for her. And Little Guy on this rock. B had to boost him up there first and demand that he sit in one spot (or possibly fall to his death... I don't know, I never got close enough to see what was on the other side). Then B had to jump up there himself, which took him a couple of times to give you an idea of how high this was. After LG got up there he started to move and B yelled at him to sit right then. And he did. On a little puddle. At least he's obedient. Although he had to be told twice.
Little Guy's three year old check-up was on Monday, January 31. The whole way driving to the doctor's office he kept saying, "but I not hurt, Momma." I guess he remembers the ER trip for his cheek. And the almost ER trip when Princess Sparkley slammed his left (?) pinky in the car door a month or so ago.
He is 40 1/4 inches tall placing him in the 95% for height. He weighs 34 lbs. placing him in the 75% for weight.
I had to give him a little quiz at the doctor's office testing him on his knowledge of shapes, colors, animals, along with his physical abilities such as jumping, drawing a line, etc. He did great.
They drew blood to test for anemia I think (just so they have it on file since they don't yet). He got to leave with a bandaid on one finger. The rest of the day I couldn't hold his "hurty hand." We have to go back in three weeks for the doctor to check some swollen glands in his neck. She said she isn't concerned (which actually made me a bit concerned since it indicated that maybe her saying this would get me concerned in the first place) but wants to check. He'd had a cold a week or so ago and she thought maybe the glands were the result of his body fighting off an ear infection on its own, but there wasn't any evidence of that so she wants to check him out to be sure.
What's going on with Little Guy now: He talks clearly (at least to us) and nonstop. He's had a lot of potty success (and a lot of potty failure). He'll hunt B down anywhere in the house with a stack of books to be read to him. He'll allow PS to cuddle him, share a chair with him, etc. but seems to see Buddy as competition and pushes him away. I'm sure Buddy brings a lot of this upon himself. He told me tonight that he wants a pet dog, a pet cat and a pet fish. Then he changed his mind and said he wanted a dog, three cats and a fish. The dog will of course be named Caterpillar. That's his favorite name for every animal he pretends to me. The other day he asked to be carried and then curled up on my chest and said he was my baby cow. B loves it when he picks Little Guy up and Little Guy isn't expecting it and says cute stuff like, "I love being carried." When I went to get the mail today (our mailbox is attached to the outside wall immediately adjacent to our front door) he told B "we don't have a mommy now." The other day, I left to go to the store or somewhere and when B came downstairs, Little Guy said to him, "We don't have a mommy now, you be the mommy." Apparently, in his eyes, I'm the one in charge.
He doesn't have a check-up with his cardiologist until May/June.
