president's day weekend

On Saturday, the winds blew fierce. Perfect for kite flying, right?

It proved to be a bit too windy, but the boys loved it while it lasted.

Uncle Scott and Uncle George were in town to celebrate Grandpa Jerry's birthday, so they joined us for a bit. Will enjoyed getting acquainted with these silly two.

We ended up at the playground, where Andrew enjoyed helping our buddy Euan.

Lunch afterwards with dear old friends at Z burger. I should note that both Andrew and Caden can down one of these burgers in an amazingly short period of time.

Gathering with family after church at Monie's for an official birthday lunch.

Caden enjoying this incredibly yummy chocolate cake (from a fabulous bakery in Vienna).

Will got to play with his cousins.

On Monday afternoon we ventured down to Tysons with the Choi's to play, ride the train, visit the lego store for the first time, and eat dinner at the food court. An all round super time - and Jen and I even got to sneak away and shop for an itty bit ;).

taste of spring

A 70 degree day in February (now over a week ago)....absolute heaven.

The boys did this for hours. In shorts and flip flops, we played outside until dinner (pizza!) arrived.

Will enjoyed chewing on leaves while I chased balls and talked with neighbors. Yep, he's a third.

This boy wants to wear shorts and t-shirts ALL the time - he was happy.

And 4 days later, we had snow and ice. We loved it while it lasted, and it was a sweet reminder that Spring really isn't that far away.

a weekend with Grandma Kathy

It's hard to top a weekend with Grandma Kathy. Andrew crossed off the last day on his countdown calendar on Thursday, and headed off to school. We picked her up at the airport after she'd flown all night, and drove straight to Andrew's school for carpool pick-up. It was a weekend packed with fun, and many sweet moments. Here are a few highlights.

Will lovin' his Grandma. One of the major reasons for this visit was to have time with him before they watch the boys during our trip at the end of March.

She's so much fun. They played a bit while the older two got busy in the kitchen.

A visit with Grandma Kathy = making zucchini bread.

Watching it bake.

Andrew got comfy.

On Friday afternoon we worked on their Valentines. They love any excuse to paint, so this was fun.

Andrew had very specific colors he chose to use for each of his friends.

They both liked sitting next to Grandma at meals, which meant scooting as close as possible.

On Saturday, Dave planned a fun trip to the National Cathedral (just 5 minutes from our house). It's one of our favorite spots in this city, and as many times as we've been there, the boys have never been inside. Dave had fun preparing the boys by showing pictures on his computer, and explaining why it was built.

Making our way to the front.

I wish I could have captured Caden's reaction (huge gasp) when he saw his first stain glass window. Pure delight.

The boys brought their camera - here they were posing for Caden.

Off to explore.

So much to take in.

One of my favorite windows. One of the first times that Dave and I spent time together (summer of '98) we attended a concert here, and sat in the balcony directly below this window.

Fascinated by a window which includes a real piece of moon rock.

Grandma was nice to push Will around. He loved the sound of his echo, and his volume was impressive ;).

Caden kept pulling out hymnals (calling them Bibles).

Group shot.

Oh, there we are.

Will, sitting in the President's seat.

Taking in the colors.

We headed upstairs for a quick walk around.

The view is amazing. You can see the monuments, the Capital, and several MD and VA suburb skylines.

This one didn't want to stay still for long.

And he's off.

The fun didn't stop when we got home. The colored in their own stain glass windows....

and built their own cathedral.

One last bedtime story with Grandma. She joined us for church on Sunday morning, and then boarded a plane that night so she could be back for work Monday morning. Whew. But such a treat for us.

a quiet february?

Somehow this month has been busier than expected, which is why we're half way through and I'm just now getting to this post. On top of our usual, the month started with some fun house guests for a week (Ryan and Lily, how did I not take any pictures!?), a visit from Tia, a much more active 14 month old, and a weekend visit from Grandma Kathy (pics of that in a separate post). There are also several people we love, dealing with loss and some extremely hard circumstances. So we grieve with them, we pray, we know that our God is good.

At 14 months, Will is changing so much. Crawling very quickly, starting to get up stairs, cruising, pulling books off of shelves (Curious George seems to be his favorite), signing "more" and "all done", waiving, pointing and wanting to know what so many things are. It's such a fun age.

Our boys were so excited to have a visit from their Tia. We loved catching up with her too :).

The big boys built New York city with the blocks in their room - it was fun to have an expert on hand to help.

a week in winter

We've spent a lot of this week on the inside looking out.

We came home from church last Sunday to discover that Caden was running a fever of 102. I'm fairly certain he had the flu, since the rest of us had been vaccinated, and no one else came down with it. It was weird to see him motionless for several days. By Tuesday he was back to his usual -running countless (seriously) laps in his superhero cape.

Tuesday evening, Dee Dee and Monie came over for dinner (Grandpa Jerry, the chef, was out of town). She was lucky enough to shake Obama's hand before leaving. That night an ice storm rolled through, which meant no school for either of the boys on Wednesday.

On Wednesday late afternoon, Will enjoyed watching the snow begin to fall. Daddy came home a few minutes early - it was a nightmare commute for many in our area.

It was an extremely wet, heavy snow, which meant a huge amount of power outages. Ours flickered several times, and was out for good around 9:30pm. Our older two are used to sleeping with the sound of an air purifier, so didn't like how quiet and cold it was. Caden ended up in bed with us a majority of the night - a first...and hopefully a last. That child is a mover.

We put on layers and huddled by the fire for breakfast. I managed to enjoy a warm latte thanks to Miss Moka and a gas stove ;).

Andrew snuck upstairs to watch a show (under several layers of blankets) we had downloaded onto the ipod for the airplane.

It was a sweet morning to cuddle under blankets, play games, listen to music on the laptop. We were expecting to be out of power for several days, since our neighborhood typically takes a long time. I packed up the contents of our fridge and freezer in garbage bags, and buried them in the snow. Our last piece of firewood was burning out, I was beginning to pack up clothes so we could flee to friends/family with heat when our power CAME ON! It was a wonderful surprise, and a perfect opportunity to clean out our filthy refrigerator ;). The upper part of our neighborhood didn't get power for another 2 days (Saturday).

We canceled bible studies Thursday night since our roads were still a mess, but enjoyed having some fun new friends over for dinner. We cooked up some tasty Guinness beef pot pie - I can't recommend this recipe enough (thanks Choi's): http://http//www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/JAMIE-OLIVERS-STEAK-GUINNESS-AND-CHEESE-PIE-1257390

School was canceled the rest of the week due to messy roads and power outages. Our days were lazy - think pj's until noon, hot cocoa and marshmallows, countless board games...

and attempting to teach this little one on the move to stay away from the dog bowls (he was a little bewildered to hear me say NO).

By Friday, the morning seemed to be a non-stop stream of bickering. Then came a needed respite, and this. Bags packed for a trip to see Grandpa and Grandma in Seattle. This is a regular part of pretend play in this household (as well as unpacking the bags in "their" rooms at Grandma Kathy's house).

Friday afternoon we got a bit of snow time at the Choi's - they had a BLAST on this sled.

Such teamwork.

That night we enjoyed having these dear out-of-town friends in for dinner.

Saturday morning they planned a birthday party for Owl. Party hats, and a cheerios/milk/orange juice cake, baked in the oven and prepared with love ;).

And that night we loved having the Choi fam (including Nai Nai and Guma!) in for dinner.

A cozy week at home. Full and sweet - moments that we'll likely look back on and miss someday. As for now, I'm looking forward to resuming a bit of normalcy tomorrow.