craft

The Textile Museum was a treat not just for me, but also for Aiden's craft bug.  They had a bunch of make and takes, along with opportunities to contribute to some weaving.  He made a stuffed turtle,  beaded necklace, woven paper bookmark, cotton ball sheep, and fish fabric stamp.  He told me his favorite was "sliding and catching the shuttle" while he was weaving!

national geo

The DC area is full of gems, and the museums along Embassy Row and nearby were hosting a Museum Walk.  We took a tour of the Titanic at the National Geographic Museum (just a few days before we board our first cruise ship!?)  The boys were very excited by this walk-on surface that looked like the underwater ship wreck and then when you walked over it revealed the original surface of the ship.  The gift shop had fun safari hats and a giant cheetah friend.  Aiden declared it was Todd's cousin.  They also had a Samurai warrior exhibit with old photos from the 1850s and old costumes, but no photos allowed.  I wish I could have recorded the sound effects KC was making - Oh, Ah, Woo!

interview with ab

This guy visited NYC for the first time this month.  We came out of Penn Station and walked for five blocks and stopped at a crosswalk.  Aiden looked right at me surrounded by huge buildings and asked, "When do we get to the city?"  He told me last night that he's "always on the goooo!"  
Here are more of his own words:
One word to describe you would be: Big head!
Why do you like being a kid? To help other people.
If you could be any animal, which one would you be and why?  Lion cause I would have a mane to protect myself.
Tell about a funny time in your life.  Opposite Day when I didn't say please and Dogs say meow and Cats say whatever Dogs say...
What is your favorite thing to do? Why? Eat chocolate because it is deeeelicious!
What do you love most about your sibling?  That he is so cute cause I like to play with him
What was the nicest thing you did for someone?  Not pee in my pants at night
What do you think you will be doing 10 years from now? Go to Chuck E Cheese in my electric car to do all the rides
What is the grossest thing you can think of?  Boogers
What is your happiest memory? Oh, I don't know, Mother's Day, I forget what was happy?

14 months

Dear Keaton, the Full Face Smiler,

This month you would smile with your whole face.  There are two versions, the big gapping mouth wide eyes or the full scrunch face closed eyes.  My favorite is the little scrunch face because you can see the joy in your lips and the jolt of energy you get from the smile.  You have a little bounce in your step when you get excited and that paired with music gets you beebopping.  The dancing bounce and spinning in circles are the absolute best smiley moments.  A close second are your calm cuddle smiles.

You've started walking full force, not just toddling.  The zombie arms are now more of a warrior charge with just one arm ahead of you. You can walk in your shoes and your sandals now, although at first you looked like a kitten with tape stuck to the bottom of your feet.  Your walking is much smoother compared to the early days where Aiden dubbed you Baby Roboto with your jerky arms and kicky legs. Your brother also nicknamed you Wacky Guy because you like to swing your whole arm back and swing it into whatever may come into its path - wack!  You definitely know what gentle means now, but whether you listen is a whole other story. 

You've figured out how to carry things while you balance and you manage to carry the big ball and two smaller toys stuffed in your fists.  You spent the majority of your days walking in a big circle from the playroom, dining, kitchen, living room and repeat.  You sometimes squawk when I try to hold your hand now which is the exact opposite of last month.  At your brother's sports class you try to join in and last time the teacher was nice enough to even give you a dinosaur stamp - you squealed with delight.

 On our trip to NYC, you loved walking up and down the aisle in the train eating up all the fawning attention from other passengers.  You loved kicking your feet in the ergo as we walked, and then jumping out to explore a few fun spots on your own.  You got in on the action at the toy stores stomping down the path at Candyland leading me to what you wanted to see.  You were not interested in going near the big chubby Candyland King and kept one eye glued his direction as you snuck away. You helped point out pigeons to your brother and giggled as he chased them down in Central Park.  You ate up the singers that sang to you at breakfast at the Stardust diner.  I think your favorite was looking out the giant window in our hotel room at all the big buildings and stacks of parked cars outside.  

Thank you for taking good naps lately, but I have a small favor to ask. How about instead of waking up at 5:30/6am (or earlier - Geesh) and wanting to nap again at 8:30, please consider sleeping until 9? Asking too much?  Ok, 7:30?  Your night times are sometimes smooth and sometimes screamy and squirmy.  You did cooperate in the big hotel room in NYC, let's hope you stick with that on our big cruise vacation this month.

Your crazy hair and bed head makes me giggle.  The bird feather baby hair is starting to grow in a bit more, but the original hair is getting longer and longer.  So you have this crazy wild hair effect that has a mind of its own.  The yogurt hair product you smear into your eyebrows and curls definitely helps the look.  The slide I managed to convince your dad to setup in the basement, causes a funny static cling.

You love playing with your toes and reciting, This little piggy went all the way home...  especially with your daddy.  You get so excited when he gets home.  You assume that daddy is on the other end of every phone call, pretend or real.  You like to pretend everything is a phone especially the remote control.  The remote control is harder and harder to hide from you and oh boy, you don't like when I won't let you wack the window with it.  Your getting in some good kicks too, oh boy, more destructo baby moves!

As I rushed into the bathroom (that's my excuse) in our NYC hotel room, you quickly snagged a Keurig coffee cup and decided to try to pretend you were a Keurig machine and punctured your own teeth marks into the grind cup.  In other parenting flop moments, your favorite distraction was holding an iphone cord and putting both ends together and making a buzz noise while laughing.  I have trouble explaining to you that I can't do anything about the table when you try to stand up under it and bump your head.  I try to get you to scoot out carefully but you get mad, mad, mad at that doggone table and your long legs making it hard to stand up underneath it.

This month we broke out the bubbles a few times.  You loved watching your brother make gigantic bubbles in Central Park and playing with simple bubbles in the bath.  You think all bubbles are amazing.  Trying to capture a photo of your squealing and flailing around trying to catch bubbles is nearly impossible.  I usually get the reaction after the bubbles have popped.  

We have a chipmunk family that lives right outside the glass door in the basement.  They pop in and out of the drain pipe and you notice them even from across the room.  You will chatter as you scurry towards the door with your pointer finger out.  You will tap your finger against the window and squeal at Chippy.  I can tell when you see Chippy far off in the yard because you will scrunch your face and pretend to by the chipmunk by chattering your teeth.  

You are a climbing boy, and your brother did not really prepare us for this phenomenon.  You can make it up backwards on your slide with your squirmy legs and your feet have some traction.  You like climbing up on the baby picnic table to get at your brother's cars. Your always trying to get up on the couch to look out the window.  You even try to get up on the twirly office chair while grunting the same noise you hear when I say dangerous.  You are pretty good about waiting for me until you start up the stairs.  You like to try to walk down the steps even though they seem giant.  As your daddy long legs grow, it will get easier, so I'm glad that you like to try out the motion of stepping down.

You love being invited to your brother's animal picnics.  I try to step back and let your brother lead the fun and let him deal with your attempts to pounce and "destroy" his setups.  You love Todd the Cheetah about as much as your brother.  You think it is so fun when Todd gives "attack hugs."  You were super huggie at library storytime the other day.  You made a friend and you both wanted to share hugs that end with a roll on the floor.  

At the end of the Moo, Baa, LaLaLa book, it asks "What do you say!?"  Your answer is correct, "Da, Da,  Da!"  This book along with the Barnyard dance have been in constant rotation lately.  You are getting a longer attention span for books, but still like to pull at the pages more than listen.  You do sometimes take a quiet moment on your own to turn pages in books on your own and babble and point at the pictures.  

You are so excited to have your own hooded towel like your big brother.  I'm not sure why it took us so long to get out our stash of towels.  You now want to take a quick bath in order to get into your hooded towels as soon as possible.  Those towels make you giddy.  The other favorite giddy moment is when this Lisa Loeb kiddy song, Opposite Day, comes on the radio in the car.  No matter your mood, your head immediately starts beebopping and your arms start raising the roof.  I look forward to dancing through another fun month with you as we kick off the summer in style.  Caribbean here we come!  Happy 40th anniversary to your grandparents!

Ya Man!  Mama

todd's birthday

Todd, the monster eating cheetah, is an everyday comfort for our big guy and I think gets star status from the little guy.  Todd gets the best kisses and attack hugs.  Every night Aiden gets a whisper from Todd telling him how many monsters he plans to eat in the night to protect Aiden.  It's usually in the 600s, so that is one busy cheetah.

It's been off and on thunderstorm rain guck, and Aiden decided that he wanted to have a birthday party picnic for Todd.  The theme was Duck, duck, goose!  The cake was a duck (stuffed animal friend).  Aiden planned that there would be singing, drumming, dancing, reading out loud, and of course present time!  Todd received some awesome hand cut paper balloons from Aiden and a broken car from Keaton.  There were streamers and old party hats carefully arranged.  Turns out Daffy Duck can really keep a beat on the drum and Donald likes to try to explain that he isn't the type of duck that you eat as cake.

swim

It's swim season!  We made it to the Mom's Club BBQ last night and I thought we'd just grill out and hang out at the beach just as we have all winter long... oh no, with so many other people swimming and wading around, both boys were quickly tempted by the water.  I wasn't prepared for the impromtu dip, but I came prepared the next day! We took a full picnic to the beach to celebrate my friend's new Dr ;) This is KC's first official swim in the lake... and didn't you know superman wears a swim vest?!  It's amazing how much independence Aiden has in the lake this year compared to last year.... and KC and I just cuddled in the shade last year, so talk about a change!

bunnies

These farm bunnies were named Peanut butter, Oreo, and S'mores. Even KC got in on the action gently petting the super soft itty bitty two month old bunnies. Bunnies make everyone smile, and I especially smile at bunnies named PB.

playhouse dairy

More photos from the Lavender farm, where the front porches were welcoming both at the main house and kids playhouse. The kids' house was fully stocked with fun stuff and a lofted area any kid would love.  We didn't eat the plastic food in the playhouse kitchen, although we were pretty hungry after cutting our lavender.  We made a day of it and headed down the road for some open faced sandwiches at the town restaurant called the Chuckwagon ;) and dipped ice cream cones at a dairy bar (it was crowded so we knew it would be good!).  Yes, they dipped my chocolate cone in the most delicious peanut butter dip - yummo!

lavender

We headed to Seven Oaks Lavender Farm today at the start of the early lavender season. We are glad the picking season started early so it wasn't too hot since it will only get toastier and toastier around here from now on I bet. The farm is not too far away but seems like it's in another world, as J calls it, real Virginia. There were a bunch of lavender bushels spread across the front yard of a cute farmhouse. They also made you feel at home with an invitation to enjoy the deck and the kids' playhouse. They gave you a cute basket and some scissors to snip your own stems. Aiden cut all but a few of the 50 stems we brought home and even spotted some spittle bug foam (he recognized from his bug book). A mixture of light French and darker English lavender made our car smell sweet.

play

Aiden has started having independent play dates where we drop him off or another kid comes over without his or her parents. This seems like a milestone and he seems to like the independence. We traded time for teacher conferences this week. During our time with Ava, we took a trip to the beach to check out the fort area...and practice a choo choo conga line out of the woods ;)

becca!

We had a fun morning playing at the beach followed by yummy BBQ lunch and dairy godmother treats with Rebecca and her husband! It's hard to believe that Becca started taking Aiden full time at home when he was just a little bit older than KC right now. KC pulled out his full face smile to charm them. Aiden enjoyed showing them all around his new home.

end of year

Georgetown just finished out the year, so they hosted a family BBQ to celebrate!  The biz school is about triple the size of the largest program at Brown, so it was a pretty big party.  The DJ brought hula hoops and jump ropes, and we brought the kid faces ready for face paint and our appetites.  KC toddled around the party trying to drag a hula hoop and beebop at the same time. Aiden is Mr. Social lately, so he made friends immediately. The lion and tiger boys chased the butterfly girls all around the party.  Aiden did not want to leave when it ended.

NYC :: library

We are library lovers and Aiden just started reading the original Winnie the Pooh stories by A. A. Milne.  So when I read that the original stuffed friends that inspired him to write the books were on display at the New York Public Libraries main branch, I knew we had to make it over there.  Before we went to get our luggage and head to the train station, we had plenty of time.  We even had time to make puppets when the librarian invited us to their puppetry program.  Aiden really loved his bag puppets and they even kept him busy a bit on the train home.  KC even made one with my help and loved putting his arm in and shaking it all around.  It was a nice calm spot to end our whirlwind trip to the city!