planets

Along with the visit to the planetarium, Aiden class has been learning about planets and constellations. Sharing this month was to make a star with your favorite planet on it. Aiden was first up to present his favorite and picked Earth. The planets and stars have been popular drawings on his easel. He added the planets song to his repertoire.
 

national harbor

We spent the Saturday before the holiday at the mecca which is the National Harbor. Just a quick jaunt over the Potomac not too far from our urban forest, they built a huge complex for conventions (i think the nation's largest) with shops and restaurants. They will have a new children's museum in 2013, but in the meantime they have a launch zone setup with a few mini exhibits (like a bee keeper setup) and an area for guided crafts. They had a craft theme of Holiday traditions around the world with fireworks from Columbia, papal stars from the Philippines, and new year luck plants from Croatia. Aiden was pretty jazzed and I was just glad we somehow managed to avoid crowds and have a nice low key time. We scurried along in the coldest day yet (mid 40s with wind off the water) to visit the tree right by this huge sculpture of a man buried in the sand. Aiden was giddy running between the knees and climbing up the fingers. They even had an outdoor market setup where Aiden and I could not resist the banana s'mores bread. We happened upon a Peeps store (a tie to last weekend's peep car sighting) and ran in to get warmed up. They had other candies like red hots highlighted and the pressable heat index was Aiden's favorite. We left with a batch of chocolate peep reindeer which melted in your mouth and tasted like hot cocoa - yum! We cruised through the Gaylord Xmas decorations (and we'll see if we head back for the big ICE thing they have since it may be more fun when the boys are a little older). We had a hard time deciding between all the restaurants but ended up at Mexican schmancy fairly fancy lunch and my enchiladas suizas were soooo good.

early xmas

Shortly after KC was feeling better and it had been a long, long week, a gigantic package arrived from Arizona full of Christmas presents!  Since we are headed to Ohio for Christmas and will have our fill of presents to open then (Aiden's presents alone may take him all day!)  We decided that a nice cheer up treat was in order to open a bunch of awesome presents!  Thanks, thanks for the thoughtful presents Nana and Grampa! We hope that you see some of the enthusiasm in these photos.  KC loved the wrapping and ribbons ;)

brothers

My baby blue boys.... Love them.

wild card

We've had all sorts of fun lately where balancing a camera in the mix just wasn't going to work.  Included are the neighborhood parties/ play dates (including a craft fest which I went to with a huge headache and it just seemed to get louder and louder in there although it was worth it for the jingle noodle necklace Aiden made me and insists I wear "just because I love you" - aw).

KC is a bit of a wild card on some of these fun adventures because you never know how he'll react...  Usually he's observant, but lately he started a screamy excited guy routine that I thought would get us chased out of the planetarium field trip.

I warned the teachers, but they ended up still needing my help since I'm a registered driver and have a big van.  So off we went and I hoped for a sleepy guy... He burned up all his nap on the drive and waiting to get loaded up.  So Mr. Kicky Feet was ready to party once we entered the planetarium at Thomas Jefferson.  The lights went down and he crooked his neck back with all the other excited kids.  He was quietly mesmerized the entire time following the laser pointer around.  Aiden was in heaven and said his favorite is the Seven Sisters.  I snagged the photo above off the web and it is almost the exact view we had of the dome night sky and their robot constellation machine.

break through

Yesterday J felt KC's first little tooth nub that broke through on the bottom. You can just barely see it, and when I try I get a shot of his head turning away. I bet by Xmas he'll have his two bottom teeth...

But in the meantime, my shots of his bed head remind me that I should go on record that this guy's hair texture makes me think he'll have curls. J thinks I'm crazy, but we'll see...

botanical

Living in this area feels like such a charm, especially this time of year and despite the traffic and crowds. When we hit the National Botanical Garden Season's Greetings train and natural sculptures exhibit at just the right time on Sunday - easy free parking, no line and not too many people - I was expecting little choo choos looping between pretty plants. But boy oh boy, it is so much cooler with the adorable elaborate little houses made out of twigs and leaves.  They had cute names like critter condo, peacock palace, giraffe garage, porcupine place, monkey mansion, many fairy flats, and many many more. They even had some inside scenes that were housed in this little tunnel right at Aiden's level.  There were bridges overhead with trains running and waterfalls near the loopy track. Then the historic scale models of homes and monuments was just as impressive. The rest of the garden had festive decorations with natural ornaments. There was bright sun warming up the cool day, so we scurried across the street to the Capitol building Xmas tree. Aiden's sun glasses and KC's little fuzzy suit kicky legs were making a bunch of tourists giggle and take their picture. The kids were almost as much of an attraction as the Peep car. J asked Aiden what law he thought was most important on the capitol steps and he said his law was to always go potty in the potty.  Here are some snaps from my iphone camera, some with this new kitschy little fisheye lens J got me as an early xmas present.

heritage farm

The cold set in a bit this weekend after spoiling us and we found this great museum in Sterling out towards my friend (who is moving this week and we will miss them). Best part was how low key and empty the place was so we had free run. They had a little Santa surprise shop set up so Aiden picked out some surprises for his grandparents (always funny to see what he picks)! The highlight was the racing horses (Aiden named his horse Busty). Then the farmhouse and general store held their attention for a nearly three hour marathon. Aiden became Farmer Gill who was constantly racing across the museum to the store to get more food for his family. KC was inadvertently dressed like a little farmer and kept those suede fuzzy booties kicking most of the time (looking huge in the bjorn, since we forgot to bring the ergo by accident). A nice visit to a new Wegmans topped off the day...

flashback friday

This was recorded on the last day this little bud was three years old, November 2, 2011.  Then four year-dom hit and the crazy got older ;)

TGIF recipe

Some weeks start with a visit to the doctor where she tells you she is glad you brought him in... Add in a lot of these sweet eyes looking up from your tired arms... Spike it with a pop of an electrical box at the end of your street complete with scary red fire and a power outage... Towards the end you mix in a little singing goofball who has a broken volume button when sleepy babies are around... Top it off with two late night meetings for daddy and you have one big fat TGIF to enjoy!

brothers

Here are my little devil dudes shortly before poor KC started coughing and ended up with his first ear infection this week.  He tried his best to giggle at the doctor to make me look like a crazy mom bringing in her perfectly healthy giggly guy, but the doctor found what was causing problems at 3:00am.  Poor guy is on the up swing!

Look at Aiden's face above - he'd swiped a piece from the huge puzzle and was hiding it behind his back... which KC thought was hilarious... I'm in big trouble with these two!

santa

The National Santa (officially the fourth santa we've visited) is chilling out in his shack on the ellipse with his jammies on and a picture of himself riding a motorcycle on the shack's mantle?!  

Aiden quotes:

 Well, Santa, I'm not sure what I want given that you construct toys made out of wood, and I prefer to ask for the biggest plastic monstrosity my mom cringes at ;)

Aw, mom, KC is going all poltergeist on us again and I wonder if Santa's shack has a nice potty?

Santa thinks daddy is funny too and KC wonders how he can grow a beard like that to match his vest suit.

national

The National Christmas Tree opened on the ellipse next door to the White House yesterday. So we headed over during a balmy December day to find our favorite state trees and visit Santa. Ohio had a bunch of random ornaments I couldn't quite figure out... Arizona was rocking the southwest motif. Santa has a whole workshop setup which is quite nice, and Aiden said the choo choo trains were his favorite.

tea

We signed up for a good manners program at the Gtown Safe way of all places and it was so much fun! It was an etiquette tea party with this funny Mrs B (who was much younger than expected)... She gave the kids pointers on how to be polite, shake hands so your thumbs are hugging, and look everyone in the eye. It's Yes, not yea... It's one item in your hand at a time... No elbows on the table... or you will turn into a frog when you get older!  It was fun to share sweet treats with our little mini professor AB and extra mini banker KC (who was even more adorable trying to pull up his sleeves). They even created a little mini flower arrangement we got to take home.

interview with ab

With all the excitement around here between the holiday and school birthday parties, etc, etc, I completely forgot about Aiden's four year checkup... He was weighing in at 39 pounds, just about 40 inches tall.  He was such a big boy reading the adult eye chart, raising his hand for the hearing check, answering all the doctor's questions himself (although he didn't want to admit to her that mac and cheese was his favorite food).  He had a big round of four uggggy shots to deal with and he was such a brave guy with the huge needles.  Geesh, you'd think they could do something to make it a little less scary for little dudes.
 

One word to describe you would be: Happy 

Why do you like being a kid? Because it's just so funny! 

If you could be any animal, which one would you be and why? Alligator because it's funny they can become mummies like the one we saw at the museum! 

Tell about a funny time in your life. Hiro's birthday was fun because she had a huge cake! 

What is your favorite thing to do? Why? Play with my zoo vet clinic and pretend the tree lights up 

What do you love most about your sibling? That he is so funny when he grabs me and my toys except my legos which I'm especially glad about 

What was the nicest thing you did for someone? Helping you and Gran find the right pieces to put together my zoo pet playmobil house 

What do you think you will be doing 10 years from now? Teaching little kids - I don't know what... 

What is the grossest thing you can think of? Not saying please and thank you is yicky! 

What is your happiest memory? Playing my memory games and that big dino puzzle that is taller than me!

gtown

Daddy's university was hosting a children's party with Santa right before the annual tree lighting. We actually hadn't been to J's new office which I thought was nice and Aiden decided to decorate by spilling hot cocoa around various parts of the room. He also did a number on his fresh shirt and pants just in time to go meet the university president and santa. Oh well, we delivered our books for the needy, and Aiden wondered what made someone needy. Then it was on to the extravagant kids party with a huge candy bar, carolers singing, and a spot to decorate your photo with Santa. I laughed at the shot of KC eyeing Aiden's lollipop from Santa. Then we went out on the nice mild evening for the tree lighting where Aiden was staring at the manger scene the whole time trying to figure it out (while I explained and accidentally called it a menorah - way to confuse). We danced as Santa arrived to join the acapella group and then headed down the road to home with our tired guys.

santa

Hmmm, how can I get that treat!?