Stockton/Kelsey Family Visit

Nathan's grandparents (Stockton) and Dad and Sue came into town for Nathan's graduation so we were able to show them around DC. I can honestly say that I'm getting a little tired of going down to DC so I guess it is a good thing that we are moving, but while we did many of the same old stuff we were still able to visit and see some new things for us as well. Most of the pictures are the highlights of the new things we did.

Going to the zoo isn't new but this is one of the few times that I got to see the panda bear outside and really close.

The whole crew! We met up with G&G Stockton's niece and her two sons. Easton had a blast having some friends around to play with.

National Cathedral

It was really cool and very pretty inside.

Stained glass throughout

Gettysburg
Dad and Blair with Abe.

Layne and Sue in front of the Washington Monument.

Us with G&G Stockton outside the white house.

Both kids sleeping at the same time. Doesn't happen very often.

White House gift shop (signing a bill).

Nathan giving a speech.

FDR Memorial. Easton is just so cute on the dog.

Jefferson Memorial

I saw that it was Easton's bus and had to take a picture.

At the Jefferson Memorial

At the statue garden waiting for the grandparents to finish the archives.

Blair happy to be out of the stroller.

Julia Child's kitchen at the American History Museum.

Easton getting a horsey ride from Grandpa.

Blair at 11 months

My baby isn't much of a baby anymore. It's hard to believe that she will be a year old in a month. I just love this little girl! Things have been busy with family in town so this month will just be a quick list.

-Getting her first tooth! It is definitely taking it's time to come in.
-LOVES yogurt! She still really can't stand chunks in her food but she is starting to do better and will attempt to swallow some (generally she gags and throws it up). Maybe when she gets more teeth things will go better for her.
- Still nursing most of the time. Not sure how weaning her in a month is going to work.
-Been very spoiled with her Binky, especially since we have been on the go, go, go! Weaning her in a month is not going to make her happy at all. Binky=very happy and content baby!
-Crawling on hands and knees. Still sometimes army crawls.
- Getting more daring when it comes to walking/standing. She will walk around holding onto someone with one hand but prefers two. I've seen her a couple of times let go of the couch but then grab on real quick once she realizes she isn't holding on.
-She is definitely a tease! She acts like she is giving something to you but once you reach for it she pulls it away and smiles really big.
-She loves to bug Easton but hates it when he bugs her.
-She has the biggest smile ever. I just love her cheesy smile.
-Gets into everything! She loves to pull everything out of bags and purses. She loves the shoe rack and throwing everyone's shoes off of it. She also loves ripping things apart (tissues, paper, etc).
-Pulls herself up on everything (especially loves the TV, dishwasher, and mommy). Loves to be where everyone else is.
-Her hair seems to be getting lighter and is definitely getting longer and fuller. I love that I can put her hair in pigtails.
-Her eyes are still blue but they have some yellow in them. Still wondering if they will change to green.
-Still a mommy's girl. I hope this never changes but if or when it does I know I will be heart broken.

That is about it for Blair at 11 months. We sure love this little girl!

Sled Family Visit

Last week my sister and nephews flew into town. We spent almost everyday down in DC. I don't have pictures for two of the days because Nathan took the camera with him when he went to Cali to check out our house (which he liked by the way-so it looks like we definitely will have a house). Hopefully I can get some pictures from my sister sometime in the near future (right Jana?) so I have some from the days I missed. Here are some of the pictures from the week.

Tuesday: Air and Space Museum, Sculpture Garden, and Natural History Museum:

Dad and Easton.

Easton had an accident right when we got off the metro on our way to the museum. Luckily I had an extra pair of pants for him but unfortunately they didn't match the rest of his outfit. Black pants with brown shoes. I guess it would have looked even sillier if he didn't have any pants on. Needless to say we had him in pull-ups the rest of the week but he didn't have any accidents.

Jana and Aaron


Aiden and Aaron.
Aiden cracked me up the entire time. He his such a funny little guy.

Aaron and Easton.

Easton ran off the sidewalk towards one of the sculptures and one of the police officers blew his whistle at him. Oops!

Aiden and Jana

Dad, Easton, and T-Rex

Aaron: "The bird pooped an egg!"

Blair, Dad, and Easton inside the sharks mouth.


Wednesday: Zoo

Thursday: Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, White House (both sides. We even saw the motorcade), finished up the Natural History Museum, and Archives.


Friday: Building Museum and Gallery of Art Museum. We also went to the mall to play and went to the Asian market.

Dad and Easton. I think Nathan had more fun building than Easton but Easton of course loved playing with daddy!

Jana and Aiden.

Blair loved putting everything in her mouth. It was gross but I couldn't stop it every time.

Jana building. Like I said I think the adults had just as much fun or more fun building.

Saturday: Amish market and park to see geese

Thanks guys for coming! We had a lot of fun and Easton definitely wants you to come back. "I want another Aaron!" "Where did Aiden go? Aiden come back?"

Catch up - two weeks ago

I am really behind on my blogging so I will try to catch up. Nathan had the last two weeks off so we all got to enjoy having Daddy around. Nathan came home a week early from his rotation in Texas so he could attend his AOA dinner. I can't tell you how excited I was to have him home a week early! I got to tag along to his AOA dinner and we left the kids with some friends. I wish I would have brought my camera so I could have got some pictures but Nathan told me not to. I think he thought that I would be the only one and that it would be weird or something. I still should have brought it just in case because there were definitely others who brought theirs. Oh well. We still had fun even though it was a little awkward at times since it was one of those fancy dinners. I really have no idea what to do at fancy dinners.

We enjoyed some time at the park and afterwards Easton enjoyed chasing the geese and squirrels near the lake.

Dad and Blair

Easton

Video of Easton chasing the geese:

I probably shouldn't have let him do this because he is doing it all the time now. Plus many of the geese have babies right now so it is scary for everyone. Easton isn't very happy now that I won't let him do it anymore.

Video of Easton trying to chase the squirrel:

I wish I would have started the video earlier because Easton kept running around the tree but couldn't find the squirrel. That squirrel is a clever one.

We also took a trip to Philadelphia.



Frame of where Benjamin Franklin's house and printing press used to be.


Cemetery where Benjamin Franklin is buried.




Dad and Easton with the Philly mascot? I think that is what Nathan told me it was.





Of course the liberty bell.


Washington Park

Where the declaration of Independence was signed.

Nathan of course had to get the Philly cheese steak! Every time he mentioned getting a cheese steak Easton and I thought he said cheese stick!


Easton of course wanted me to take a picture of him eating like dad.

Video of Blair drinking a smoothie:

I didn't get the best parts on video but every time we took the smoothie away or wasn't fast enough getting her some more she would clench her fists and freak out. I'm sure my family is thinking that this reminds them of a video of me when I was a little kid around Christmas time. Am I right?

Stairs Rocky ran up in one of the Rocky movies. We wanted to run up the stairs but it was getting late and we also didn't want to have to pay more for parking so we just drove around several times to get a decent picture. I know we're weird!


Its a bad picture(like I said we were driving) but if you look at the bottom left corner you might see the statue of Rocky.

Easton watching a movie on the way home. He finally will wear the headphones so now I don't have to listen to the same movies over and over again. This definitely makes me happy since we will be moving across the country in about 2 weeks.

This handsome guy took me to the adult stake dance. We had a lot of fun learning some dance moves, visiting with some friends, and eating some yummy food! We were definitely over dressed for the occasion (we knew this before we went though) but it was fun to see Nathan all dressed up in his tux. He has only been able to wear it once and I never got to see it so he decided he wanted to get some use out of it.

This cute little girl is working on her first tooth (bottom left!)

Random video of Easton singing "the elephant moves so slowly":

He loves this tape and could watch it all day if I let him.

Exciting News!

We finally have a house! It has five bedrooms with a bonus and three bathrooms. It has new carpet and paint and the kitchen is updated. We are really excited. We actually haven't seen it in person yet (a little scary) but Nathan is going to fly out next week to see it. Hopefully everything works out and Nathan likes it just as much or even more in person. The only thing that we aren't too keen on is the backyard. In the pictures it doesn't look very big but it is definitely better than what we have now, which is no backyard. Plus there is a park just down the street from us. We have until April 30th to get our inspections done and make our final decision. Here are a few inside and outside pictures of our house:

I'm guessing this is what you first see when when you walk in the house.
(living room and dining room w/family room off to the right?)



family room connected to the kitchen?

kitchen

master bath

backyard. Not much of a backyard. We will probably take out the gravel and bricks (maybe the cement around the deck?) and put grass there. Nathan will have a better idea once he sees it in person.

Costume Party

Easton was invited to go to a friend's birthday party. All the kids were supposed to come dressed up in a costume. I really didn't want to go out and buy a costume but even if I did I'm guessing it would have been really hard to find a costume this time of the year so I decided to work with what we had around the house. This was a little tough because our choices were slim: cowboy (cowboy hat), Davy Crockett (raccoon hat), or superman (pj's). Since I really didn't have clothing to go with either of the hats I decided I would work with the pj's. I thought there would be other superheros (there actually wasn't) so I wanted to do something a little different. I decided Easton would be Clark Kent/superman. We had everything except glasses so I headed to the dollar store and found some goofy ones there. They were definitely too big for Easton and he hated to wear them so he only wore them for a few second so I could take pictures. Since Blair was tagging along I thought it would be fun for her to dress up as well. Her costume was a lot easier because my mom sent her a cheerleader outfit a while back which fit her perfectly. Since I was already at the dollar store getting glasses for Easton I picked up some pom poms for Blair. She wasn't a fan of those either. I guess I could have saved myself some time and money (not that $2 is much) by not bothering to pick up those accessories. Oh well I thought they were cute anyways.

Blair really didn't like the pom poms or the headband.

Pic w/out the pom pom and headband. A little happier.

Parachute at the party.

Blow up bounce house. It would have been a cute pic if the other kid's hand wasn't there.

Cute things Blair is doing:
- shaking her head no (I'm sure it won't be cute once she learns the word no).
- making her stinky face (blowing air in and out of her nose quickly).
-starting to crawl on her hands and knees. She doesn't do it very much but she will do it every once in a while.