Oma and Opa's Visit!

February has been such a whirlwind of a month! Not sure where it went... can't believe it will be MARCH tomorow! Gary's parents came to town for President's day weekend last weekend! We had such a great time!! Saturday we went downtown to two of the Smithsonian Museums: American History and Natural History. It was a bit windy outside so we didn't get to do as much walking as we would have liked, but we still enjoyed showing them around the city!


Alex LOVED the trains!


We love Oma and Opa!


Checking out the dinosaur bones!

Alex loved looking at everything with his opa!

Another train! :)

We also showed them around Woodbridge some, went to Ikea, played at the apartment, left them with the kiddos so we could go on a date (SO fun!!!!), and ate at a Brazillian Steakhouse! It was so much fun having them in town for a couple of days!!

Kid Quotes

Just a few fun quotes this morning :)

Hanitizer = hand sanitizer... I think this is a better name for the stuff anyway ;)

A conversation over lunch:
Me: "What are you thinking about?"
Alex: "God"
Me: "God? What about God?"
Alex: "He's so big and so strong... kinda like my daddy!"
I was so shocked that he was randomly thinking about God! too cute :)

"Eh... I don't really like girls..." in response to if he had fun playing at church the other night (he was the only boy other than Nathan haha)

"The Bible is my faborit book. God makes me happy."

He brought me the "Space Encyclopedia" he got from the library and proceeded to say, "read me ALL the pages mommy. lots of words and pages, read ALL the words!" He's starting to notice if we skip a lot of the words!

In response to mommy telling Nathan not to do something (this has occurred several times in the past couple of weeks.
"Mommy! don't do that, he's' my brother! AND he's just a baby too, remember??"

"awww, good job Nafan! hooray!! he's standing mommy, look!!" (yes, nathan can now pull up to standing - before he'd just get up to his knees! he did it last night for the first time and has been doing it ever since!)

And, a list of words that may not be in the typical just-turned-three-year-old vocabulary:
cockpit
engine/turbojet engine
tail wheel (he's very concerned that one of his toy planes is missing the tail wheel)
biplane
seaplane
missiles
moon/earth/mars/saturn
space museum
asteroid
shooting star
rover
satellite
nose of the plane
telescope
propeller
rudder
His love for airplanes and rockets is incredibly cute! He knows just where to go as soon as we get to the library to get more non-fiction rocket and airplane books! And his favorite movie is a non-fiction kids video about planes! I love it!

It's been a while...

It's been a while since I've posted anything! We've just been busy with day-to-day happenings arounnd here!


Alex's imagination is just astounding me! His newest, favorite thing to do is set up a rocket (on the floor, couch, bed, etc) using his trio blocks as the control center! He has a key, buttons, air conditioning fan, steering wheel, computer, GPS, etc. He even uses a map of Virginia he found to see if he needs to go left or right and how many more "miles" it is! He calls himself "Captain Alex" and we can't forget to wear our suits and helmets, put on our seatbelts, and lock the doors! He flies his rocket to the moon or one of the planets, and sees shooting stars and asteroids through his "telescopes" along the way. Sometimes there's turbulence or monsters to shoot with missels. Things break and he has to get his toolbox to make repairs, and sometimes we run out of gas! He has seriously barely played with any toys lately because he is so busy playing pretend! His rocket now turns into a train and fire truck as well!


We took a trip to the Children's Museum in Richmond a couple of weeks ago! The kids had such a great time!

Then this past weekend, Kathryn was in town! It was SO great spending time with her! We went to the American Indian Museum and Air and Space Museum!

Other than those couple of "big outings", we've been busy learning new things of course! Nathan's newest thing is putting his hands up in the air when he wants attention! It's pretty cute... he puts them up, grins, and waits for the rest of us to say "hooray!"

He is also all over the place... he can make it across the room by rolling, scooting on his bottoom, or scooting backward. He spins himself around, gets up on all fours, and can pull up onto his knees easily. He also slowly cruises on things and LOVES to be standing. He's getting pretty sturdy! He is totally strong enough to crawl, but hasn't yet.

Other than that, the kids are sharing a room again (this happened a couple of weeks ago) and Nathan is sleeping great at night! He is napping better - taking a morning and afternoon nap (his afternoon nap usually lasting between an hour and fifteen minutes and two hours, with his morning nap being shorter).

And Alex is completely potty trained - he really has been since about a week into training, but I didn't want to jinx it! It's amazing how fast kids learn! He is even in underwear at night and for his nap. He's only had one night time accident! He does great when we're out, too... he can hold it for a very long time! (longer than me, I think! haha)

Well, I have two little boys that are begging for snuggles, so I better go!! :)

Big boys!

Wow, my boys are growing up right before my eyes. We're meeting new milestones and changing so much each day... I'm trying so hard not to blink! I was looking at some newborn pictures that some friends posted recently and it made me realize just how BIG my boys are... Nathan has his own little personality and such energy - he doesn't scrunch up in my arms like that tiny baby I brought home from the hospital almost 9 months ago (NINE months, really??). I've been looking online for preschools (oh my!) and summer programs for Alex... it can't be time for that just yet, can it?? It is so fun to watch my children learn new things and meet new milestones, but gosh, at the same time it is sad to see them move on and know that I'll never have them as tiny babies again. I thank God each day for these little miracles - these little people that bring me so much joy. I'm trying my best to savor the moments rather than wish them away - even when I'm ready for it to be naptime NOW so I can regain a little sanity, or ready for Gary to come home and offer a little break... or ready to lose my patience and give in to anger when things get tough. Motherhood is teaching me so much. Just thinking about how much I love my boys almost makes me hurt... and to imagine that the love I have for them doesn't even compare to how much God loves me - enough to send his SON for terrible sinners... wow! Motherhood has brought so much more understanding of the Gospel for me... it really is a crazy kind of love that our Father has for us.

Now, onto the new milestones we are reaching! Here are some of the things that are astounding me lately:

We started the potty training adventure again! We told Alex that when he turned 3, it would be time to use the potty. He wasn't overly thrilled... he told us he just wasn't big enough and he didn't know how to do it. We assured him he would learn (and I hoped that he really would! haha). To offer a little excitement, we put the potty in the living room, let him watch a few minutes of Toy Story while sitting there (his absolute favorite right now), and gave him 2 gummy bears every time he would try. I also set the timer for every 20 minutes or so for the first couple days. My hope was just to get him to "accidently" have a success and boost his confidence. Well, he spent almost the entire first two days running to the potty (mostly for the movie and treats... but I figured, hey, if he's excited it's really not a big deal if he watches TV and gets gummy bears for just a couple of days!) We came to realize that Alex doesn't pee very often AT ALL. Like 4ish times a day, which makes potty training that much harder haha. On day two he finally had his first success!!! I think I was more excited than him ;) On day three he was showing obvious signs of being about to pee, I put him on the potty and he went again! By day four he was TELLING us when he needed to go! We've had a couple of accidents since then, but he's doing AWESOME!!! I've been giving him a treat and a sticker on his "potty chart" when he goes and he loves it! He's even making it through naptime and last night he asked to sleep in his underwear! And he woke up DRY! I'm not going so far as to say he's "potty trained" just yet... and I know we'll still have accidents, but I am so proud of him! The next thing to tackle will be going #2 in the potty and going potty in public!

Probably my favorite quote of the whole potty training experience thus far (in reference to the idea of going #2 on the potty): "this is kinda freaking me out" where in the world did he get the word "freaking?" haha


And then there's this little boy! No, he's not crawling yet... but he is rocking on all fours, scooting (mostly backward), and getting from the sitting position to the crawling position.


Isn't he just so BIG!?! It's too cold and icy to ride outside... and it really doesn't hurt anything to do it inside, so we've been letting him ride this around the apartment for now! He's really getting the hang of it, it's pretty cute :)

Nathan's trying more and more table foods!

And he LOVES to stand! He'd much rather be standing than laying on the floor. He moves a little, but isn't totally "cruising". He is still a little "too confident" when he takes a step or lets go - you have to be sitting pretty close by just in case!

And we're sitting up alone in the bath AND able to take baths with big brother without mommy getting too nervous ;)

I LOVE to splash!!!!

So big! And so cute!

Love these two :)

Three!

Cannot believe my baby is three years old! Where has the time gone?!? Three sounds so old somehow!

We had a special day planned out for him on Monday for his birthday... Gary had the day off, so it worked out great!


First, a morning at Dunkin Donuts!



Then off to the Air and Space Smithsonian Museum! We had already been to the one in DC, so we went to the second one that they have in Chantilly, Va. It was great!

Alex, once again, was so into everything! I loved how he'd "explain" how things worked to us :)

In front of the Enterprise Space Shuttle! There's a picture of this in one of his library books and the page talks about how it's at this museum. Alex has been opening up to that page in the book for the past couple of weeks asking when we can go see it, he was so excited to see this rocket up close!

And his favorite 5 minutes of the day: sitting in an airplane! Gary tried to walk quickly past so we didn't have to wait in line.. .but of course Alex's radar went on and he saw the plane you were allowed to sit in!!

Up in the tower! It overlooks the airport and we got to see planes take off! It was very cool!!

After the museum, we went out to lunch! We picked up chick-fil-a for Alex and took it into Chipotle next door, yumm! Then we came home and let Alex watch Toy Story (his current favorite) and relax since he didn't get a nap. After that, it was dinner, cupcakes, and presents !

Nathan wanted to play with the gifts... Alex was not amused!!

Grocery cart! He ran and grabbed his play food right away to put inside :) He's been enjoying "shopping" the last couple of days! (I found this $30 cart on clearance for $7.50! I was pretty excited about it!!)

Buzz Lightyear Scooter!! He's getting better and better at this... he's not incredibly coordinated haha... takes after his mom and dad I guess ;) He's just been scooting it around inside so far since it's been so icy/snowy/rainy the last couple of days.

What a fun day! :)

Our week in GA!

We were so fortunate to be able to take a week and a half long vacation over Christmas/New Years this year! Christmas fell at the very beginning of our trip, so we had the whole week after to play with new toys, visit with family, and enjoy some fun activities!!

Gary and Alex had fun playing with Gary's new "toys" :) Gary got a remote control car and a glider plane for Christmas!! They both enjoyed playing with these toys throughout the week! Boys and their toys I guess ;)


There were 5 playgrounds within close walking distance of my parents' house, and the weather was beautiful, so we spent a lot of time outside! Nathan was pretty much indifferent about the swing the first couple of times... probably because he could barely move in his coat ;) Later in the week (when the weather warmed up) he liked it more!



Alex got several new games for Christmas... his favorite was probably this one - "Hi Ho Cherry O" - he played this probably 20 times throughout the week!! He does a surprisingly good job following the rules, taking turns, etc.

Gingerbread House tradition! We do this every year :) It was so fun sharing this tradition with Alex - he loved it! And our house turned out pretty cute (lots of time was spent - ha)!

Alex's birthday is coming up this month and he has been talking about "his party" for some time now (since his cousin's party in September!!) We had Gary's parents come down for the day and celebrated a couple of weeks early while we were in GA! His ONE big request for his party was party hats... we had to go to two stores to find them and these were still the only ones we could find! He was happy with them though :) Gary and I took Alex out shopping for all of his "party supplies" the day before his party - we made it a "Buzz Lightyear Rocket Party", combining two of his favorite things - Toy Story and Rockets!!

I'm THREE!!!! He was so cute!! This is the first year he really understood it was his birthday. He was smiling all day, telling everyone he was *almost* three, and was literally bouncing off the walls with excitement! We decorated and played with balloons and blowers, grilled chicken, had cake and punch, and then did presents :) Although, what kid really needs more presents right after Christmas? I guess that's the downside to a January birthday!

Nathan LOVED the ribbons off of Alex's gifts!

After Alex's party we went over to the Air Force Museum!!! Of course, it was a HUGE hit! Alex wanted to see EVERY SINGLE PLANE!! There were several big buildings, and planes outside. He didn't want to miss ANYTHING!

There were several planes that you could get in... I can't even describe his excitement! He could have stayed in there all day, literally. He was so busy checking things out, pushing buttons, and "flying". We couldn't even get him to pose for a picture!

He asked all day long to see more planes and would run off to the next thing. I've really never seen a kid stay interested in a museum for so long! He was very sad when it was time to go and kept asking if we could do it again. He's still talking about it and asking if we can go back there... we're thinking for his real birthday we're going to take him to the Air and Space Museum here in VA.

Nathan got to fly the airplane too! He loved it :) Here he is with my sisters!

Nathan LOVED this car! I couldn't believe he could actually stand up and push it backward by himself!!

We did sparklers and noisemakers for New Years! Alex remembered sparklers from fourth of July and LOVED it!

We had such a fun week!! These pictures sum up a lot of our week... but I can't end the post describing our week without mentioning all of the shopping we did! :) I'm not a HUGE shopper really, but shopping is pretty much the main event for the girls after Christmas each year! We went out several times for returns/shopping/and to get our nails done! Gary and I got to go out a few times too... we saw a couple of movies, did a little shopping, and went out to lunch a few times - all sans kids with the help of my family!! I love the treat of getting to go on dates like that when we visit family :)

And one last picture of my sweet boys, because they are just so cute! :D

Christmas Memories

We had such a wonderful Christmas at my parents' house in GA with my parents and sisters! We were there Christmas Eve until the day after New Years!


Christmas Eve after church! Bought these sweaters for the boys last year after Christmas... Nathan's was a little big!

Cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer!

Christmas morning! Santa came!!

So excited!

Alex loves his rocket!!

Grandma and Grandpa opening their gift from Alex and Nathan! Wish I would've taken a picture of it... we stamped "Grandma and Grandpa are Wrapped Around These Little Fingers" around a frame and then put their handprints and names inside. It was really cute! :)

The boys both enjoyed opening gifts! Nathan got a lot of help from his big brother!!

Happy boy!

Hugs and thank yous for Aunt Michelle!

This was the gift Alex picked out for daddy! :)

Hugs and thank yous for Aunt Cassie!

It was so fun to watch our boys enjoy Christmas this year ! They were both so much fun!! I'll post more about our week later, but wanted to get a few Christmas Day pictures up!