Botanical Garden Trains

This is my favorite museum during the holidays and I have to admit I will really miss it next year. I was excited to see that this year they'd moved the mechanical trains inside the museum instead of outside where in the past we've had to stand outside in the rain/snow/cold to watch them. They also seemed to break down less this year... hmmm.

Seriously, can you beat this? 85 degrees inside, beautiful plants and Christmas decorations!

This picture epitomizes December for Isaac. Walking and pointing, and if you added sound to that picture you'd here a hissing/spitting/throat sound which in Isaac-speak means "I want that".

We love our playgroup. As we were driving in the car yesterday, Ethan announced that tomorrow he is going to be a girl. When asked why, he answered because he loves girls. He loves Hannah, he loves Elise, he loves Summer. He's surrounded by girls, what can we say?

Seriously amazing- and free! We love the Smithsonian!

Kristina's Baby Shower

As part of the festivities at Thanksgiving, we threw a little baby shower for my cute sister Kristina who lives far away in Provo, Utah. She is having a "holiday" baby as she calls it. They found out on Halloween that they're having a boy. He is due on St. Patrick's Day, but the Doctor told her not to expect him until April Fools day since he's her first and she'll probably be overdue.

Everyone brought lots of cute boy clothes and accessories- poor thing had to cram them into her luggage.

We made this cute sunflower cake and had a great time hanging out as women, chatting, and saying "ahhh, how cute!"

A Non-Traditional Thanksgiving

For the past few Thanksgivings, we have spent our days happily crammed together in one of my brother's homes, cooking food, eating, watching football, getting up at 3am to shop, chasing kids around the house, and generally having a crazy time. My youngest brother Jeff got home from his mission in August though so my mom post-poned our normal summertime family reunion until Thanksgiving this year. So everyone flew in from Utah and Texas and drove in from New York state, Ohio, Chicago, and DC. Because there was no home big enough to accomodate 13 adults and 9 grandkids, my mom decided we'd all stay in hotels attached to an indoor water park in Sandusky, Ohio. So while we drove through snow to get there, it was a balmy 85 degrees for our weekend. Heavenly! We did eat turkey, stuffing, potatoes, etc. albeit cooked and prepared by Meyers grocery store. Most of the weekend was spent riding water slides, catching waves in the wave pool, surfing, and riding the lazy river.

Isaac was not impressed and spent most of the time with a dazed look on his face (in fairness he was cold- poor, skinny child). Ethan was in heaven playing with his cousins and going down slides over and over again. Sadly, I was not very good at taking pictures. Above is Ethan warming up in a towel and Taylor and Isaac at one of the kid play areas.

Some of the other cousins- Ian, Madeline, Claire, Ammon with his back turned and my older brother Dave.

The older grandkids loved that there was a bar area big enough for all 6 of them to fit. L to R- Ammon, Nathan, Ian, Ethan, Madeline, Noah.

One of the best parts of the whole trip was the Monopoly game. For the past 2 months, all of my brothers and sisters have been secretly emailing back and forth plans for creating a "Kitchenopoly" game (Kitchen is my maiden name). We changed all the properties on the board to places we've lived (not too hard since we've actually moved to 8 different cities/states) and locations with memories. All the cards turned into funny stories from growing up. I think my parents truly were touched to receive it. As we played it together, we tape recorded the stories so we have them to compile into a book. Family history in a game- can you get better than that? It was also a neat way for all of our spouses to learn some things about us growing up. I especially love the picture above because it's of Taylor, Fred (my sister Kristina's husband) and Dana (my sister Kelli's husband- she's sitting with him) and my oldest nephew Noah (he thinks the uncles are cool). It's great to see that all our husbands like each other and enjoy hanging out together.

The last day of the trip we drove to my brother's house in Cleveland and spent our time taking naps, playing Mario Cart, and eating fondue (a Kitchen family tradition we usually do every Christmas Eve). It was a great Thanksgiving and a great reunion all rolled into one and we only wish we all lived in the same state so we could do this more often. We're voting Utah! Anyone want to join us???

Isaac at the Park

I was looking through our files and realized that I had forgotten to ever post this, so here it is 2 months late, but just too cute to pass up. I love his little laugh as he gets to the slide. He was so giddy and couldn't stop laughing every time he was about to go down. Sadly it's only in the 40's today or this might inspire me to take the boys to the park.

Special Cupcakes for the Big Game

The LDS law society at GW decided to rent out a sports bar for the Utah v. BYU game this past weekend. It really was a great event considering both the turnout (we had just over 40 BYU and Utah fans) and the outcome of the game. Sarah was especially supportive of our differences in perspective dressing our children in both red and blue clothing.

There were two true highlights of the evening from my perspective. The first came when I attempted to give Ethan Blue tortilla chips on his plate. He looked at me and said, "I don't want blue Dad, I want red!" I'm so proud, I've already won the heart and mind of one of my children.



The second were our cupcakes. Sarah got a really nifty book, if I do say so myself, on how to design cupcakes. Hopefully many of you will be the benefactors of cleverly designed cupcakes in the future. In honor of the game, Sarah designed special cupcakes to mark the occasion. I contributed the BYU and Utah helmets to the creation. Believe it or not, everything was edible. The goal posts were chocolate dipped pretzels, the grass and lines were frosting, the helmets were Dots dipped in frosting. It really was a lot of fun.



I gained some degree of respect for the "Ace of Cakes" folks as I attempted to balance the cupcakes on the drive to the sports bar. We sort of one-upped them in fact, because we managed to get 27 cupcakes, arranged in a sculpture, to our destination still in one piece. Anyone can transport a solid cake, I mean c'mon.

Keeping us laughing

Just some funny stories we have to write down so we can tease these boys when they're older.

Isaac has become very sneaky. He loves playing with our computer mouse because of the laser on the bottom. Friday he waddled into our room, looked at me with a little grin and then proceeded to grab a law book off of Taylor's book shelf. I told him "no, no" and got up to take it away from him and put it back. I turned around to find that he had sprinted over to the computer desk and had the mouse in hand with a triumphant look on his face. I then took that away from him and he started the whole process again. He went and got a book off Taylor's shelf, gave me a little smile, and then waited for me to come take it from him. This time I was smarter than the 11-month old though and I put the mouse away! He was pretty upset that his rouse didn't work the second time.

He has also started climbing which Ethan never did (literally, Ethan NEVER did. He slept in a crib until he was 3 and never once climbed out. We even used to make him sleep in the bathtubs at hotels because he thought it was a crib and wouldn't try to climb out.) We are not so lucky with Isaac. Twice last week Ethan yelled across the apartment for me to come "see". Once Isaac had climbed from a kiddy chair onto their play table and was climbing along their play kitchen (2 feet in the air). The second time he scooted Ethan's bathroom stepstool over to the toilet, climbed onto the toilet and was trying to climb from the toilet onto the sink (a good foot away) when I found him. He just laughs when I pull him down and say "no, no".

Ethan was also funny tonight. He has lately been rushing through prayers and we can barely understand him so Taylor reviewed the prayer process before he began... what do you want to say thank you for? what do you want to ask for? When asked what he wanted to ask for, he replied "to save". Taylor asked "what would you like Heavenly Father to save?" Ethan's reply: "the dinosaurs". Taylor's reply: "go ahead and ask him, it might be a little late."

New York, New York!

I was doing calculations the other day and realized that I've lived in DC longer than I've lived anyplace else my entire life. It's kind of crazy. For 4 of those years, Taylor's brother has lived on Long Island while he's going to school at Hofstra University. Taylor's been up to visit twice but we've never wanted to pay for hotels and I've never wanted to stay in the frat house. So this summer when he bought an apartment in Brooklyn, we started making plans to visit. Mack and Sam were so gracious to let us crash with them even though the boys wake up at 6am and they chased their 2 dogs around the apartment the whole time.
Mack didn't have class on Friday so he toured us around the city. We saw the World Trade Center site, walked around battery park, the financial district, Times Square, FAO Schwartz, and the Mac Store. The only real bummer was that the big piano and legos were closed at FAO Schwartz because someone had rented them out for a birthday party (how much would that cost?).

We also took the ferry out around the Statue of Liberty. We didn't get off because you can only go into the pedastal and not up to the crown or the flame.

I thought DC was a big city, until I visited New York. It's monstrous! I can't believe anyone lives there with all the traffic and masses of humanity, but to each his own.

We did go visit Ellis Island which was amazing. Taylor's grandmother actually came through there in 1948 so it was interesting to see the actual rooms she walked through and learn about what experiences she had there. This is the main hall where judges would sit behind the desk and all the immigrants had to file off the boat, up the stairs, and then into lines to wait their turn. It made me wonder how long she stood there staring out these windows. Was she scared, lonely? She was by herself but we hope someone on the boat befriended her. She must also have been scared and afraid of being persecuted for being a jew because on the official record, she changed her middle name from Rebekah (sounded too Jewish) to Renee.

Sadly, she passed away last year so no one can ask her those questions now. It was her first step into America though, a country that offered her a new life with new opportunities for education and occupation, and a new family to fill a long, happy, full life. I'm grateful for places that remind me of what an amazing country we live in and how blessed we are to have the freedoms we do.

The Perfect Birthday

I have to give a big thank you to my hubby for out-doing himself on my birthday. I was somewhat bummed last year when he decided to go to Business school which added an extra year, knowing that I would be 30 before he even graduated. Two weeks ago he took a midterm in his Monday night class and thought he bombed it so he came home and announced that he didn't think he'd be able to skip class for my birthday. So I was totally surprised Monday morning when he announced that he wasn't going to class (he didn't actually bomb the final- but got an A-, crazy guy). We spent the morning together as a family and then he arranged for one of our friends to come watch the boys so we could go out on a little afternoon date. If you haven't been to the Library of Congress in DC, it's well worth a trip. It's honestly comparable in ornateness to the cathedrals in Europe- only there's modern lights so you can actually see the paintings and sculptures well. It's still a working library so you can't go in all the parts, but it's amazing to see.

These cheribum (little angels) line the double staircases in the main hall. In an American twist, they couldn't just be angels sitting peacefully, they had to be working. So the sculters gave them each jobs. One had grain representing the harvest, one had a graduation cap and diploma representing learning, etc. I don't remember all of them but it was interesting to see all the work as well as thought that went into this building.

In addition the library has a complete Gutenberg bible (no pictures allowed because it would damage the book) as well as Thomas Jefferson's library collection. Pretty amazing.

To top of the night, our friends who had babysat the kids in the afternoon took us all to dinner. Crazy with 3 toddlers but at least they stuck us in a corner of the restaurant.

Chillin' with Mrs. Gilbert Arenas, her kids, and her BLING!

The Jazz were in town last night playing the Wizards, but I wasn't really planning on going to the game. A friend of mine called on Monday to tell me that he could get me tickets. I'd already planned to go out to dinner with a friend for his 40th birthday, so I told him I couldn't unless he could get me 8 tickets so that I could redirect the birthday party from the restaurant to the Verizon Center. Amazingly, the 8 tickets came through and we showed up at will call to pick them up. To our surprise, we were sitting lower bowl, about 6 rows from the court, with all the player's wives. A friend of mine from India, who watched his first B-ball game, was especially shocked to see the sticker price of the tickets - $235.

The Jazz ended up losing in the last 2 minutes after what was a pretty exciting game.

The eye opening event of the evening was observing the player's wives.



They all had babysitters that were busying watching their kids while they watched the game and chatted with each other. The other thing they had in common were enormous, seemingly very expensive diamond rings on their hands. Gilbert Arenas's wife was sitting right in front of us with her two kids. She was sporting at least a 3 carat diamond mounted on a gaudy white gold setting. Even her little 4 year old daughter had diamond earrings. Quite a sight to be sure.

Periodically, Gilbert Arenas would make little peace signs up at his son who would make them back. I hope he didn't think it was weird that I was making peace signs back at him as well. No one else knew that he wasn't actually making them to me?

Dragon-Dinosaur and a Duck

I have to admit I can't resist the urge to dress my children up at Halloween. Honestly I think they're the cutest pictures from the whole year! Taylor's mom has been hinting that she wanted pictures of the kids in their costumes all month so I finally got around to taking them outside to let them play in the beautiful fall leaves while I snapped a few shots.

When I was pregnant with Ethan (and we thought he was a girl) my mom found this costume on clearance and sent it to us thinking he'd wear it the next year. I thought it was absolutely adorable but when Ethan turned out to be a boy, Taylor banned the costume as un-manly (a few people did actually call Isaac a girl on Halloween so I guess he was right). Anyways, I conceeded with Ethan, but just couldn't resist with Isaac. Taylor didn't put up any fight this time so here he is, an adorable little duck. Too bad he can't say quack yet.

This has been the year of the dinosaur for Ethan so of course that's what he had to be for Halloween. I looked for months to find a strictly dinosaur costume (no wings) but they literally don't make them. All dinosaurs are also "dragons" and vice versa. I guess they assume the kids won't know the difference or else won't care. But you'd be wrong! When I brought the costume home for him to try on, he announced that it wasn't a dinosaur because it had wings. So I told him it was a dragon-dinosaur. He accepted that explanation and every time someone asked him what he was, he proudly declared "I'm a dragon-dinosaur" and roared in their face! They all gave him funny looks and laughed a bit but he's right- he was both.

I realized in taking these pictures that since we don't have a backyard I've never really taken either of them out to play in the leaves. This was truly a novel experience for both of them and they loved it. I've never heard Isaac laugh so hard and it was hard to drag Ethan away from rolling, kicking, and tossing leaves in the air.

Day Light Savings

This past Saturday night I was reminded that Sunday morning was Day Light Savings time and we would thus be blessed with one more hour of sleep. Did someone forget to send that memo to my kids? They were up bright and early at 6:20 AM which was really 5:20 AM. Joy! And in trying to switch them over for Monday morning, we invited some friends over to dinner so that Ethan and Isaac would be entertained and stay up later and hopefully sleep in the next morning. A half hour past him normal bedtime, this picture was taken.
You see the glazed over eyes? Yes, both children actually stopped playing, laid down on the couch and announced that they were tired. Not ten minutes later Ethan announced that he was tired and going to bed. He then walked into his room, turned off the light, closed the door, and actually put himself to bed for the first time ever. How bizarre! So much for that extra hour of sleep.

Trick-or-treated OUT!

Since it's our last year in DC, I'm trying to do all the activities I've heard about in the past but haven't found the time for. That meant going trick-or-treating 3 different times this year. It was actually really fun, but a lot of walking and tragically I forgot my camera for 2 of the times so this is all you get. (pictures missing are of trick-or-treating at the embassies and then down the Stirlings street Halloween night)
Thursday morning we went up to a strip mall where the kids got to trick-or-treat at the stores. Ethan especially loved it because all his friends came along. L to R Isaac (duck), Summer (Dorothy), Rosemary (lion), Ethan (dragon-dinosaur), Damon (Incrediboy), Elijah (horse), Elise (princess).

Isaac was absolutely content to stay in the stroller as long as he had his little bucket of candy he could reach into and play with. Nerds were his favorite because they make a great shaky noise. Suckers ran a close second because of the stick.

Ethan ran around saying "roar" to anyone and everyone that would look at him.

The mall even had people doing balloon animals. Ethan loved his elephant and Isaac loved "eating" Elmo's nose.

Anybody want some candy? I have buckets full you're very welcome to! No really! It's not like Isaac can have chocolate yet and Ethan's the only child on the planet who doesn't like it. Seriously- it's the 4th of November already and Ethan has asked for a treat once- and then he picked out the bag of goldfish crackers to eat!

Carving Pumpkins with Dad

Ethan is 3 1/2 now and finally seems old enough to really be interested in some of our favorite holiday traditions. In past years we've carved pumpkins but he's mostly just run around or watched. This year he was so excited to help cut the top off and make a "hat" and then he actually scooped out his entire pumpkin. He especially loved banging his metal spoon on the metal bowl.

Taylor did most of the carving but Ethan picked out the design and insisted on having a "skeweton" face. My mom also sent us a kit with plastic scary eyes to stick inside and they actually make the pumpkins look really neat. Tragically our pumpkins were too small and the eyes started to melt from the heat of the candles.

It was great to see Ethan really enjoy the experience. He's so enthralled by the pumpkins here that he wouldn't even look up to smile for the camera.