Ethan Turns 4

In the past years we've done "family" parties for Ethan and haven't really had a theme. This year (inspired by his friend Mark) we decided to pick a theme and have this be a party mostly for the kids. Ethan is absolutely in love with superheros. Mr. Incredible is his favorite movie and Super Y is his favorite cartoon. So back in February I decided to try my hand at making him a superhero cape. I found some cheap shiny blue material and made ones for him and Isaac. Let's just say there's been lots of running and jumping in our house along with his "superhero stance" here. Apparently you can even be a superhero in your underwear.
And in keeping with Ethan's other favorite thing, he asked for a dragon-dinosaur for his cake. This is actually supposed to be an alligator but close enough. It's just cupcakes with green frosting, chocolate cookies cut into triangles, yellow starbursts shaped into claws, and marshmallows for the eyes and teeth, jelly beans for the eye balls and nose. The whole thing took me less than 2 hours and was done while being visit taught. Now that's multi-tasking! And just 2 days before our move!

I think he's pretty cute and Ethan was absolutely head over heals so what else matters?

Since our apartment was full of boxes we hoped for good weather and planned to have the party at a local park. It rained straight from Sunday to Wednesday but Thursday was sunny so we were very grateful. Apparently everyone else in DC had the same thought as us so the park was a little overcrowded.

Since Ethan was so in love with his cape and it really was easy to make, I decided to make capes for all his little friends coming. That turned out to only be 6 from Primary and Joyschool which was just about perfect.

Taylor led the kids in a bunch of superhero games. Here they're shooting off bubble rockets.

And more rockets.

They did relay races and a few other things but the rockets were the hit.

Super Ches wins the cool-dude award. Look how stylin he is in his hood, cape, and sunglasses!

We had "hero" sandwiches and some other foods (I had to try to be a little nutritional since it was dinner time).

It was really nice to hang out and talk with all the other moms one last time in DC. We'll really miss everyone!

All in all a great superhero party!

We did his party on Thursday because of the move. His actual birthday was on Sunday which turned out to be a good day for him as well. In church Taylor and I gave talks and then Taylor ran sharing time in Primary and Ethan gave his first Primary talk. We actually forgot to wish him a Happy Birthday and the Bishop beat us to it over the pulpit. Ethan also got to pick out his birthday pencil in Primary and they sang him the Happy Birthday song as well as the Good-bye song. Quite the center of attention! After church we drove to Cleveland and stayed the night with my brother and his family. They made brownies and even had a candle for him to blow out. So even though his parents were slackers on his actual birthday it seems that everyone else made up for it. Even both sets of grandparents called while we were driving in the car and he would have been excited to hear them sing to him if he hadn't been watching The Incredibles. Here they are in their Easter outfits that I haven't posted yet.

Kitchens in DC

April was a really busy month. In fact, we can't believe that it's over. A few weeks ago we were excited to get a visit from Sarah's parents and her brothers, Dave and Jim, and their families. They all came in town for the Cherry Blossom Festival, though unfortunately, the weather made it pretty difficult to witness the cherry blossoms. Mom and Dad spent just over a week with us. We had fun traveling around with them seeing the city. I even got ambitious and took a 22 mile bike ride with Dad from our apartment out to Mt. Vernon.

We've always thought the cherry blossoms were best just north of DC in the Chevy Chase and Bethesda neighborhoods of Maryland.

Once all of the kids arrived in DC, it became quite cramped in our apartment. Meal and snack times turned into quite an ordeal and our seemingly spacious DC apartment felt quite cramped. I'm happy to report however, that all kids were fed and no injuries were sustained.

While the kids were a little less than impressed with the cherry blossoms (except Claire who asked her Dad if he had "made the trees pink for her"), the trees provided plenty of fun.

The real excitement came when the Easter Bunny took took time out of his (or her) busy schedule to visit the fam in DC. He was a little rude and in true DC fashion just left his packages outside the door of apartment. The kids were thrilled to find their baskets and proudly wore their sunglasses and cared for their Webkins for the rest of the weekend.

We wanted to attend the Easter Egg roll, but with all of Obama's "change", it became impossible for us to all get tickets through the new on-line distribution system. This is one change I don't "believe in" and hope they do away with in the future. As small consolation, Dave, Dad, and I waited outside the Washington Monument ticket office for 3 hours to get everyone tickets for a tour. It was really fun and we enjoyed the ride up and the view from the monument. Noah spent some time practicing his picture abilities from the observation deck at the top.

Once it became clear that our apartment couldn't be our only shelter from the rain, we took refuge at the chapel and made use of the basketball court. Wade and his new wife, Kelly, came to spend the afternoon with us.

It was really fun to see everyone and great to give the young cousins time to get to know one another. It's been so nice living so close to everyone.

Our Trip to Utah

We got the opportunity in April to travel out to Utah to attend the admitted student reception for GW and were lucky enough to be there shortly after Evan Washburn was born. It was really fun to meet him. So tiny and so cute and I'm so jealous because all he wanted to sleep. Now that's a baby I can handle!

Winter Days

So maybe after reading the last post you have some idea why I haven't been keeping up on our blog. I've been sicker with this baby and weirdly enough I've had "afternoon" sickness instead of morning. This is great for getting things done in the morning and helping me feel like not a totally unattentive mother, but has had the effect of me getting nothing done in the evenings besides watching insane amounts of bad T.V. But the 12 week mark seems to be magic so I'm back online. Yeah!

Usually I love winters in DC because they are so easy. We get the occasional bad week and have to stay inside, but this year it just seems like it never got better. Tragically this and the pregnancy have made the boys a little stir-crazy. So here's a few highlights of what they've been doing while I was laying on the couch.

In theory I do not advocate weapons and if I was a mother of girls I think I'd still advocate that, but since I have 2 boys, I know first-hand that if I do not give them something "safer" to use as a weapon, they will find their own. Seriously, the attachments on my vaccum, drumsticks from their toy set, pencils, sticks, paper towel rolls fished out of the trash can, forks while they're eating lunch, literally whatever they find that is stick-like. So when I saw these foam swords in the Target dollar store, I jumped on them. I only pull them out after the boys are already swatting at each other with something else and then I trade them (that somehow makes it okay in my head) and they love them- so what more can I say?
Since we're moving in 5 weeks we've been collecting boxes and those have come in very handy. Ethan especially loves building castles and Isaac is happy as long as there's at least one door to crawl in and out of. Here they are "inside" one of their castles.

And here's a different one Taylor built for them. If you notice, there's a slight hole on the right side and a foot sticking out on the left. Taylor let me sleep in late one morning and this is what I woke up to: Ethan absolutely in heaven behind his castle, sprawled out watching cartoons.

Yep, see he's totally happy with this "daddy-watches-me-while-mommies-sick" arrangement.

Some of the action first-hand.

And I had to include these shots because they really do like each other and rarely play alone. This was so adorable with Ethan trying to read to Isaac and open the little flaps.

Of course cuteness can't last forever!

Well, maybe it can. Did I mention I love Isaac's curls? Ethan has stick straight hair but Isaac has this amazing, soft, springy, curly hair. Tragically wasted on a boy but I'll take it!

See they even like to watch cartoons sitting together on their little couch. Thanks Aunt Barb! They love it!

F. Y. I.

Ok, so we've been a little lazy on our blog of late, so I figured I'd start us back off on the right foot. I've been instructed to think "pink" thoughts for quite some time now, but 5 fingers and 5 toes is all I'm hoping for. Currently the "sea monkey" is measuring 4 days bigger than it (she?) should. We'll find out for sure on around October 4th.

Taylor the Magician

Part of my Joyschool lesson for this week included doing a little magic show for the kids. I actually had the exact same lesson last year by chance and while the kids were fooled then by my not-so-impressive slight of hand tricks, I decided since they're 3 now to call in the big guns. The big guns being Taylor who actually aspired to be a magician at one point. Seriously! He was actually upset when I asked him to do some tricks for the kids because all his tricks are out in a box at his parents house in Utah. So sad. The kids ate it up though and he loved it too I think. I'll refer you to the link on the left side of my page that will take you to the actual Joyschool blog if you'd like to see more of his tricks. I posted 4 videos there and just 1 here.

The West Wing

One thing that Sarah and I really wanted to do before leaving DC was tour the West Wing of the White House. They told us it was impossible, but as a true testament to how far begging will get you, we managed to get Staci Wheeler, a member of Bush's speech writing team, to give us a tour about 3 days before Obama became president.

This is a view from the Rose Garden of the Residence. Every morning the President walks from the Residence to the West Wing using this covered walkway.

Here is a shot of the outside of the oval office. I was really under impressed with the color scheme in the oval office, it was really lame. I expected bold blues or reds, but it was all pastels. Apparently Bush wanted colors to remind him of his ranch in Texas, I think it sends the wrong message. It totally wasn't how I'd pictured the oval office.

Sarah and I were really happy to be there. We've spent a lot of time around the White House during our time in DC, we used to live just 8 blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue. It was really surreal to be standing in such a famous place.

Another shot of the walkway. Yes we spent a lot of time out there talking.

This is us standing at the door the Vice President enters each morning (or whenever he makes it down to the White House). I will say I've noticed the Biden motorcade much less than I noticed the Cheney motorcade. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the West Wing, so all our pictures were outside. Inside, there were hundreds of pictures of President Bush doing various official things.

Our only indoor picture was in the Press room. It was fun to see all the seat marked with placards for the various networks. They wouldn't let us stand at the podium unfortunately.

After touring the West Wing, we walked over to the Old Executive Office Building. For such an impressive facade, the inside of the building was unbelievably ugly. The walls are painted pinks and purples and it has old linoleum on the floors. This staircase was the only structural element worth noting.

All the rest of the walls had huge bundles of wires and Ethernet cables on the them.

Once up on the second floor, you get a pretty good view of the White House.

There was one cool room, I think it was called the "Indian Room" or something like that. Staci told us about some of the famous events that had happened there, but I've already forgotten. Sometimes, they mix it up and hold events there when they get tired of using the White House.

A big thank-you out to Staci Wheeler and a big check on our list of things we wanted to do in DC before we left.