Rainy days, shopping, and cupcakes.

Yesterday was a rainy day so me and the girls headed out for some shopping and some cupcake enjoying. Amelia had fun playing in Pottery Barn Kids and was in awe of all the fancy things (I'm always just in awe of the fancy price tags). We all scored some fabulous bargains at H&M and then picked up some cupcakes. It was a lovely outing with my girls.





Pictures of Elsa...just because we can't get enough of this happy kid. She is jabbering away like crazy these days. And squealing loudly with lots of encouragement from her sister. She is far from walking, but just learned to pull herself up to standing today. She crawls at super speed and always knows when we leave the bathroom door open.

Bath time!

Elsa loves bath time and has gotten used to water in her face courtesy of her big sister.

Pool Party!

We hit 90 degrees again yesterday so we invited a bunch of friends over for some backyard water fun to cool off. We had 10 moms and 21 kids at our house and had a great time.










Enjoying popsicles!

April Heat Wave

This weekend has been HOT. Above 90. I can't complain because it's only a matter of time before the real heat and humidity (and mosquitos) of July and August arrive. Ben had to work all weekend so I kept the girls busy on Saturday with a nice long walk on the GW Parkway before it got too warm. Then we enjoyed a picnic at Grist Mill Park near Mount Vernon. We all became completely overheated there so we headed home and broke out the pool and the sprinkler.






The girls were wiped out after our picnic.



Elsa with the post-sweaty nap hair.






Amelia discovers just how cold the water is.

A Day on the Farm

We went to Oxon Hill Farm on Friday with our playgroup and enjoyed the beautiful weather. The great thing about Oxon Hill Farm is that even though it's in Maryland, it's only a seven minute drive from our house. After we finished up with a picnic, we heard a lot of commotion in the air and saw two jets and two helicopters. It turns out we were watching this story unfold.


A bumpy tractor ride. Amelia loved hanging out with her friends Kaylee and Miriam.




Checking out the gigantic pig.


Amelia loved the horses.



Good thing my stroller can hold so many kids.


I think the girls had more fun riding in the stroller together than anything else.




Elsa examines the grass. Then eats the grass.


Elsa checks out the baby goats.

Kitty Litter

An unpleasant discovery on the sidewalk while on my morning walk today. Depending on your feelings about cats, this is either really sad or really disgusting. Maybe both.

(Okay. I think it needs to be clarified that I DID NOT put the cat in the bag. I was completely repulsed, and amused, that someone else did though.)

Blog Bloopers

For every picture on the blog, there are most likely 20 others that look something like this:


(As always, click the image for a larger view.)

Blog to Book

I recently had my first blog book printed (from Blurb) and it turned out beautifully. I'm excited to print one every year and have a well-documented family photo album. Initially, the cover didn't look as nice as I wanted and I contacted Blurb and they immediately printed a new book and sent it to me.

good food + good weather = good weekend

We had the most lovely weather this weekend. We went to Burke Lake on Saturday and biked around the lake and then played some frisbee golf. Amelia was really into the golf. She had a serious throw going on and loved tossing her disc into the basket. Ben even played a pretty decent game considering he had Elsa strapped to his back.

We decided to top off the evening with burgers at Five Guys. It's always soooo good while you're eating it. And soooo bad after you're done. Despite that, we couldn't resist picking up some ice cream on the way home.
























Amelia is currently obsessed with her bike helmet and insisted on wearing it to eat her ice cream.

We enjoyed a Sunday evening stroll through Huntley Meadows and then we came home and enjoyed some delicious Dutch Oven peach cobbler courtesy of Ben.