River Farm Picnic

Last Friday was a dream. We headed to River Farm Garden Park for a picnic. It was cloudy when we arrived but by the time we left it was 75 and sunny! Elsa was so happy to run around with her friend Bria for a few hours. We are ready for Spring!

Meerkat Love

I'm already looking back fondly on our adventures spent outside in the beautiful weather last week. Because it snowed this morning. Ugh. But, I still feel like spring will be here soon. Our tulips and daffodils are poking up and there are buds on the trees!

We headed to the zoo last Thursday. The animals were all outside enjoying the weather as well. Elsa loved every minute. Except when it was time to leave.

She particularly loved the meerkats:




(For some reason, Elsa struggled identifying the farm animals. She insisted that the cow was a horse. She finally agreed to call it a cow horse. She called the donkeys horses. Later on, she called the monkeys donkeys. And yesterday she couldn't remember what a farmer was called. She kept calling him a barn boy.)


Oliver seemed to be stimulated by it all.


A porcupine eating!





So many lions! We were excited that all the new lion cubs were out.

Quinoa!

Quinoa and Black Bean Salad

Dressing:
5 T. fresh lime juice
1t. salt
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/4 c. chopped fresh cilantro
1 t. cumin
1/3 c. olive oil
1/2 t. pepper

Salad:
1 1/2 c. quinoa (uncooked)
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 c. corn
1 chopped red or yellow bell pepper
1 minced jalapeno (I left this out)
1/4 c. chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 c. chopped green onion

Dressing:
Combine all ingredients in blender or food processor and set aside.

Salad:
Wash quinoa and cook according to package directions (I cooked mine in the rice cooker just like rice).

Combine the rest of the salad ingredients in a bowl then add quinoa. Toss gently with the dressing and serve. Tastes even better the next day.

3 months old!

Oliver is 3 months old today! He still tends to be really fussy or really smiley. Three doctors and three diagnoses later, we're still struggling with his fussy eating problem. He's still on medication for reflux. I was hoping we would see an improvement by 3 months, but I guess we'll hope for 6 months now.

But...he's so cute. And he is an excellent sleeper at night. And he makes cute sounds. And cute faces. And his sisters adore him. He weighs about 12 1/2 pounds now. He still LOVES to be on his changing table. He would be happy if someone talked to him all day long.

Warm at last!

We are having some delightfully warm weather this week. Yesterday we spent a few hours outside walking, running, riding bikes, and playing at the park. It felt sooooo good. It was nice to enjoy some time outside with Ben before he left today for Texas, where he will be enjoying warm weather for the next week.






(Amelia stopped in the middle of her bike ride to answer a pretend call from a pretend friend. She also pretended to be annoyed that she was being bothered while on a ride.)


(Elsa watching for dad who was running laps around us while we walked.)

Date Night

Go to Rasika and order the palak chaat. And bring me with you.

We have been wanting to check out Rasika (an Indian restaurant in D.C.) for a long time and finally made it happen this past Wednesday night. It's always hard to get reservations there, especially with our last minute planning. Thanks to a mid-week date night and snow that evening, we were able to get in without trouble. Our palak chaat appetizer was amazing. It's crispy spinach with sweet yogurt, tamarind, and date chutney. Don't like spinach? It doesn't matter. You will love this. The crispy, melt-in-your-mouth spinach is mind boggling. They have really good breads there. The warm goat cheese kulcha was fantastic. Our entrees were good. Nothing too different from what I've had at other Indian restaurants. I would love to try some of the other dishes though.

After dinner we drove aimlessly around D.C. for a bit and enjoyed the scenery and conversation. I took random photos out the window with my little Canon PowerShot.




















(Lincoln in the rear view mirror.)

We live in a cool place.

Valentine Scratch Cards

We had a lot of fun making the Valentine scratch cards that I saw here. They are really easy to make and we're already scheming about lots of other non-Valentine uses for scratch cards.

Keeping Busy

Amelia finally went back to school today after a week off. Last week they had completely unnecessary snow days on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. (Monday and Tuesday this week were teacher work days.) We got about 5 inches one night and all the roads were clear by the morning (it was a pretty nasty evening commute though) but somehow the kids still had school canceled for 3 days. It's getting pretty ridiculous. We live in a place that gets snow every year! It is not a rare occurrence. We need to figure out how to deal with it. Now the kids have to go to school on President's Day, which is unfortunate since that was a day that Ben had off.

We definitely weren't stranded at home (which would normally be the case on a legitimate snow day), but we spent most of our time the last week working on house projects and drinking hot chocolate. Ben took Amelia on a daddy/daughter date on Friday morning. They went swimming at the rec center and then got hot chocolate and played board games at the coffee shop down the street. Amelia thought that was pretty cool.

The girls stayed busy with lots of art projects.

Making cornstarch yarn hearts:


Rainbow scratch paper:




These beads are fantastic. The girls spent lots of time creating jewelry and whatever else their imaginations came up with.






Ben and I started another painting project. We're in the midst of redecorating the living room. We're attempting to paint a repeating stencil on one wall. It's either going to be really cool or a total disaster. We managed to get the registration marks up (marked on little pieces of painter's tape):

(Everything takes twice as long with kids climbing on you while you work.)

Now we just need to get the motivation to actually start painting with the stencil. 240 times.