A sweet birthday.

I felt so loved on my birthday last Friday with all the phone calls, texts, packages, cards, gifts, and Facebook notes. I spent most of the day hanging out with Ben and the kids and eating yummy food.

First stop...lunch at Crepes-a-Go-Go in D.C. Delicious crepes. Elsa's favorite food is nutella so she was in heaven. She ate her crepe faster than Ben and me.





Next order of business...cupcakes! We headed to Georgetown to pick up a few samples from three different cupcake shops there. Sprinkles just opened (only a few blocks from Georgetown Cupcake) and I had to give them a try.





Next up was Baked & Wired...





Random photos around Georgetown:











A long line...must be Georgetown Cupcake:


Elsa loved waiting in line...






So did Oliver...






Happy to be out of the stroller...




We stopped at Gravelly Point on the way home for a short stroll along the Parkway. So excited about all of the buds!



Amelia was excited to come home from school and see all of the cupcakes. We had fun sampling all of the varieties. They were all delicious. If I HAD to pick a winner, I'd go with Georgetown Cupcake. But they were all scrumptious.







Ben and I ended the evening with a date at Acqua al 2 in D.C. (across the street from Eastern Market). It was so yummy. We got the chef's pasta sampler so they brought out 6 different kinds of pasta to try. We also got the salad sampler and a really yummy appetizer (ricotta and spinach balls baked in a delicious tomato sauce).


(A very empty Eastern Market.)

Discovering Maryland

The only thing separating us from Maryland is a few miles and a gigantic 12-lane bridge over the Potomac. But somehow we often overlook Maryland. Last Saturday Ben found a fantastic park/farm not far away. I'm still amazed that after all of our exploring, we're still discovering these fantastic places. Piscataway Park is located directly across the river from Mount Vernon. There is a fishing pier, nature trails, and the National Colonial Farm which has lots of farm animals and cool old buildings. It was free. And other than some people fishing on the pier, we were the ONLY PEOPLE THERE!

I'm already looking forward to a return visit in the spring. And I'll definitely bring my nicer camera next time.

Every good Saturday starts with a lazy morning...



Before exploring the park, we had a picnic:








(Mount Vernon)








(Elsa could have spent all day throwing rocks into the water.)















We saw a sheep and her baby that had JUST been born. (By just I mean the umbilical cord was still hanging from both of them. Pretty gross.)

The animals were all being quite noisy. Elsa got pretty angry with the cows:



We stopped at Fort Washington (another fun Maryland spot) on the way home for a quick 3 mile walk while Amelia rode her bike. It felt so good to spend so much time outside.

Happy Boy

Warm Moments

The weather has been up and down the last week. We took advantage of any slightly warmer days to get out and have fun.

Last Saturday we took a walk over to Amelia's school and played on the playground:


Elsa has no fear.



Our 437th visit to Huntley Meadows. And definitely not our last. It's fun to watch it change throughout the year.

Grandma and Grandpa return!

My dad had to fly out last week for work and my mom came with him and spent the whole week here! We were able to spend a little bit of time with my dad when he wasn't working (somehow I didn't get any photos). He brought us a nice supply of cheese and also supplied us with some yummy organic greek yogurt that he was working on at their plant in Pennsylvania. I have been enjoying yogurt parfaits every day.


(My mom made Oliver some amazing sweaters...more pictures to come.)

Everybody had the day off on President's Day except Amelia, but we kept her home anyway so she could hang out with us. It turned out to be a cold day and Ben sprained his ankle playing racquetball a few days before so we didn't have any grand plans. We decided to try out an indoor mini golf place in Maryland. There turned out to be a 2 hour wait to play (who knew so many kids had birthdays that day!) so we played a few arcade games and laughed at Oliver in the black lights...







The kids were pretty disappointed that we couldn't golf so we stopped at the Goddard Space Flight Center which was on the way home. We had been before but knew it wouldn't be crowded and it's free.













Ben and I were able to go out while my mom was here (we saw True Grit and really liked it).

The girls were pretty sad to see them leave. Things I heard after they woke up Saturday morning and discovered Grandma was gone (my dad left earlier in the week):

Elsa: "Where's Grandma? I NEED her. I want Grandma to play with me."
Amelia: "Oh no! We were having so much fun with Grandma that we forgot to have her cut our hair!" (Thankfully Amelia was much less sassy with my mom during this visit.)

Monkeying Around

(Thanks to Josh & Julie for the adorable hat!)

Sunset Stroll

We wanted to spend as much time as possible outside on Friday so as soon as Amelia got home from school, we headed to Huntley Meadows to watch the sunset.


(Amelia had a party at school to celebrate the 100th day of school. She was very excited to be wearing the froot loop necklace she made, which had 100 loops. She was not excited when Elsa found it and had herself a little snack.)









We were sad that Ben missed out on the fun, but he was busy having a great time visiting his brother's family in San Antonio for the weekend.