SWINGS!!!!!!!!

so happy on the little swing

With this nice weather that we have been having we have spent a lot of time outside. We have gotten the baby swingset out and Claire loves her swing. We had the back door open and Claire crawled right out there toward her little swingset and started whinning. She is so happy when we swing.

Yesterday while we were at Target we decided we needed to get a swing to add to the big swingset. She loves it.

She thought it was so funny when the big kids would push her.

She seemed a little timid at first. This swing goes a lot higher than her baby swingset one.

soccer class

Ben has absolutely loved his soccer class at the rec center. I think he had a little crush on his teacher. He talked about her all the time and even wanted to invite her to his birthday party. She was an awesome teacher. She always had fun games to play with the kids. The last couple of classes it got warm enough to go out and practice in the field house. I always loved when we had it out there because the kids could run around a lot more. Ben was always so tired after soccer class.
stretching before class.
warming up with his friend Calvin.

taking a lap. Ben was very competitive with this little boy in front of him. The boy is so much bigger than Ben he usually won. Poor Ben was the smallest in the class. The class was for four year olds and Ben turned four while in that class and we all know my kids are pretty tiny.

Ben does have some awesome soccer skills though.

pure joy...

Claire learned to like the class too. The last day we were there it was scorching hot in the field house. They don't have air conditioning in there and it had been really hot the previous days so it was just like a sauna in there. The poor teacher. I took Claires jeans off because I was afraid she was going to over heat.

Ben was so excited, Dave worked from home so he could go in and see Ben play soccer the last day. He was showing off for daddy all class.

Mrs. Jessica presenting Ben with his medal. He has loved this medal and makes sure that everyone knows it is his and what it is for.

Comparing medals with his friend Calvin. They had so much fun together. They start an intro to sports class this week that I hope will be just as successful.

100 Years of Cherry Blossoms

We decided to brave the crowds and go downtown to enjoy the cherry blossoms. We went Tuesday morning which happened to be the peak day. They were beautiful. We had so much fun after we finally found parking. It took us nearly an hour to get downtown. It's usually a 20 minute drive. Then we found a parking spot and took it, then found out our friend was parked on the other side of the tidal basin in an unlimited amount of time parking lot so we went to find her. We ended up missing the parking lot twice and going around the mall twice and got back on the freeway once. So an hour later, when the parking lot she was in was all full when we finally got there, we found another parking spot that was again 3 hour parking. We should have just stayed in the first parking spot. It was very frustrating and the kids were definately ready to get out of the car.

Ben was on the run from the minute we got there. We were with all his best friends and he was just so happy to run free. I always forget, they aren't really excited about the pretty flowers. He is more excited about running around statues and finding sticks and exploring. He had so much fun.

playing peek a boo
We found a spot where Claire could get out and crawl around.

She was so happy to spend some time with her friend Grant.

Ben causing trouble I am sure.

The loved playing at the fountains where the Roosevelt statues are. Ben was very timid at first thinking he was going to fall in but they had so much fun climbing out to the waterfall.

a quick pose for the real reason we came in to D.C.

This picture about explains the day... Jacob was off somewhere. I am sure it was funny watching us three moms wrangle our children around all day.

causing more trouble.

I told him, give me one good picture and then you could go and play for the day and not pose for anymore pictures.

The two no no's of Cherry blossom festival: climbing trees and picking the limbs off.

Good example Ben.

Our little photo shoot before church today. Claire was not in the mood to take pictures for very long... but she looked so cute.
This is how Claire acted for most of the day. I guess she knew it was her birthday and she could get away with anything for the day.

Ben and Siena were happy to pose. I love this, it makes me so happy.

Our beautiful blossoming trees.
I never get to be in any pictures.

Happy Birthday Claire!

My baby is 1. We had such a fun day. We decided since the weather has been so nice to have a BBQ. Aunt Karin and Uncle Steve and the Earnests all came over to celebrate. Sundays are pretty busy for us since we have late church so we decided to celebrate a day early. She loved her cake, mostly the frosting.

After she got little bites of it she decided she just wanted to go in head first.

She was mesmorized by the candle. She kept looking around at everyone while we were singing to her. She had no idea what was going on. She tried to grab the lit candle but we blew it out before she could reach it.

YUM

just relaxing and eating cake.

We figured since it was St. Patrick's day we would do a rainbow cake. It turned out more psychodelic than rainbow layers but it was fun. Everyone else had rainbow color cupcakes.

One happy baby.

She likes taking baths but apparently not in the kitchen sink.

present time. We ripped a little of the present to see if she would finish it off but she had no clue what to do. I thought she would like ripping things open.

Siena made her a card.