Claire

I have declared Claire our lazy baby. She is so funny. She has no desire to ever walk I think. Just recently she will stand as we hold her hands and she will take a couple steps as we guide her. Then she will just give up and go back to crawling. She does love her walker and her baby stroller but she walks around with them on her knees. Her poor pants are all ruined and worn out in the knees. I think she partly knows that if she can be held she can mostly tell us where she wants to go by pointing and grunting. Most of the time she points to the backyard swings or to the table for food.
She recently learned how to crawl up the stairs. I put her down in the basement with Ben and came up to use the computer and 2 minutes later she was at my feet by the computer. She was so proud of herself. She crawls up the stairs frequently then she just screams, letting me know she is at the top of the stairs and she is stuck up there. She thinks it is hilarious for me to find her at the top of the stairs.
She is quite the screamer. Everyone thinks she is a quiet little girl. Heavens no. This girl has just found her voice and has figured out how to use it.
She thinks her brother and sister are hilarious. Whenever they laugh she does a big belly laugh too. She obviously has no idea what they are laughing about but she loves to mimic them.
I just started reading books to her more. I know, I seemed to forget about things like this. We collected all the baby board books around the house and she loves them. She knows when you ask her to go get a book to go to the rocker and pick one out. She loves to pretend to eat things and point at the different pictures. It's so funny to see.
Still, this is how you will find her most days... being held by me!

We just turned her around in the carseat forward facing. She loves it! The first time she looked really confused and kept looking around. The big kids sit behind her so she has always just sat and watched them so I think she was looking for them. I love watching her, she was so excited in the first car ride. She could see all these new things. She could also see me eat so she wanted whatever I had.

Our house just got a lot louder

Someone in our ward was giving away their piano and I decided it was time to get one. I was really excited for it. Dave was not excited to move it but got some guys and brought it home. We are so excited. The kids are pretty good with it. They really like playing on it. I am excited and hopefull that someone will like to play it.  With all the good music genes in our families we hope someone will be good at it.

So now in our front room we have a piano and a king size bed. Perfect for the living room. We are classy like that. We are still trying beds out for our bedroom so we don't know what to do with our old bed. Someday our living room will be a real room with real furniture.

Baseball season starts

We love going to see the Nationals Play. Dave got the good company seats and we had a fun night. It was funny on the way there Siena asked if they were the soft seats again or if we had the hard seats high up. It's fun to sit close to the field. We usually just buy the cheap $5 tickets. Siena wanted a Nationals baseball hat for her birthday. It had to be pink. Dave finally found one online so she got to have it for the game. She has been waiting a long time for it. I got one too. We couldn't leave the game without getting one for Ben. Claire has Bens old one so everyone but Dave has Nationals gear.

The kids had a good time. They still aren't to the point where they will just sit and watch the game. They have to have food or they have to go wander around. It seemed like they were gon during all the fun things in the middle of each inning. They missed the songs and the big President race. The game was quick so we actually lasted the whole time. We were out late though but had fun.

Hopefully we will be to many more this season. Hopefully we can also make it out to an Orioles game this season.

 Enjoying the game!

 Beginning. The National Anthem.

we were part of history

We were so excited to get to go see the space Discovery space shuttle fly over Washington D.C. It was the last space shuttle to be launched and it was a big deal around here. It is going to the Dulles Air and Space museum. We will have to go and see it there. We were told it was going to do a fly over between 10-11. We were prepared and ready for it. I forgot how crazy rush hour traffic is and got stuck in traffic. I squeezed my friend Marcy in and her three kids and we were off. Siena begged to stay home from school so I let her. So we had 6 carseats in my van and two moms. We rushed in there with the millions of other people. Around 9:45 when we were finally getting close we saw all these people coming out of their buildings and standing on bridges waiting for it to fly over. We decided to go to Gravelly Point, right next to the airport. It was the craziest place to go I think. We saw people just jumping the curb and running across the busy street to get out of their cars and have a peak. We jumped the curb along with everyone else and parked right at 10. At 10:01 it did it's first fly over. It was so exciting! Siena told me it was the coolest thing ever, so I was glad I let her ditch school for it. Then the kids went back to the car and played around there while it did a couple more fly overs. It really was amazing. This picture is courtesy of a newstation since I was too panicked to take pictures with 6 crazy kids running around. We weren't near the capitol or washington monument so we couldn't get such a classic picture but it was still amazing. Dave said that he saw it from his window but didn't get out to actually see it. It was pretty cool.

Hidden Pond Nature Center

We love Hidden Pond Nature Center. It is sad that we don't walk there more often. We live so close yet we always drive there. I am working on getting more exercise for me and the kids so we may need to walk there more.
We took a class there Wed after school. It is always so fun and the kids (and me) actually learn a lot about animals. We have taken home a worm and a cricket as a pet from class. They both died quickly at our home.
Here they are learning about turtles. See the turtle by the teacher (girl in the blue shirt)
They were having races to see who was fastest.





One day we went there and saw all the frogs out. (they were making mating calls, but we didn't discuss that with the kids) We decided to come back another day to fish. My kids were all excited to see them but wanted nothing to do with them once they caught the tadpoles. I am a little squeemish with little critters so I was glad not to bring any home with us.

more Easter weekend

I always forget to download my camera phone pictures.
We are at the cousins having the Easter egg hunt.
First, I love that Siena can read to Ben now. Sometimes we have Siena read bedtime books to Ben at night. It is perfect for everyone I think.
exchanging the goodies in the eggs.
Elise and Claire just loved the plastic eggs.
Uncle Steve helping Ben find eggs.

Siena plays soccer

Siena is so excited to play soccer. She says it is her favorite sport. Dave and I weren't exactly sure how she would take to it. She doesn't really like to run and play and she is not aggressive at all. She is the girl in all pink...typical Siena. Their team is called the pink snapdragons.
They got their uniforms the next day and they were blue so they changed their name.


She loves it! I was surprised that at the first practice all the girls except Siena and one other had played soccer before. I didn't know we were that far behind already. She is getting good exercise and there are two girls on her team in her Kindergarten class. So the first game I don't think she even touched the ball but she had so much fun. I guess that is what we are paying for. For her to have fun not to become an expert soccer player.

Uncle Steve is so funny!

Bounce house

We spent Monday morning at a bounce house with our cousins. We had so much fun.
Ben and Siena racing through the maze. This didn't end well and Ben was very upset that he lost.

Ben using the T for the baseball as a fan

Using the T as it is intended. Concentrating really hard.

Having fun on the slides.

Claire really wanted to join in on the fun. She has just discovered the swings and now she has a new favorite thing. She LOVES to slide. The first couple of trips down she looked a little terrified. After the first couple times she loved it.

Dave was exhausted carrying her up to the top of the slides. I didn't have socks so I couldn't participate (O darn!) Dave let Claire go down by herself a couple of times and it scared me to death. She loved it and would roll when she got to the bottom because she is so top heavy. There was another mom at the bottom and waiting for her older kids and I think Dave about gave her a heart attack too. I had to explain that I was her mom and we meant to push her down and that she liked it. What a fun day!

Spoiled Rotten

Spring break was the week before Easter. We also had the Monday after Easter off so we went up to PA for a long weekend. It was so much fun. We got to hang out with Grandma and cousins and Aunts and Uncles. My kids were so tired after this weekend we almost missed school Tuesday morning because they slept in so long.
How do you get three kids to all look at the camera at the same time? I am still trying to master that. My crazies.
We always call Claire miss Nosie because she is always up in other people's business. She had so much fun playing with all the plastic eggs from the easter baskets. She was happy to have her own and would have been happy with the plastic eggs and grass.

after church we went and visited Grandpa's grave. Grandma had a lot to live up to after last years Easter. We spent it with her last year and they got candy and a bunny cake. They remembered and were expecting the same thing this year. The Easter bunny did not dissapoint. We came home late one night from the cousins house and found baskets waiting for them by the front door. They had silly putty and candy and huge chocolate bunny lolipops.

Saturday we spent doing some yard work for Grandma and then over at Joseph and Tricias house. Then we hid eggs for the kids to find. Luckily they were all plastic eggs filled with stickers or little erasers because there is still one lost egg out there. We couldn't ever find it. Hopefully we just counted wrong but the cousins may find an Easter egg sometime in their yard.

Decorating eggs has never been that fun for me and my kids didn't ever know that you were supposed to do that. No one would ever eat a hardboil egg here so I never pushed the idea. The kids asked this year to color them and Grandma obliged. They had so much fun decorating them all and were very proud.

Claire just sat there and did what she is good at... eating.

General Conference

I don't remember when we started this, but it we did it atleast last year. We talked about getting ready for conference and listening to the prophet. Just like the people got ready to listen to King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon. They all turned their tents toward the prophet. Our kids love building their tents and doing the general conference packets. They have all the worksheets and bingo cards and their little desks all ready to go. It gives us atleast one session of conference where our kids are distracted enough so we can listen.

Claire is obsessed with swinging. She has found all the back windows of the house where she can see the swingset. Around 5 at night she goes to one of them and starts whinning. I know exactly what she wants. Once you are holding her and walking out the back door she gets so excited.
I put the little baby swingset on the back deck and tried putting her in the little swing. She kept looking back trying to get me to put her back on the big kid swingset swing. She loves that thing. The other day she fell asleep in it. Now I know how to make her happy.

Kite Festival

We look forward to the National kite festival every year. We met our friends downtown for Ellies 3rd birthday party so it was an extra special day. It was a nice day but not very windy so it was hard to get the kites up.
Bens Air force kite.

Claire spent the time crawling everywhere and getting dirty. She had so much fun and was so tired when it was all done. Ellie had these automatic bubbles and Claire loved chasing them and trying to catch them.

these pants are history after a day of crawling around on the National mall.

Trying to eat the bubbles coming out of the bubble machine.

Ellie had kites that the kids could decorate and then fly. They were called frustrationless kites. They were wonderful. They were so easy to get up and fly. Siena was excited to do it all by herself.

The big kites. We saw a huge whale and a huge scuba diver kite. They weren't up for very long but they were huge.

Siena and Ben decorating their kites.

There would be big gusts of wind and you would see hundreds of kites up in the air.

Siena so excited Daddy got her big princess kite up in the air.

Our princess kite next to the Washington Monument.

The kids had a wonderful time. It was really crowded and the kids kept running with their kites and tangling up with other people. I had to keep explaining to them that we weren't on the beach and they couldn't run with them. They were so excited to fly them though. We were glad we had gone down earlier to see the Cherry blossoms because they had all fallen off the trees.
Washington D.C. is so beautiful in the Spring!