Spring cleaning

our garden

our new flowering cherry tree

strawberries

I hate extra stuff. I went through and needed some changes in our house. We did a couple new things in Siena's room. She had a fabric bulletin board that she would always play with in her room and it would fall down so we took it down for good and I used the fabric for curtains. A long time ago I bought like 500 yard spool of tulle so we tied back the curtains with tulle. It turned out pretty good with just stuff from around the house. She has wanted to paint her room pink for a long time now. I don't want to go to all the work to do it so we are gradually adding more pink accessories in hopes to not have to paint it pink. We had tons of foam paper around. So we cut out a big S and we spent $2 at the dollar store for fake flowers to pin all around it. I found some random sparkly beads around the house and glued those on randomly. She loves it, it's so funny. She is so proud.

Then we started our garden. We made some big changes to our yard. In the crazy blizzard that we had in Feb we lost one of our trees. It was bent over for weeks with the roots sticking out so we knew it had to go. With some help from our awesome neighbors Dave got it down and we got a pretty flowering cherry tree to replace it. Our beautiful Dogwood tree has been dying ever since we moved in but only half of it. So we finally borrowed a chainsaw and cut half the tree down. It looks a lot better than I thought it would. It only blooms for a month out of the whole year and this is the month so Dave couldn't bring himself to chopping it completly down. It looks a lot better and hopefully the other part of it doesn't rot away now. So we have a pretty yard and the weather is great so it is wonderful to enjoy our yard.

We planted our garden. We are trying a couple new things. I planted 2 pumpkins, just to see if we could grow them. I discovered last year my kids love sugar snap peas, so we planted a couple of those plants and we tried strawberries. Our neighbor gave us some potatoe plants so we are trying those too. We will see what grows. We always plant tomatoes and they do really well. We are really excited for our garden this year.

Also, Siena is riding her bike much better. She actually asks to ride it in the street (where we park the cars) and will go fast and actually ride. Before she would just walk the bike around or ride it on our front pation. Yeah!

Easter

When we got the plastic easter eggs out late March Siena knew just what to do with them. Fill them up with candy. We have been doing that now for weeks. It was fun to have a couple easter egg hunts. We had a playgroup easter egg hunt. It was wonderful and so much fun with so many kids. It was beautiful weather and so much fun. Easter morning we had an Easter egg hunt when the kids woke up. Somehow in this family we have skipped the whole Easter bunny and Santa Clause stories because when Siena was asked at school if the Easter bunny came to her house she said no, my parent's gave me the candy. I guess that's two less talks we will have to have later on in life. We had a good Easter and enjoyed all the candy and being together. Bens candy was done in about 2 days. Siena has rationed hers out a little better and I think she just finished hers today. She did find more than Ben but she has been good about sharing.

We skipped Spring

Bens new baseball hat. It's the nationals hat. He loves it and thinks it goes on backwards like this so it really doesn't protect his face at all. He also thinks he has to have the ball and glove when he wears it. He thinks it's like daddy's hat so he loves it.

The weather outside has been so hot. It is the beginning of April and we got out our pool. That is a little crazy. I bought a pool Siena's first summer and it finally was worn out so we went to Toys R Us and got a new one. I was so worried that they would be all out because it has been so hot here you have to be in the pool if you are going to be outside. Luckily we got one and the kids love it. We have had many pool parties with friends and popsicles to keep us cool this week. The nights have been wonderful where we can have the windows open at night. I wish it would stay like this all summer long.

Kite Festival

that blasted spot is still on my camera. totally ruined the pictures. sorry.

huge kites.

We were so excited to go to the kite festival in D.C. this year. We have missed it in years past and were excited that it was supposed to be good weather and we had Grandma in town. Siena was so excited about it. The weather was not as good as it looked. It was in the 50's and the wind was gusty so the big huge kites that were in the competition had a hard time staying up. We had a $2 Toys R Us Princess kite and it did fine. It was so beautiful with the Washington monument and hundreds of kites flying around it. It was fun to see all the different types of kites. We drove in to D.C. and met some friends. They were celebrating their daughters first birthday so they had lunch and kite cupcakes. It was a fun party and the kids ran around and played. Grandma decided to come down for the cherry blossom festival and so we got to have Uncle Steve around too. Ben thought this was awesome. Ben could care less about the kites. He and uncle Steve played soccor the whole time. After the fun on the national mall we went and walked around the tidal basin and saw the cherry blossoms. It was still a little early to get them in full bloom but they were pretty and it was crazy busy with people. We had a great day together and the kids did really well being outside all day without any naps. Dave was kite cutting with friends at the end and cut the top of our princess kite so we need to go find another $2 kite.

too nice to be inside

our sunflower seeds, so the squirrels won't get them. we have little water bottles covering the seeds so we can water them directly.

The weather has been so nice here lately. I think Spring has finally come! I love this time of year. We have been outside playing every day this week. We dug out the sunscreen and shorts and even the water table. We planted sunflowers, Siena tried riding her bike again, we went to a lot of parks,bbq and picnics and we ventured out to Rosevelt Island. We have lived here 6 years and I feel like I haven't done a lot of things in D.C. I have never been out to Rosevelt Island and it was so much fun. The kids loved it. It was really muddy because of all the rain last week but the kids loved that even more. We went along the muddy banks and threw rocks in. Ben almost gave me a heart attack because he was getting so close to the edge of the water when throwing rocks in. We saw a group of deer that we were able to get really close to. Siena got a kite for her birthday and was really eager to fly it. We finally got the chance to on the island. She didn't really get the concept but we did get it up for a little while. We are excited for the kite festival this weekend and hope we will be able to get the kite out again. So it was really nice to be out and see the kids play and get some sun.

naptime

Sienas new best friend is Benny. She hates when it is naptime and they have to go in their seperate rooms to take quiet time. This past week they have had quiet time together for a while and then Ben goes into his room to sleep, mostly because it's not really quiet if they have too much time together. Siena taught Ben how to climb out of his crib so the room is destroyed by the end of quiet time. Its really hard to explain to Siena that Ben is still 2 so he needs to have time to sleep while she doesn't. It's really cute and I am glad that they like to spend time together.

what a difference a year makes

I felt very brave and decided to do the kids yearly doctors appts in one visit. This is very brave because last year Siena was told by the doctor that she was being worse than twin babies in the next room. She had a hard check up last year. This year I decided I had to prep her. We talked about it non stop and I tried to prepare her for what would be going on. Last year she wouldn't stand on the scale or do any eye test or hearing test. This year she was so excited to go to the doctor. We got there and played happily in the waiting room. When they finally called our name she was so excited. The nurse said she had never seen someone so happy to see the dr. Our appt was going well so far. We tried to insist that she was being a good example and showing Ben how to do everything. She went on the scale and height chart fine. Then it was time for the eye test. She liked telling the nurse all the shapes. I had to cover one of her eyes and she kept trying to dodge my hand so she could see it with both eyes but she did it with one eye and they said she had great eyesight. We got to the room and she happily put the gown on and answered the questions the nurse asked. I was really impressed how well she did. Ben did great and followed Siena in everything she did. I had warned her about the shots that she was going to get. I don't think she really knew what a shot was. She got 3 and the nurse had picked out sparkly bandaids that I think helped. Ben had one and had no idea what was coming to him. I think the nurse took too long to explain and warn her about all this. She told Siena she should be brave and not cry for her brother. I wasn't really happy about that but oh well, both of them cried and I was glad Dave was there to help. I held her down while the shots were given. I hate watching the kids get shots. Siena was so mad, each shot got worse. We kept telling her that next time she came she wouldn't have to get shots but I don't think she really cared about that. Ben got his one shot and cried for a little bit and then was fine. The one thing that Siena wanted was a lolipop from the dr. When we were finally done we went to get a lolipop and they didn't have anymore. Then started the crying again. When she starts crying sometimes she will just be dramatic over everything. Luckilly I had packed candy necklaces and problem was solved. I think one of the main reasons she was so excited about going to the dr.'s was that we were going to see if she was big enough to get a booster seat for the car. Of course, she found this bright pink rainbow one at Target that she fell in love with. So both my kids are about the same as usual. Siena is 10% for height and 25% for weight, I guess she went down a little bit. Ben is getting bigger on the charts. He is 50% height and 30% for weight. Both are healthy and happy and we are very happy for that!