this week-update

Claire has started nursery at church. She doesn't love it if I'm not there but I am hoping to sneak out a little more and have her be ok with it. Dave and I both have a lot to do with our callings on Sunday so it's hard to stay with her. We talked to the nursery leaders and they say they are ok with her crying. It's hard when I am just right outside the door with my primary calling and can hear her screaming.

 Claire loves playdough. She will carry the carry-case around with her all day like her purse. I am glad she can't open it by herself yet or we would have playdough all over the house. She also loves climbing up on tables. I don't know what is so fun about that. Dave came home the other day and she was standing on the edge of the dining room table. It was kinda scary.

 Ben and Siena sleeping. I went to go say goodnight when I was going to bed and found this. They were in Siena's room together on the floor and Ben had his foot up in Siena's face. They were both sound asleep. Funny kids. Sometimes I wonder why they don't just share a room.

 I have been trying to be out and enjoy the nice weather with Ben when he is home. We have gone to the zoo and many many parks. He refuses to take naps anymore in his room but has fallen asleep in the kiss n ride line at school a lot.

 Claire and I enjoyed Nalls produce stand one day while the kids were at school.

 I take Siena to school then drop Ben off at school then come home. Sometimes it is a busy morning... especially for Claire. I was doing the morning dishes when I found her like this. Poor girl she was so tired and I guess I wasn't paying enough attention to her. She has this awful habit that I can't seem to break of not eating a big dinner and so she is starving when she wakes up. She would sleep longer if she would eat more dinner.

 here she is having an apple core for dinner!

Siena is fabulous. I don't have many pictures of her as she is gone all day! She loves school. She started a gymnastics class that she loves. Her friend from school is in it too. She tells me everyday that she played gymnastics at school and kept asking me when she could start on a team. I love the place that she goes to and she is having a lot of fun with it.

 Siena starts piano lessons this Wed. She is excited and seems ready to give it a try. We will see how the practicing goes.

I am volunteering in her class on Monday mornings. It is so much fun. I get to read with all the kids. It is amazing at all the different reading levels in each class. It is fun to meet all her other classmates too. I get a little glimpse of what 1st grade is like.

Homestead Farms

We went with the Earnests out to Homestead farm. It was a perfect fall day and we were glad we could show Nana one of our most favorite places for apple and pumpkin picking.

Claire just wanted to sit on all the pumkins. She went around the whole patch siting on them. She thought she was so funny.

 Going back with our pumpkins

 Grant and Claire enjoying the good life. The rode in the wheelbarrow the whole time while we picked apples. They were very content in there.

 The big pile of hay. I don't see why this is so much fun for kids but they all love it.

 See ya next year!

Nana visits

Nana came to visit us. We had so much fun and tried to pack in everything we wanted to do in a short amount of time. She brought lots of fun games and crafts and the kids had a great time with her.  I don't know how she knew but Ben loves these rocket launchers. They were launched up into the front trees many times. We got them to go really far. Ben would do all different ways to launch it. He would jump up and then sit on it. It looked like it hurt him but he was fine. They love it.

We have lived in this house for two years and we still haven't bought furniture for the front room. We have shopped but never bought anything. I decided that I wanted to make a reading nook in the bay window. The kids are constantly there reading. I got fabric to make a seat and some pillows. It was fun to sew and create it with my mom. I probably would have never finished it if I had taken on the project by myself. We also have curtains there now so the kids can hide away in there. They have really enjoyed it. I love it. Now I have to find furniture that goes along with my window seat. That may be a little more difficult.

 We took some much needed family pictures. We had fun one morning at Hidden Pond Nature Center. It was a lot colder than we thought it was and didn't last really long.

The first full day my mom was here we went to the outlet mall and went shopping. It was fun and nice. My mom took Ben in to the Lego store while I went to a few stores by myself. Claire was asleep so they just played there. Up until now Ben didn't know that you could buy stuff at the Lego store. He came home with 3 Lego men that he created and he hasn't put them down since. He LOVES them.

It was a wonderful visit and we miss Nana already.

iphone dump

Claire loving dinner.

 Claire exhausted after throwing a temper tantrum. She fell asleep right there.

 I love early release Mondays. We spent the afternoon with some friends after school walking around Del Ray.

 Claire loves to eat.

 Claire is eating cream cheese. She picked it right out of the fridge and decided to eat it. Apparently it looked good. She thought it tasted pretty good too.

 Siena and Ben went to Kennedy's 5 bday party at a gym. They loved it! Siena loved it so much she keeps asking me to take her back for classes. At back to school night she drew a picture that said she wants to be a gymnast. I am excited for gymnastics. I think it would be something she is good at.

 Siena is always so excited to hear all about Bens day at preschool. I think she just thinks she is so big and has already done all that stuff. She wants to talk all about it with Ben. Ben got this visor from school and Siena went and got hers so they could be twins. Cuties.

A fun weekend- Saturday

We started off Saturday bright and early going to see Dave run his final leg of the race. It was way far away and took us an hour to get to but they had this amazing playground so we thought it would be worth it. The kids woke up and I threw them in the car as they ate breakfast. We made it there with a couple minutes to spare. We saw him pass the baton to the next runner. The kids loved seeing him. They keep asking him if he was the winner of the race.

 Claire had been missing her daddy. We only got to see him for 5 minutes before it was time for him to go drive to the next stop for the next runner.

Then it was off to the point where Dave had started his last leg. Apparently he had slept at this park that night. It was the coolest park we have ever been to. It was huge. There were so many toys. It was seriously awesome. The theme was adventureland. It had a castle with a mote and a bridge going over it. It had a pirate ship and awesome swings.

 Claire was content playing in this tunnel the whole time.

 Claire also fell asleep on this swing. Crazy girl!

After a fun couple hours at the park we decided that we wanted to hit up the National book fair in D.C. Really this wasn't the best of ideas, but I had told the kids about it and they were excited and we had missed it all previous years so I said we would give it a try. I had forgotten my double stroller and Ben was exhausted. The National Mall was crazy packed and I drove around so long trying to find a parking spot. I kept trying to persuade the kids to just go home and we would get it next year. They weren't convinced. So I conquered the National book fair with 3 tired kids all by myself on a busy national mall. We initally went because the author of Siena's favorite books, The Magic Tree house, was there. We had forgotten Sienas book to get signed but it was so crowded I know now we never would have gotten it signed. We did hear her speak a little bit. I think it was too crowded. We couldn't really see what we wanted to see. We were all hungry and of course all the kid exhibits were right next to the carousel that was way expensive. We did go on the carousel but Ben was sad the whole time because he didn't get to ride the dragon like he wanted to. So I think we will skip the book festival next year, or atleast take Dave with us so we will have 2 adults to conquer it.

We came home early evening and Dave came home shortly after. He is mega sore from the race but the kid are sure happy to see him.

A fun weekend- Friday

Dave had his big RAGNAR race that he has been training for this weekend. He left at 5 in the morning on Friday and came back Saturday at 7pm. He had fun and took lots of fun pictures. I tried to do some new fun things with the kids while he was away.

I told the kids that dad was camping out Friday and they wanted to camp too. I wasn't too sure about it so at 7 at night we went in to the back yard and got blankets and our pajamas on and candy and books and had a fun family book night. We were out there for almost 2 hours. We had a lot of fun. The temperature was perfect. We could snuggle up under the blankets. It helped that we had candy corn to snack on. We read books until it was too dark then got our flashlights out or looked for stars. Surprisingly we could see some stars. The kids loved it. I just thought it would be too cold to sleep out there and they were way hyper from the candy corn so there was no way that they were going to go to bed anytime soon. It was a fun alternative to our family movie night. I would almost prefer this instead of family movie night. I loved hearing Siena read books to us all.

Ben

Ben on the first day of preschool. He has loved preschool. The first day his 2 best buddies weren't there and so he was a little sad. He said he didn't play with anyone that day. I think he was fine really. We went back Wed and he had so much fun. He couldn't stop talking about how much fun he had. A magician had come and made candy appear. He was so excited. He told me all about his day the whole way home from school. This is the complete opposite of Siena. I love that he was so excited to tell me everything. I have to drag everything out of Siena about her day so it is nice to have this change.

 I need help in entertaining little boys all day long. I feel like he is bored with me. I never had this problem with Siena. I realized Ben wants to play ball all day, or fight with sticks or make swords or run around all day. I can only take so much getting pegged in the head by a ball all day. It's hard to play with him.  I think Siena was a lot more content in playing by herself or just along side me. With Siena I could just do a nice quiet craft together. I can't do that with Ben. I need to plan more playdates for him and find active things for him to do. They definately are different.

 The weather has been BEAUTIFUL here lately. I have been to multiple parks a day just to wear out the kids. I have locked my backdoor while the kids are in the backyard just so they won't come back in. I love it and they have been falling asleep promptly. It's awesome. I wish it was always like this. So we have been walking to school whenever Ben doesn't have preschool. Some days it takes the kids forever to get there. They pick up sticks and rocks and look at every little thing on the way there. It's ok when we are coming home but not when we are going to school. I found a way to move along faster. I bring the scooter. One kid gets the scooter for one way and the other kid gets the scooter on the other way. It has been so nice and so much faster. I can almost jog with my stroller to keep up with the kids.

 He's got the cheesy picture grin/pose down.