Finger Painting

I am not Martha Stewart, believe it or not.  My house is never perfectly clean, and I very rarely give my kids creative things to do.  That's not to say that we don't have fun, but we pretty much do the same stuff all the time.  And since we live in a plce that has ALL white carpets and walls right now, I hate getting out stuff that is super messy.

I broke down and bought some finger paints a while ago.  The kids kept it SO clean (although Noah got a good bit of paint on himself) - I was really impressed.  They also had the best time.

I love the different styles and techniques that they both had.  Kennedy's was much neater and themed.  Noah's was just a big jumble of paint.

These pictures don't show it, but Noah was covered in paint.  It was all over his tummy (shirt off because he kept wiping his hands on it), pants, hands, arms, face, you name it.  They obviously had a lot of fun.  Hopefully I will find the energy to do it again before too long.



Pregnancy Kicks In

Oh my goodness, I am behind in my blogging (and my scrapbooking).  Here is a FAST and picture filled overview of some of the things that have been happening around Yorktown.

The kids are out in the sun all the time!  This pretty much never happened in Brookings, since half the time it was raining, a quarter of the time it was cold, and the rest of the time we didn't want to spend at the same park.  I mean, these kids have tan lines.

Brett and I celebrated our 6th anniversary on June 2.  We broke our usual tradition of dinner and an action movie and went to see a free outdoor concert that the Virginia Symphony Orchestra put on.  Look at that cute tent they played in.  It was super crowded, and a wonderful way to spend our anniversary.  The fireflies even came out when the sun went down.

Noah is getting way too big.  He's not a baby anymore, even though I call him one.  Yesterday I offered Kennedy 3 cents to help me get stuff out of the dryer.  It's way too hard for me to bend over these days.  She told me she was too busy, so I was getting ready to get those clothes out, when Noah comes running over yelling, "Three cents!  Three cents!"  He already understands that he wants money.  Although I think he's already forgotten about it.

The kids LOVE to play in the mall play place.  Which I have to say that I love too.  When you're pregnant and it's 98 and humid outside, going to the park is not fun.  Instead, I can sit in air conditioning with a cup of pretzel bites and watch them play for an hour.  It's wonderful.

They have also really been loving to help me in the kitchen.  I was making mini cherry pies, and Kennedy and Noah wanted to play in the leftover flour on the counter.  Kennedy "made" a pineapple pie and Noah, sporting Kennedy's apron, made a mess.

Kennedy is too smart for her own good.  The other day she asked me what I liked to do, and then asked me to spell those words.  I had no idea she was writing them down as I told her.  She brought this to me after the fact.  She didn't ask me how to spell mom.  The third word down is "snacks".  I don't know about you, but I was thoroughly impressed, considering I thought that she could only kind of write her name.

Also, I love the way she draws people.

The kids love to wear their towels around the house.  In fact, as I write this, Kennedy is being a princess in hers.  And I'm the queen, wearing her ladybug comforter. 

Whew!  Now that I've been being a little bit better about blogging, hopefully I won't have to do a picture dump on you again any time soon.



Baby #3

I finally had an ultrasound last Thursday.  No, I do not know what the baby is.  We decided to hold off on this one, since we have one of each and we wouldn't have found out until Thursday anyway.  But I got to see the sweet baby.

I had an appointment today, which gave me the results of the ultrasound.  I'm going to have to go back for another, more in depth ultrasound, because they found some minor discrepancies in the heart and kidneys.  Apparently they are small enough that they could be nothing, or they could work themselves out.  But they are going to check again, just in case.

Also, just a shout out to other women who need rhogam shots.  Those things hurt!  I don't remember it hurting so badly with Noah, but holy cow, my backside is sore!

Presents

A while ago I was giving Noah a bath when Kennedy walked in the room holding a big Mini Wheats box.  She announced that she had a present for me.

This happens somewhat regularly.  Sometimes she and Noah will put themselves in big boxes and tell me it is Christmas.  Sometimes it's my birthday and I will get a gift of random toys stuffed in a random box.

So I said, "Thank you!" and started opening the box, expecting to find Rosie or Lamby inside.

Instead, I was actually startled, adrenaline pumping and everything, when the box moved.

Thankfully it was only Lucy, and not some crazed rabid beast that my body thought might be in there.  It was awfully cute.

Other cute things about Kennedy right now:

1. Although I was kind of fighting against this at first, and I in NO way encouraged it, Kennedy has started getting very interested in Barbies and My Little Pony.  It's not really something that I ever had growing up, or ever cared about that much, but I think it's sweet that she is finding her own interests.  She even spent $5 of her own money today to buy a Barbie fairy movie we ran across at Target.

2. She is convinced that this baby is a girl.  When we try to prep her and say that this baby could be a boy, her response is always, "But it could be a girl!"

3. She is most definitely in the "why" stage.  Holy cow.  If I never heard the word why again, I would be thrilled.  Unfortunately, at this point, I think I'm due to be in it for the next 10 years.



Yorktown Beach

One of the great things about Virginia is that you don't feel like you're going to die if your feet touch ocean water.  Oregon beaches were terrifyingly cold.  It's kind of nice to go to the beach and have an actual beach experience, even if the beach isn't quite as pretty.

Yorktown beach is actually an ocean inlet, not ocean itself, but it's a small beach that doesn't get very big waves, so it's very little kid friendly.

Since my pregnant self was mostly stationed on the towels (getting a sunburn on my lily white legs), I wasn't able to get too many pictures of anyone but Noah.

Brett and Kennedy are in the distance by the water building a sand castle, but this is about as close as Noah was willing to get to that experience.  He decided that it was  much safer closer to mom.

Bucket in hand, he spent most of the morning right here next to me.  Filling his bucket, dumping it out, and filling it again.

Look at those ripped arms!  Seriously, those are some good little baby muscles.

We all got in the water, even though Noah protested.  He had fun though, even though his sandy feet bothered him at the end.



Colonial Williamsburg

We spent our first day in Colonial Williamsburg with my mom while she was here.  The kids had a blast - which was mostly because we didn't make them sit through anything historical in favor of eating and letting them run around the whole time.  When we first got there, Kennedy and Noah randomly decided to hold hands and run to the entrance.

It was awfully cute.  Up until Kennedy told Noah that they were going to jump off the curb together.  Of course he didn't understand, and the both fell flat on their faces.

For Noah, the highlight of the day was most definitely riding the bus.  He was thrilled to be riding on that thing with so many people.  I think he would have been content to stay on there for an hour or so.

My favorite parts are the cheese and candy shops (not to mention the Williams-Sonoma) in Merchant Square, which is a modern part on the end of the historical street.

Kennedy liked the candy shop too.  They had Hello Kitty marshmallow pops.

Obviously they enjoyed their candy.  Once in the historical part, we stopped a lot to let the kids run.  They particularly loved the big Palace Green, where grandma let them take off their shoes and lounge in the grass.

They also loved looking in the shops.  We narrowly missed a tantrum when I said we couldn't buy this hat.  I wanted to throw a tantrum too.  It was cute, but not $30 cute.

We have year passes, and have been back already, so I'm sure we will go again before we leave.



Virginia Living Museum

You'll have to excuse the weird picture.  This is the best I could get of them both looking at the camera.

One of the attractions that we have already been to a few times out here is the Virginia Living Museum.  We have a family year pass and have already made our money back.  Best idea ever.  It's like a mini aquarium/zoo, and is big enough to keep us occupied for a while, but small enough to be manageable on a whim.

Captivated by the fish.

Noah loving the microscope and playing with grandma, who came with us the first time we went.

This giant turtle shell is definitely one of the highlights every time we go.  Instead of looking at animals, they want to do something more interactive.  Be an animal, pet the animals (there is a decent touch pool), or, Kennedy's favorite, play virtual frog dissection.

When they tried on these hats in the gift store, grandma couldn't help but buy them.  They are now worn around our house quite a bit.

Of course, we had to go back with dad once the new dinosaur exhibit opened.  And let him cause some trouble.

You can't see his face, but Noah was not very happy to be in the dinosaur's mouth.

The dinosaur exhibit was smaller than I was expecting, but they are all robotic, and they have a cool portion of underwater dinosaurs.  There was, unfortunately, a painful musical puppet show that we were forced to sit through.  The kids had a blast.  I was thankful that it was only 20 minutes long.

And of course, dad had to be a kid too.