Grandma & Grandpa visit!

This week Grandma & Grandpa came to visit. Ann & Abby had a great time playing with their grandparents and Matt & I enjoyed many special dates to celebrate our anniversary :)

And who knew - it was Grandma's birthday!

Petting Zoo

On Saturday Anna, Abby, Matt, & I went to the Reston Petting Zoo. Anna & Abby both had a great time feeding the animals. Last year it took Anna a while to warm up to it, but this year she loved it right away. Abby loved the IDEA of feeding the animals. She liked to grab the food, walk it over to the animals, and put her hand up to the animals mouth. She just didn't like to open her hand and actually GIVE the food to the animal. Too bad for the animals, but it was nice that one handful of food gave her 20 minutes of fun.

Dr. Abby can walk

This past Tuesday was the first day Abby walked more than crawled. She still crawls sometimes, but walking has become her primary mode of transportation. So earlier today Anna, Abby, & I were playing doctor. Anna decided it was Abby's turn to be the doctor. I ran for the video camera as soon as I saw this:

There's something so adorable about her toddling around in her doctor's coat. I missed the cutest part where she was walking around like this, but while holding an otoscope.

Upstate adventures!

Yesterday we got back from a trip to Albany. We all had a great time catching up with family and friends. While there we celebrated Great Grandma Jane's 90th Birthday, Aunt Diane's Retirement, Father's Day, and Aunt Becky's 30th Birthday!

cooking with cousins: please pass the salt, Kieran

the "babies" are not so little anymore

swimming at Grandma and Grandpa's house

a wagon ride with Nana

visiting the Sherwins

Captain Liam with First Mate Abby

Happy Birthday Great Grandma Jane and Happy Retirement Aunt Diane!

Uncle Dan and Aunt Bridget with the birthday "girl"

helping Great Grandma Jane open her presents :)

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Birthday, Aunt Becky!
(this picture really captures the chaos of 4 cousins!)

Off to the races!

This weekend Mommy's (and Daddy's) good friend, Janel, is in town to compete in a top cycling race, the Air Force Cycling Classic. This morning we all took the train to Arlington to see the first of her two races. While looking at the website last night we found out that after the professional race there was going to be a 4 and under kids race that allowed tricycles and push cars...so Anna & Abby were geared up for a race of their own.

on the train!

Janel getting ready for her race - I tried to get an action shot during the race, but she's just too fast!

Corinne met us at the race to cheer Janel on too :) The race was 50 km around a 1 km loop of road blocked off in Arlington. This meant that we got to see Janel race by us 50 times, which was great. Matt & I don't know too much about cycling so we don't know for sure if Janel and the Colavita team were happy with their results, but they sure seem like the did great to us! Janel was in the lead for a number of laps around the track. One of her teammates ultimately finished 3rd and Janel finished maybe 8th?

Anna ended up getting a little "race freight" and decided not to participate in the kids race, but Abby did it and had a great time. Here's Abby with her medal. (Notice she even has her own number!)

Congratulations, Janel, great race!

Is it summer or winter?

People who know me well will be surprised to hear me say this... It is so hot right now all we can do is sit in the air conditioning! I know, I know, I always say the heat doesn't really bother me, but it is HOT in DC right now. Consequently, it feels like winter again because playing outside is not really an option. So what have we been up to this week?

Well, we have been to the pool twice this week. That has been great. BUT, the concrete is so hot that Anna can't walk on it. So we just tried to stay IN the pool. And when we got back to the car, the seats were so hot that Anna & Abby couldn't get into them. So I doused them in water and swung Abby's around in the air :) And then I learned: windows down and blankets over the seats for any further car adventures.

We've been to the grocery store 3 times...just for something to do. Our 3rd trip was so not serious (we were there to buy 4 things). I let the girls test drive the car cart. (Thinking that if it was a disaster the trip was not really necessary anyway.) It turns out the car worked great! They both spent the whole trip spinning their steering wheels, beeping their horns, waving at people, and not bothering each other. I made them pose for an outdoor picture so I could get a good shot on my phone:

can you tell we're a little hot?

One day we went to the indoor playground at the mall. If every child was not dressed in shorts in a t-shirt, you would have believed it was Christmas time. I think every child in a 5 mile radius of the mall was there. But the kids still had a great time romping around.

And finally today we pulled out the real winter claustrophobia creativity. We spent the whole afternoon constructing and deconstructing with couch cushions: flopping, bouncing, doing gymnastics, and building "reading tents."

thanks for the reading tent, mom!

Well, hopefully it will cool down just a little soon. If not, we're off to upstate NY for a week where we certainly we be able to go back to enjoying "summer."

a new park and an old favorite

Last Thursday I took the girls to a new park, the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens. They both loved the very friendly geese, playing in the "children's corner," and looking at some turtles and big fish.

playing in the children's corner

the "bat cave" at the children's corner

friendly geese :)

turtles!

On Friday Matt was home and we all went to one of our favorite parks, Burke Lake park. After the train and merry-go-round we found a good place to fly our kite and have a picnic dinner.

All aboard!

Happy Birthday, Abigail!

Today Abby is 13 months old! Yesterday when we were out someone asked me how old she was and I said, "She just turned 1." The other person said, "my baby is 13 months." I said, "oh, actually, mine is too." It feels like Abby just turned 1 yesterday, but I guess it has been a whole month now. This has been such a busy month for Abby between working on communicating with us and learning to walk. She points at everything now and makes some kind of noise. It seems like she is always watching our lips and trying to mimic what we are saying. She still loves to nod, "yes." Sometimes she will point to something she wants that is out of her reach and nod her head, "yes." This means, "yes, I'll take that, please get it for me." Last night she shook her head, "no" for the first time. I said, "oh, you said, 'no.'" She was quite amused with herself and she shook her head, "no," again and laughed.

She's still only taking a few steps at a time. She does prefer walking to crawling though, as she is always trying to get me to hold her hand while she walks around.

Happy Birthday, Abigail, we love you!