Kiddos

As promised here are some shots of the kids:

Colin and Meilin

Olivia and "Magic" Maverick

Emily and Lily...standing on the 'sit and spin'

Lily

Meilin

We had a great visit and are so excited they are moving to DC this summer!

SNOW!!!

Click on collage to see full size

We spent a fun few days visiting Rebecca and the kids in Chesapeake and no sooner pulled in the drive from returning home when we had to strip down, get the gear on and go play in the snow! This is our first real snow of the year and since it might be the only one I reluctantly ignored the unpacking, eating, cooking, and laundry chores to go sledding and snowman building. The girls had so much fun!

I will post pictures of our trip later - Rebecca took all the good photos with her fancy dancy SLR camera so I am waiting for her to send them. Ahhhem. No pressure Rebecca!

Dentist

I was too chicken to take pictures of Em's (almost) first dentist appointment yesterday. I say almost because the Navy required her to have a dental exam as part of our "overseas screening" package before we moved to Japan when she was all of 3 months old. I guess I was the only one who thought that was a bit nuts since she had no teeth but hey.

Anyhoo. Pictures wouldn't have done it justice, it required video. You would have thought she worked there. Not only did she hop right up into the chair and proceed to talk the ear off the dentist she actually told him in the middle of polishing her teeth that she "didn't want to do that anymore - just do the water squirting part." She also very kindly helped him examine Olivia and her x-rays, declared her cavity free and gave her a sticker! That didn't go over so well with big sister.

I think we may have a dentist in the making. Emma will have to get busy making pink, glitter scrubs!

Cabin Fever

Well, as you can see from the side of my blog...it's freezing and then some here. Today we are at a happy 2* and as such Emily and I stayed in for Mommy and Emily Day. I started to suffer from Cabin Fever at about 10 am (either that or a late onset case of postpartum depression) and resorted to all forms of messy entertainment. As Olivia once told me when I asked her if something was too sparkly..."there is no such thing" our sugar cookies were 10 parts sugar sprinkles and 2 parts cookie.

Now we are staring at a 4 day weekend - yes, we all get inauguration day off too and I am trying to figure out how we are going to survive it and not all kill each other. I wish we at least had some snow to play in!

Ice Skating

Emily was promised an ice-skating day with me if she would eat her dinner (without whining, complaining, or controversy of any kind), all of it, without being hounded, in a reasonable time frame for 10 days! That proved to be good motivation for her and today I had to pay up. She was really great at it (thanks to some dual edged skates) and even though Mom forgot her coat in the 35* weather, we had a great time.

This is a cute outdoor rink in Crystal City

That thankfully has a Starbucks in the plaza for some warm up the toes hot chocolate!

Conversation with Emily

"Emily, want some hot chocolate?"

"Yes!"

"Then you have to sit here at the table and drink it."

"OK Mom, I'll do anything you say when you are making me hot chocolate!"

"It would be nice if you would listen to me ALL the time, hot chocolate or not."

"Well, that's not gonna happen!"

Happy New Year

We took a little trip to PA to see the cousins for a few days while we all had vacation from schools and sports (a rarity). Of course Em and Caitlin were in full drag within 10 minutes! Notice we are still wearing the ear muffs!

When did Emily's eyes turn so green?

Happy Birthday to Nicholas (26th), Emily (27th), and Caitlin (Jan 7th)


Olivia and Zack rockin out to Bonjovi on Guitar Hero!
Hope you all had a great 09 celebration - here's to a good year!