2011 - Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! We hope your home is filled with the joy of family and friends this holiday season.  'Tis time again for our annual wrap-up and year-end greetings to all!  Don't forget to click on the links!

2011 continued the adventures with the kiddos and us.  We moved (again!) and find ourselves in the Washington, DC area as we write.  The friends we made and the experiences we had during our year in New Jersey were wonderful and we will miss them.  Hopefully we will stay here for longer than our past two assignments and remain a bit more "settled" than in prior years.  Before our move, we took time for a trip back home and enjoyed seeing family and the sights of Illinois--it had been quite some time since we'd all been back! 

It was a big year of events -- we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary, and Katie's folks celebrated their 40th (with a nice reaffirmation of vows!).

Claire, now 7, started full-time 1st grade school and still rides a bus to school.  She's been losing her teeth, and hopes for two new front-ones for Christmas this year!

Madeline is 5 and enjoys pre-kindergarten with her best friend, Paige, and the occasional play-date with her "boyfriend," Drew.  She's so big--no more thumb sucking and goes by a nice mature "Madeline" at school.  The girls also had a beautiful dance recital before we departed new Jersey (they continue their studies here in Virginia, too).

Colin has been working on potty training!  It may not be a done-deal in 2011, but it is a big event for him and Katie, so it's making the letter!  Seriously, he continues to grow by leaps and bounds into an exciting little boy--there is a distinct difference between boys and girls and he lets the whole family know about not liking "girl" things.  It's trucks, trains, dinosaurs, and airplanes for him--no Fairy movies, thank you very much!

Phil completed school and is "working" for a living again, getting used to the DC commuting-lifestyle and working at the Pentagon--along five other officers from his class last year and the other 20,000+ workers in the building every day!  Being so close to friends from last year (and friends from other assignments as they all come to DC) has been a blessing and made the transition here so much easier.  We even took a nice autumn trip with some of those friends to West Virginia to soak up the fall colors. 

It seems with every move we have multiple grandparent visits (thank God!) to help out with the kids and to see our new digs.  Katie's folks had the luck to experience some of the "unexpected" disasters of living here:  an earthquake and hurricane in the space of 7 days!  Phil's folks were kind enough to visit and also watch the kids allowing us to get away for a quick trip to Nashville.  It was our first time leaving the kiddos behind since we've had the bunch!  They did great and we're taking it as a foundation for future getaways! 

Katie added another skill to her repertoire:  bird trapper!  She caught one in the backyard and of course it needed a friend.  As a result, we now have two new pet parakeets.  Bailey, the dog, continues to soldier on...or at least sleep his days away.  He turns 15 this New Year's Eve. 

With the sights and events in the area, we find ourselves tremendously busy with kiddo activities and experiencing the culture and things to do here. We can find something new to do nearly every weekend (so stay tuned here!), and hope to take full advantage of our time.  We hope the season is happy and joyous for you and your family.

Merry Christmas, and many blessings in 2012!

US Botanic Garden

We procrastinated on Christmas shopping last weekend by hitting the US Botanic Gardens for a visit.  They were decorated for Christmas with a train exhibit, imaginative houses and fairies made out of plant materials, and even the Capitol Mall  and presidential homes made out of plant materials. 

There are so many interesting things to see and do here!

Deck the halls

The house is decorated.

The cookies have been baked (and eaten, so then we baked some more...). 

Santa breakfast is complete.

Madeline's Christmas program at school: check.

Christmas is almost here!

I should probably wrap the presents...

Rag Curls

Our girls are "girlie" girls.  They like to get all gussied up with pretty clothes and hair ribbons and nail polish and occasionally lip gloss.  And they're constantly asking me to curl their hair for them. 

Here's the thing, though:  I use a curling iron on my hair, but I really don't want to use an evil, hot, hair-damaging curling iron on their sweet little-girl hair!  What's a hypocritical mom like me to do? 

Well, somehow in my internet surfing I happened upon a website that showed -- with photos, I need photos and videos for this sort of thing -- how to do rag curls.  You take a rag, weave their damp hair around it, let 'em go to sleep, and they wake up with pretty mermaid/princess/rock star hair.  No damage to their hair and it's really easy to do (clearly, since even I can do it!).  Here they are:

Bird #2

Did I mention that we got a second bird?

Yep.  Izzy was such a cool pet (read: super-duper easy to care for) that we decided that two parakeets would be better than one.  The kids were calling him "Rainbow Bird", but I talked them into "Regen" instead (the German word for rain.  "Regenbogen" would have translated to rainbow but that seemed like a lot of syllables).

We think this one's a boy.  We're still working on taming him; he seems to be a slow learner. And he's a bad influence on Izzy.  She doesn't want to perch on our fingers much anymore; she just wants to be by her boyfriend.  Who knew she'd be one of those girls who ditches her friends when she finds a boyfriend?

Gramma and Paw-paw's visit

Shortly after the Sheas left it was time for my folks to visit.  Woohoo!  Seriously, with all of this grandparent spoiling going on my kids are in for a rude awakening when they just have Mom and Dad around.  And I'm in for a rude awakening when I don't have two helpers around all the time to whisk away the kids when I get sick of dealing with them need a little help. 

One of the first things we did this visit was throw a birthday party for Claire.  Our big girl turned SEVEN years old this year.  I really don't know how that's possible, but she assures me it is.  We had lots of kiddos over to our house for a Thanksgiving-themed party.  Thankfully (no pun intended) the weather cooperated and we could keep all those kiddos in the backyard.  Mom and I occupied them with a bunch of crafts, and I think they had a great time. 

*PLEASE CLICK PHOTOS for more pics!*

Then it was time for Thanksgiving!  We left up the birthday party decorations (intentionally, of course.  It had nothing whatsoever to do with laziness...) and invited another Air Force family over for a nice little Thanksgiving get-together.

Next up: we visited the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in DC.

This place is really something to see.  It is full of beautiful chapels and each of those chapels is filled with beautiful artwork.  Even the kiddos like to visit.  And I swear we didn't put them up to kneeling at the alters.  They thought it was fun to test out each kneeler. 

After that we took a trip to Mount Vernon and saw the sights.

It was all decked out for Christmas AND we got a tour of the 3rd floor (it's not usually open to the public) so that was a neat trip.

After all of that excitement the rest of us were pretty beat, but Mom and the kiddos still must have still had some energy because they headed into the kitchen and made hockey pucks honey cakes, aka leckerli cookies.  This recipe has been in my family for about a billion years (OK, not really a billion years, but it does call for hartshorn - which is made from deer antlers! - for a leavening agent.  We use ammonia carbonate which is only slightly easier to come by).  It was lots of fun to be able to participate in an old holiday tradition with my mom again, and really great to get my kids involved for the first time. 

Thanks for another great visit, Mom and Dad!

Grammy + Grampy visit = getaway for Mom and Dad!

Phil's parent came out for a visit last month. They were here for Halloween and Grampy was nice enough to man our door so Phil and I could both take the kids trick-or- treating.

Cinderella, Rapunzel, and a pilot

Grampy (with a couple of helpers)

Then Phil and I took advantage of those excellent grandparent/babysitters and hopped on an airplane for our first trip sans kiddos. (Yes, Phil has taken lots of trips without the kids, but this was the first time they didn't have one of us with them!). We went to Nashville, TN where Phil was attending a conference. He had to receive an award that he got at graduation in June.

Yes, it was a work-related trip. But we had fun, too! And this may have been a "gateway trip" for us. Now that we've seen that the kids do just fine without us I'm thinking we can do this a little more often.

After we got home from our trip we still had a nice visit with Phil's folks before they headed back home. It was so nice to have family around!

Visiting George Washington's Mt. Vernon

The kids sure love their Grammy and Grampy. It's always so sad when we have to say good-bye. Fortunately for us, we had Grandparents: Phase Two coming a few days later.

Coming soon: Dermody visit!

Long time, no blogging

I know, I know! There has been a shameful lack of blogging going on here. I'll get back in the swing of it soon. We had the Shea grandparents visit, a mommy-daddy trip, and a visit from the Dermody grandparents. We've been busy! In the meantime, here's a photo of me and my gal Claire on our birthday. She celebrated by getting her ears pierced. I decided against any additional piercings and instead went out to dinner with Phil while my folks treated the kiddos to McD's. :)

Canaan Valley, WV

West Virginia.  Who knew it's beautiful?  Apparently our friends did, because they planned a trip there for Columbus Day weekend.  And they invited us to come along.  Friends like that are awesome.



Altogether we had three Air Force families: 6 adults, 8 kids.  Two of those kids were two year-olds.  The oldest kids were 6 years old.  Are we brave or what?  We headed out to the middle of nowhere in the mountains of West Virginia to a "cabin" on the slopes of the Canaan Valley ski resort.  And when I say "cabin" I actually mean "super-cool mountain ski resort home that is approximately three times the size of our house".


It's not currently ski season there; it's fall-foliage season.  It was beautiful.  Did I mention that already?  Our house was maybe a 50 foot walk from one of the ski slopes, which made for really nice hiking.  We rode a ski lift to the top of the mountain and then back down (well, OK -- I stayed home with a napping Colin for that adventure, but the others went!).


We drove to the nearby Blackwater Falls State Park and saw more pretty scenery.


The kids played nicely -- all weekend long.


The gentlemen cooked dinner.  Breakfast, too.  Turns out they all like to cook, but none of them have time anymore.  We ladies were not upset to hand over the duties for the weekend!


We enjoyed the beautiful foliage and even spotted a few deer.  We drank wine and/or beer and escaped the stresses that are a natural part of life in the DC area.


It was so wonderful, in fact, that I almost threw the only temper tantrum of the vacation when it was time to leave.  I really didn't feel like coming home and leaving behind that awesome house and beautiful scenery.  We may have to go back again next year!


PS - With three families snapping pictures, we ended up with lots of neat ones.  Click here to see more cute kids and pretty views!

Taming the bird

The taming of the feral parakeet has begun, and she's doing pretty well.  Isabelle is not a huge fan of any of us, but she likes us to be in her room (aka the playroom).  She's getting better at perching on a finger, so we've let her out in the playroom a few times to get some exercise.  She's only out for very short periods of time, though, since she's not potty-trained! Even Claire and Maddie can get her to perch on a finger, which is lots of fun for them, though Colin gets a bit ticked because he doesn't get to try yet.  I'm so glad she found our backyard feeder -- she's turned out to be a fun little pet!

 *Letting Isabelle have a look out the window*

Fairies in the park

We just got back from Maddie's (oops, Madeline's) Tinker Bell birthday party at Lake Accotink Park.  Yes, I planned another party for her outside.  Never mind the fact that in years past it has ALWAYS rained on the day of this child's birthday party.  Maddie was due some good weather and this year she got it!

We don't know many folks here yet, so we invited her whole preschool class.  Clearly we couldn't have it at our house (have I mentioned that our backyard is made up entirely of mud?  Yep, barely a blade of grass but lots of dirt.  That's fine for 2 or 3 kids, but not so much for an entire preschool class...).  So off to the park we went.

The kids got to ride the carousel.

Twice.

And they got to play mini-golf.   That part was cRaZy (all those excited preschoolers wielding golf clubs!  Ack!) but they all seemed to enjoy it.  Especially Colin.

We ate cake and had a pinata.

The kids were happy.  I didn't have to clean our house.  Fun for all!

"Madeline"

Here's Maddie, all ready to start pre-K!  And since she's a big 5 year-old, she's decided to go by "Madeline" at school.  Sweet Maddie, you're breaking your mommy's heart!

Yes, you read that right, she's a big 5-year old.  Today was her 2nd day of school AND her birthday.  She got to bring cupcakes to celebrate.  How fun is that? 

She's really growing up.  We'll still catch her sucking her thumb from time to time, and I know I'm supposed to stop her, but it's really one of the only things that she still does from her baby days.  I'll admit that sometimes I look the other way.

Happy 5th birthday, Maddie-kins!  We sure do love you!