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!

Claire's first day

 

Here she is, on her first day of 1st grade, her first day of all-day school, AND her first day at a brand-new school.  That's a lot of firsts.  Check out that brave big-girl smile.

 

And here she is when we picked her up at the end of the day!  Looks like she had a great time.

 And I know this is Claire's post, but I couldn't resist putting up this photo of Colin.  He's getting ready to pick up Sissy in his new raincoat.  I think it is just TOO DANGED CUTE on him and may just make him wear it everywhere we go, rain or shine!

Yep, we have a bird

Well, nobody claimed her so we bought her a cage. And toys.  And treats.

Guess we have a birdie named Isabelle!  Now I have to try to tame her.  Wish me luck!

Editing to add: she's much more active now!  She slept for 48 hours straight after we caught her.  I think the dog kennel may have been a bit dark for her.  Now she chirps happily at the kids and even plays with her toys.  I recently found this audio clip online of wild parakeets (aka 'budgies') in Australia singing.  I may have to download it - it makes her so happy!     

Mom and Dad's Exciting Adventure

I'd like to think that ALL of my parents' visits to see us are memorable and exciting.  We're fun, right?  And I think our kids are pretty cute.  We usually try to find interesting things to do when they come to visit.  But I suppose it's going to happen that some trips rank higher on the exciting scale than others.  I think this last trip will be right  up there near the top.  (Click HERE for a slideshow or click any of the photos)

To start things off right, we packed up and went to the National Mall.  Saw the sights.  Took some pics.  Had a celebrity sighting (Bob Dole).  Visited the National Museum of Natural History and saw lots of neat-o things.  Stopped at the Air Force Monument on the way home.  Whew!  That was a big day.




Then we hit the National Zoo.  We accidentally broke a few laws while trying to park, but then had a great time visiting all of the animals.  The zoo is located on a pretty good sized hill.  We got our workout that day, for sure.



Next up (cue the excitement):  a Pentagon tour for Mom and Dad while the kiddos and I went to the pool.  I dropped them off at the Metro rail station and they took the train into the city like a couple of locals.  I'm sure their tour would have been interesting enough, but then they experienced our 5.8 mag earthquake -- in the middle of their tour!  Some folks would have fled the building in terror, remembering that the building was attacked nearly 10 years ago.  My mom, however, is not one to be discouraged from sight-seeing, and they finished up the last hour of their tour (heehee - just kidding, Mom.  Most of the Pentagon folks continued with business-as-usual so they finished up their tour).  None of us Shea/Dermodys had experienced an earthquake before, so I'm sure they won't forget that tour any time soon!  Phil helped them take the Metro bus home because the rail was not operating efficiently after the quake.  After navigating two forms of public transport, they are officially more seasoned DC travelers than I am.

We also made it to the Udvar-Hazy Museum, which is part of the National Air and Space Museum.  And by "part" I mean the really super-cool part.  There we saw the Space Shuttle Enterprise, an SR-71, the B-29 Enola Gay, and lots of other really neat air and spacecraft.

Then we got to come home and start bracing for the other exciting event: Hurricane Irene.  As we know now, it ended up being nothing more than a pretty good storm in our neck of the woods.  But the forecasters weren't sure how it would go so we stocked up on a few things and prepped our house and yard for heavy winds.  Some friends of ours were evacuated from their house in Dover, DE, so they came to join our little pre-hurricane party too.  We considered buying the makings for "hurricane" drinks, but instead made do with some margaritas and beer.  The next night our friends moved on to another friend's house and the Dermody/Shea clan took to the basement to weather the storm.  We have some REALLY big oak trees with questionable root structures in our backyard and I really wanted as much house as possible between us and them if one decided to fall! 

Fortunately we weathered the storm just fine, though a nice generator is back on our to-buy list (I can't believe we never bought one when we lived in Altus!).

And during their visit my mom found time to do a sewing lesson for the girls and Dad helped them ride their bikes.  Mom did a bunch of crafts with the kiddos.  They even had a grown-up craft this time for us -- we made a bench!  (And by "we" I mean Phil and my parents - haha).

After the storm we were blessed with some beautiful weather, so we checked out the ruins of the Belvoir Plantation on Ft. Belvoir and relaxed a bit (which means we planted a bunch of daylilies in the front and back yards!)  before my parents had to make their way back to Illinois.



They had no idea what they were signing up for when they planned this trip!  But they took the earthquake and hurricane in stride, and they even promised to come back for another visit soon.  Love you, Gramma and Pawpaw!

Sitting on the new bench!