It’s school picture time! Harper was in the WORST mood on picture day – we had just returned from Colorado and she was completely exhausted – so I am excited that it turned out so cute!

Last Friday I took the kids to Hidden Pond Park for some quality playground time and nature exploration. Hidden Pond is just around the corner from our house and has an awesome nature center in addition to a toddler-friendly playground. There is a big pond with fish, ducks and turtles and an indoor nature center with lots of nasty things like snakes, frogs, spiders and tadpoles. Needless to say, the kids were in heaven! Harper spent a great deal of time watching tadpoles and salamanders with a “bagnafine glass,” aka magnifying glass, and Roman was completely fascinated by a very large and active snake. Luckily the snake was also very stuck in his cage, or else Roman may have attempted to bring him home with us!

In addition to the sandbox, we also christened the water table last week. One afternoon Roman decided that it would be fantastic if he put his feet in the water table. This quickly escalated until both kids were caught standing in it. We had some minor safety concerns with this activity and quickly put the kibosh on it!

And finally, these are a few weeks old, but here are some photos of an impromptu trip to Georgetown to have dinner with Daddy after work. Boats, airplanes, and Georgetown Cupcake. Need I say more?

Armed with a piece of Brio train track:

“Woah-man, I need your help to fight the ants! When you see an ant, yell ‘FIGHT!!!’”

Watching me clean food off the floor for the ten millionth time:

“It’s okay, mama. When he’s fwee wike me, Woah-man won’t frow food on da fwoor.”

Again, armed with a Brio train track, she hands a track to her brother:

“Fight me Woah-man, fight me!” and two seconds later “Ooooowwwww! MAMA, WOAH-MAN HIT ME!”

Harper runs up to me screaming because Roman hit her in the head with a train (a separate incident from the “fight”):

Me: “Are you okay?”
Harper: “No! …. a bow will feel it better!”
Me: “A bow?”
Harper: “Yeah a bow on my hair will feel it better.”
I put a bow in her hair and she immediately stops crying.
Harper: “Yeah, dat’s better.”

I don’t care what people say about Christmas, Spring is the BEST time of the year. I love that we can open all of the windows, the kids play outside almost all day and eat all of their meals outside, and we are all in great moods! We have had a taste of it this week with almost 70 degree temperatures and lots of sunshine. We’ve been grilling, enjoying after-dinner ice cream cones (sorbet, but they don’t know the difference), and today we opened up the sandbox for the first time. I feel like our play-space has doubled in size since we can finally use the patio again!

Tonight Harper ate an entire 6-ounce piece of macadamia-crusted cod and almost half of a mango. She really makes my job look easy. Roman, on the other hand, ate the other half of the mango and not much else. After dinner they enjoyed some cones at their picnic table. For the most part they insist on sitting together at their table whenever they eat outside. I think it’s so adorable!

 
Last night I gave them cones, went inside to put away the sorbet, and came back out to find them sharing a lounge chair:

Yesterday while Harper was at school, Roman discovered potting soil. It kept him entertained for a solid hour, then we had to make an impromptu trip to the tub:

The sandbox is officially open! I’ve already decided to invest in a new, stronger leaf blower to keep the sand at bay. I can’t stand having sand in the house and will spend the next 6 months sweeping the patio and enforcing our “no shoes in the house” rule.

 
Roman would be utterly lost without his trains (‘hoo-hoos”), trucks (“too-hoos”) and taxi (“tah-hah”), so we bring them outside with us. He is extremely territorial about just those toys and won’t let Harper come near them. We’ve pretty much given up on making him share, and instead told Harper that the dollhouse and her baby dolls are just for her and she doesn’t have to share them, but the trains and trucks are only for Roman. So far that seems to be okay with her. Roman also has a particular way of playing with them. He lines them all up either side-by-side or end to end and spends a lot of time just making sure they are properly in line. Obsess much?

Harper: “I don’t want to have quiet time!”

Me: “Well if you don’t have quiet time then we can’t do something fun later.”

Harper: “I don’t wanna do somefing fun, I wanna do something nasty. What’s somefing nasty that I can do?”

Me: “Well maybe lose all of your bee-bees or not get to play with your friends.”

Harper: “And hitting. Hitting is nasty.”

Me: “Yes, hitting is nasty. We don’t hit.”

Harper (as I’m leaving her room): “And don’t forget bears! Bears are nasty too, mama!”

 

Me: "Ashley is coming over in a little bit. Are you going to be fussy or are you going to be nice?"

Harper: "I’m not gonna be nuffing. I’m gonna be Harper."

Harper: "Mommy can you build dis zoo wif me?"

Me: "I need to do some laundry and a few things first, and then I can build it with you."

Harper (5 minutes later): "Mommy are you finished wif your business yet?"

Roman and I enjoyed a beautiful lunch of pistachios and apricots today on the patio while Harper was at school. I feel so Mediterranean! We are all in phenomenally better spirits since the weather has been so nice. After lunch we took a beep-beep car ride around the neighborhood. We’ll be outside as long as this lasts!

Roman is babbling constantly now and is really clued in to what is going on around him. One of our favorite things that he does is point to the back of his head whenever he hears something – birds, airplanes, trains (the VRE), Daddy, Harper, you name it. He stops dead in his tracks, points to his head, and babbles off a question about what it is. We then have to confirm that “yes, it’s an airplane!” or “Do you hear Daddy?” Here he is hearing the “hoo-hoo” (the VRE):

We FINALLY have some sunshine here and the snow is just about melted. Please, Mother Nature, NO MORE SNOW! Yesterday I took the kids to Clemyjontri for some fresh air. It was probably still a little too cold, but they had fun running around on the 99% melted playground. Today it is absolutely gorgeous outside, so we took a family walk/ bike ride/ beep-beep car ride. Harper has gotten really good at riding her bike and can go for long rides now. Hopefully she will graduate to a big-girl bike this summer with rubber tires because the combination of the plastic-wheeled beep-beep car and her trike makes for a very loud walk!

Harper very rarely takes a nap anymore, so this afternoon she got to take a trip to Starbucks with Daddy while Roman was napping. She insisted on wearing a “cape:”

In honor of the nice weather, Daddy spent the morning finishing up the baby’s closet/nursery, which involved sawing the final pieces on the patio. It started as a small project, but he ended up ripping out all the shelving and starting from scratch. It really looks beautiful and I think it will work work really well as a “nursery” until we move! I’ll post photos as soon as we get it cleaned up.

Last weekend we took a 4-day excursion to Steamboat, Colorado to ski with Uncle Dave, Aunt Jenn and Katelyn. Our adventure started on Wednesday when Ya Ya picked Roman up for a sleepover in Charlottesville. Portman and I both felt like we were sending him off to college and got so choked up when they left! We realized that this was actually the first time that Roman had been away from us since he was born. For some reason we have only taken family vacations in the last 19 months, and this was his first sleepover at Ya Ya and Pop Pop’s house! Harper was as confused as we were and said things like “I’m gonna leave my wolly-pop in da car because if woah-man sees it he will be sad.” It was definitely a strange day for all of us.

We woke the little princess up at 5:30 AM on Thursday and made it to Reagan in the nick of time for our early flight. Harper was clearly tired (since she usually rolls out of bed close to 9), but was too excited to sleep. We met our entourage in Chicago and the fun really started. Harper and Katelyn immediately launched into a series of very loud songs, an impromptu picnic on the floor at our gate, and made “snow angels” on the floor of the terminal… not at the gate, but smack in the middle of the main walking area between gates. Luckily everyone else thought it was as funny as we did! At one point Harper shouted very loudly “I have a wand and I spelled Katelyn into a pumpkin, and now I’m gonna spell her back into Katelyn!”

The girls sat together on the flight out to Steamboat, and Aunt Jenn won childcare immunity for the rest of the trip for sitting with them the entire way out there. They entertained the entire back of the plane with their antics, and on our second attempt at landing (because of heavy fog), we looked over and they were both reading the emergency landing pamphlet from the seat pocket. It was downright hysterical and so well-timed!

The girls had a great weekend skiing, and even more fun just being together. They pushed through extreme exhaustion and had plenty of ring-around the rosy sessions, dance parties, and pretty much didn’t stop talking for 3 days. They were so tired by the end of the days that Katelyn literally fell asleep at the dinner table… twice! Harper loved skiing with her Daddy, but ski school was not a hit. We had to pick her up early and take her home for a nap, and she declared “there were too many kids, and too many boys!” Rather than torture her again, Portman got a ski harness and was able to ski longer and more challenging runs with her. On the flight home, they told everyone that they had a great time skiing in “avocado!”