Despite the sadness surrounding the weekend, we were blessed with absolutely gorgeous weather and kept the kids busy with outside activities. Friday evening we watched the Lake Braddock high school homecoming parade with friends, then had a Mexican backyard feast. The kids were in awe of the parade, especially the candy being tossed from the floats, and I had flash-forwards to when all of these kids are in high school!

The gang waiting for the parade to start:

Scrambling for candy:

Ada really liked the marching band:

On Saturday we rode the Ghost Train at Burke Lake Park. Tinkerbell, Belle, Cinderella and Rex were in attendance:

After naps on Saturday we headed over to National Harbor and had a sunset dinner at Rosa Mexicana followed by a nice hour of climbing on the beach sculpture:

Baby’s first tortilla:

Mommy’s Happy Place:
 

Beach sculpture:

On Sunday we had a picnic lunch at Gravelly Point followed by a bike ride/walk along the Potomac. I got lots of photos of the kids squinting to look at airplanes. Even Ada was fascinated by them!

We had an absolutely perfect Fall weekend with the kids, but it didn’t feel right to blog about it without first saying goodbye. On Saturday a teammate and friend, Fran Crippen, tragically died while competing in an open-water race in the UAE. I won’t pretend that Fran and I were close personal friends, but he was a teammate at UVA and good friends with my brother. More importantly, he was one of the kindest and most good-hearted people I’ve ever met. He was one of the good guys.

You never think that when you bump into someone it will be the last time you see them. I bumped into Fran while out to brunch in DC about 8 months ago. I was with Portman and the kids, and he was with a large group of friends who were clearly punctuating a fun weekend. I wasn’t sure if I should say hi, and I was frankly kind of intimidated by all of the “cool kids” that he was with (seriously, I’m 30 and still intimidated by cool kids?) Eventually I went over to their table and said “hi,” and was greeted by a big hug from Fran and a barrage of questions about how my family was doing, since that’s the kind of guy he was. We said goodbye on the way out, and that was the last time I saw him. I’m so glad that I decided to say hi.

So, to Fran’s mom, dad and three sisters I send all of my love and thoughts. I can’t imagine the pain that they are feeling. Fran, we will miss you.

We spent last weekend at Grammie and Grandpa Anderson’s farm in North Carolina. While we didn’t make it to the NC State Fair this year (thankfully, since Daddy surely would have consumed one of these), we had a great time enjoying some quiet country living. The kids went fishing with grandpa, chased the animals, rode on the gator, carved pumpkins, had a bonfire and ate apples right off the trees. We look forward to spending more time there when the kids are older… Daddy wants to camp out in the fields with the kids!

Today is Ada’s 6 month birthday! While Harper and Roman were at preschool yesterday, Ada and I went to her 6-month checkup. The peanut now weighs 15 pounds 4 ounces (37th percentile) and is 26 inches long (61st percentile); her head is in the 38th percentile. She is the smallest of the three at 6 months – Harper was 15 lbs 14 oz and 26.5 inches, and Roman was a whopping 19 lbs 4 oz and 28 inches long. Ada got 4 shots and cried for just a few seconds before returning to her smiling, giggling self.

Now that Ada is 6 months, I’ve realized why we have so many kids this close together – 6 month-olds are AWESOME and make me want more and more babies! Ada is just brimming with personality and is constantly in motion. She rolls, scoots, commando-crawls, and puts absolutely everything in her mouth. She doesn’t like to be held or cuddled for long because she wants to be in on the action. She can’t take her eyes off Harper and Roman and falls into fits of giggles while she watches them.

She’s finally starting to enjoy solid foods. It was a struggle to feed her at first, but now she will actually open her mouth and take bites from a spoon. So far she has tried sweet potatoes, carrots, pears and butternut squash, and seems to like all of them. She absolutely loves Baby Mum Mum crackers and eats 4-5 per day. I’m making her baby food like I did for Harper and Roman, and I’ve learned a few tricks. First of all, you get a much better consistency from the blender than from the food processor. Second, you also get better results by adding quite a bit of water while you blend it, then adding a little bit of baby cereal to it at feedings if you need to thicken it. Ada’s food looks a lot tastier than Harper’s did when I was first learning to make it! Finally, I’m still trying to nurse Ada as much as possible, although my body is not making nearly enough. She’s up to about 10 ounces of formula a day. My guess is that she is getting about 2/3 breast milk and 1/3 formula, but who knows.

Ada has acquired lots of nicknames, including: Ada Potata, Ader Tater, Tater Tot, Ader Pants, Ada Bada, Sweet Potada… the list goes on. Harper was calling her “Chada” this morning. I hope she doesn’t take offense later in life because it’s pretty easy to make a nickname out of “Ada!”

The big news is that Ada is really close to crawling. She pushes on up on hands and knees and rocks back and forth, then flops forward to make forward progress. Here is a picture of her on elbows and knees – I haven’t yet captured the hands and knees action:

As she approaches her 6-month birthday, Ada has a few new tricks to show off. First, she is learning to sit up on her own:

 
She has also discovered the tags and strings on her crib bumpers and LOVES to chew on them. She will wake up from a nap and not even cry for me – she just finds the tags and goes to town on them. Sometimes she doesn’t even look up when I come in her room, just keeps chewing! Hey, whatever helps the teething.

 
Finally, she started eating “real” food a few weeks ago. We’ve tried butternut squash and sweet potatoes. So far she is not crazy about me feeding her, and I have to trick her into opening her mouth by sneaking the spoon in there when she tries to feed herself a cracker. She loves baby rice crackers and sometimes will eat 4-5 per day – 2.5 packages! We are cruising through boxes of them. I have a feeling that she will only really start eating when she can feed herself.

She’s also starting to push up onto her knees, so it’s only a matter of time before she is mobile. Better get out those baby gates again!

Roman got his very own “big boy bed” today! Or as he calls it, his “choo choo big boy bed.” He is the lucky recipient of my old bedroom furniture, which was Pop Pop’s bedroom furniture when he was little. It was made sometime in the 1950’s, but was refinished for me. Roman is so excited to have his very own big bed, especially since we dressed it with lots and lots of choo-choo’s – train sheets, pillows and a train quilt. This morning when we got it all set up, he wanted to take a nap right away! I held him off until about 12:30 and he fell asleep within seconds. Let’s hope this is a trend!

Here are some shots of the kids in the bed. Roman broke my camera a few days ago, so I’m stuck using my phone for the time being. Hopefully we can get it fixed soon.

Rocket, Thomas, Ha-Hi (monkey), all three Mimi’s and Baby Duck like the choo-choo bed too:

 
Harper was under the impression that she would be sleeping in the choo choo bed too. I lured her back to her purple bed with a “new” (dragged out of the closet) fuzzy blanket. That did the trick – she napped for the first time in weeks!

Last night we celebrated Courtney’s second birthday at the Pumpkin Playground. What a great way to start off Rocktober! The kids had so much fun that we decided to get a family pass this year, so if you are coming to visit us, be warned that we will probably be dragging you to the Pumpkin Playground. You won’t be disappointed!

This year Harper can carry her own sliding mat and do all of the big slides by herself. After watching his sister do it, Roman had no fear either.

Giving the birthday girl a little squeeze:

Child model?

We are so excited that Fall is finally here. More to come!

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while now, and after my friend Rebecca sent me this hysterical blog, I decided that one little post about breastfeeding is not TMI. Lots of people talk about breastfeeding while you’re pregnant, but no one tells you how hard it actually is. It’s not as simple as it should be: put baby on boob, baby eats, repeat every few hours. How about all of that other stuff like: squirt baby in the face with fire-hose-like spray, or baby is starving and there’s nothing in there, or waking up after a few hours and your shirt and bed are completely soaked with breast milk (don’t pretend it doesn’t happen, moms). And then there’s pumping. It’s hard to figure out, it hurts, and once you start, you can’t stop because all of a sudden you’re making enough for 3 babies instead of one.

I nursed Harper for about 7 months before my body just gave up. Actually, one side gave up and the other was fine, which made me look awesome in a bikini. Eventually the other side gave up too. Roman was terribly allergic to milk, so at 11 weeks we had to put him on a hypoallergenic baby formula (aka liquid gold since it cost a small fortune.) Ada is 5 and a half months old and I’m still nursing her almost full time. Like with Harper, my left side completely quit on me, so I only nurse on the right. I look pretty cool in a tight t-shirt. I guess I’m not as vain as I used to be. She likes it better than formula and seems perfectly content, so I’ll keep up this charade as long as my body cooperates. It saves us some money and I get to eat a little extra, so I can’t complain. Oh wait, yes I can complain. Ada started biting about two weeks ago, and I swear she does it maliciously. She will nurse for a while, then lets me know that she’s done with a nice big chomp. Then I wake her up with a shriek of pain, which scares her and I have to spend the next 10 minutes calming her down again.

Breastfeeding around toddlers is an everyday comedy. A few months ago when Ada would get fussier during the day, Harper would say “mom, she needs to eat. Just lift up your shirt and do it. Right dare on dat brown fing.” Then she would lift up her shirt and point to exactly where I should put Ada, just in case I didn’t already know. She still hasn’t asked about what it’s called, although the other day I overheard her asking Ada about “mom’s booms,” so evidently someone told her (Yaya??)

One evening I was nursing Ada while Harper and Roman were in the tub. Something alarmed me, and I put Ada down and rushed into the bathroom, topless (Ada had spit up on me and I shed my shirt). Harper looked shocked, then slowly reached out and tried to grab a little handful. I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry, so I just ran out of there and found a clean shirt! Roman was in the cart at Whole Foods last week and pulled a similar stunt. Right when we hit the dairy section, he decided to “play dwums,” that’s drums for all of you English speakers. He reached out and banged on the left, then the right, finally settling on the right for a while since it’s substantially bigger. Seriously, parenting books do not come with any instructions for situations like this.

So, for all of you breastfeeding moms out there, you are not alone! And to my sister, Cammie, I hope this provides you with a little boost of birth control.