February 2015

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There are two things we had a LOT of this February:  Cold and Snow (and days at home!)

From Teacher Workdays to Monday Holidays, weekends, cold days, snow days, and ice days, and sick days……we were home a LOT this month! 

We made the most of our time at home, while watching the snow fall!  We made a box village in our basement with Kristy and our friends on teacher workday.   We painted.  We made Valentine gifts (birdseed ornaments) for our bird friends.    We also made lots of art on our own!  We love to cut, paint, draw, glue and make creations! 

We worked on Valentines for school, family, and friends. We enjoyed putting all those heart shaped crayons in our Valentine’s and exchanging them at school. 

And we enjoyed lots of Valentine’s-themed treats, from heart pancakes and waffles to heart shaped carrots and strawberries, heart-shaped framed eggs, pink oatmeal and pink (strawberry) milk.

We cooked with Mommy a lot too!  We made Jell-O Jigglers, pudding, Valentine’s apple rose tarts, and filled pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, which just happened to be a snow day also (Mommy FINALLY broke out her Ebelskiver pan from MANY years ago, for the first time!!). Oh, and don’t forget the “Snow Cream!”

We played games, built with Legos,  played some favorite make-believe games, like prince/princess/castle/fortress,and Hide and Seek; and had dance parties before bed almost every night (a completely strategic energy-burner!).  

OH – and we did go outside, too!  We sledded, rolled in the snow, made snow angels, helped clear the driveway, made a snowman on the ground, when the snow wouldn’t pack, and made a great 3D snowman when the snow did pack. 

We had some fun outings when we could get out!  On a “cold day”, we went to a mom and tot skate at an arena in Maryland, and were SO proud to find ourselves skating across the ice confidently, on our first outing (holding the little walker supports).     We had lots of fun running pancake races at church, at the Pancake Brunch before Ash Wednesday.  Running and flipping is really tough, but 50% of our team still got an award for being the “cutest runner”, and was kind enough to share her medal and trophy with her brother.   And we got back to swim class and were thrilled to have our (Katharine’s) favorite teacher.  We had a ball, and really stretched our willingness to be so brave.

Our favorite February happening were the weeks that our classroom friend, “George,” the monkey, came to stay at our house.  Katharine got to host George for a week, and then it was Christopher’s turn.  You will see that George did just about everything with us!  We took lots of pictures, which were then pasted into George’s journal, in which we narrated his story to share with our class.  George even went to Christopher’s haircut, and rode the Metro with us, on our visit to the Native American Museum in DC! 

So, as much as we missed our friends at school, we have been a little bit gleeful about staying up, sleeping in, watching an extra show or two, and having time to pick what we’d like to do next.  But warmer weather, and the time change are on their way (soon, fingers crossed!), to get us back into a regular routine.

We hope February was kind to you too, and that you enjoy some of our favorite photos from this month. 

Dreaming of Spring!

Love,

Christopher and Katharine

Happy 2015!

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Happy 2015!

We kicked off the New Year by enjoying some family time together at home – Long Winter Vacations are a wonderful thing!  On New Year’s Day, we saw the National Christmas Tree and train display, near the White House.  Then we visited Union Station for lunch, and walked over to see the Capitol Tree, and the train and holiday displays at the Botanic Gardens!   We had such fun exploring in DC! 

We also took a day to enjoy Mommy-Daughter and Father-Son dates out together, and spent the weekend playing with our new Lego sets at home.  And then we started getting ready to go back to school.

Except…. The second day of school, it snowed, and we enjoyed the first of several snow days and delayed days.  We had great fun sledding and tubing in the yard, while the snow lasted!  It was often not good “packing snow”, or enough to play in, and VERY cold, which also gave us extra time for indoor fun.

We made snowball cake and snow ice cream; played pre-school board games and home-made fun games together; started our valentines; and began unwrapping, sorting, chopping, assembling, and melting crayon hearts for our valentine favors.

We enjoyed Dad’s day at school the first Saturday of the month, making boats and enjoying treats with Daddy! And then many evenings this month were spent floating, splashing, and racing our boats in the tub together.

And we made a long-anticipated trip to tour the Washington Monument later in the month.   It was a chilly, freezing rain kind of morning, but things settled down for our tour time, and we had a great time checking out the views and learning about this important monument.

The last snow of the month gave us some really great packing snow, and we were finally able to construct (with some help) and decorate that snow fort we’d been dreaming of. 

And we visited our friend Zach at his new house! We had a fun taco bar and gingerbread dessert for dinner, and had a great time exploring and playing together, and chasing poor Penny, the cat.  It was so fun to see Zach and his family again and celebrate their new home!

What a fun start to our New Year!

Love,

Katharine and Christopher

December and Christmas 2014

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December 1 marked the first day of our Advent calendar and Jesse Tree.  It also marked the start of our race to the holidays!  With just a couple of weekends at home before leaving for our Winter Break trip to Ohio, this month began, proceeded, and finished BUSY!

The month began with a major home project to replace a broken water line; complete with digging up the front yard and breaking through the basement wall.   The digging machines provided exciting watching, and in a day’s time, all was well again. 

We made a special trip this year to see the Merrifield Gardens Santa; a visit complete with carols, a telling of the real Christmas story, a Santa press conference, and a sleigh-side visit with the big guy himself.

Kristy’s family also invited us to join them at their church for breakfast with Saint Nicholas, who also read the Christmas story.  We enjoyed meeting him, having breakfast together, and working with our family to make some pretty and meaningful Christmas ornaments and crafts.

And at our church, we went to the Angel Breakfast, enjoying Star Pancakes with the story of the Angel Gabriel’s message for Mary about her baby-to-be, and even won a fun “Olaf” toy in a game of ANGEL Bingo!

At home, we helped Mommy make and dip white chocolate Christmas cookies, and decorated the tree with our ornaments.   We made some extra special presents for our teachers and families – hand painted Christmas trees on burlap canvases!  And we had great fun discovering the antics of our Elves (on the Shelves)!

Kristy helped us make some really cool projects at home this month!  Christopher realized his vision for a Wilson train costume from a packing box, some paint, and a tap light!  And Katharine constructed a Lego version of the tower walls of Jericho, complete with flags (she was inspired to create one for our Advent tree, when she realized that we were about to reach the Promised Land without Joshua’s challenge at Jericho).  And in our days off at home before our trip, we also went to a fun dance class with Emmie, and made peppermint candy ornaments together, which were fun and super cool looking!

We made lots of neat ornaments and crafts at school, and decorated giant gingerbread cookies at our friend, Maya’s house.  And we proudly sang with our class in our school Christmas Concert.  We did such great job singing “O Come All Ye Faithful”  (we even know the “Venite Adoremus” version!)  and “Jingle Bell Rock” with all the motions, in our “fancy” Christmas outfits.

We were thrilled to finally travel to Ohio for Winter Break to visit with our families there (after weeks of anticipation).  We spent several days in Wadsworth, visiting with Grandma and Grandpa Keller, and playing with our cousins from California.  We went to church and the Cleveland Orchestra Choral Christmas concert together.  What fun it was to hear all the beautiful music!   We even joined in on the “five golden rings” chorus, braving the trip up to the microphone to sing!  After Christmas Eve service and dinner, we had extra fun running around the house and outside, making “Rudolph sightings” in the sky, and putting out carrots for Santa’s team.

In Kenton, we had so much fun playing with Grandma and Grandpa Sturgeon and our Ohio cousins.  Christopher had a great time helping Grandma in the kitchen with cornbread and pumpkin pie, and Katharine had extra fun snuggling with Grandma and gaining confidence playing with Cupcake doggie.  We had great fun helping deliver gifts for Christmas and playing together with our cousins!

How much we love and miss our families in Ohio!  When we arrived home, we took a few days to recover from a variety of illnesses and unpack from our trip.  On a healthier day, we had fun tubing and riding the train and carousel at Zoolights.  We were still recovering on New Year’s Eve, so we spent the day in our PJ’s working on projects and watching TV.  For the big night, we shared a “fancy” toast, complete with a special dessert and party horns before bed.

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas too! Happy New Year!

Love,

Christopher and Katharine

November 2014

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After all the excitement in October, November began with slower days, time to play at home, accomplish things, and be thankful to be together. We worked on our cutting and letter writing skills for school at home.  We were happy to remember someone we love each morning at breakfast, using our “Give Thanks” calendar.

We finished up our hip hop dance class this month, began our first Pee Wee Paddler 2 swim classes, saw Santa’s workshop at the mall, and went to a fun “Okee Dokee Brothers” concert with our friend Zach at the National Geographic Live theater.  With several nice weather days, we even went on walks and had some lunches on the deck.

We sang in our very first worship service, with our Joyful Noise Chorus at church, singing the chorus part of “All Things Bright And Beautiful”.

And at the end of the month, we went on several fun holiday outings, beginning on a very beautiful, warm night at the Meadowlark Light display.  It was a perfect night to wear our red and green and take some sweet photos for those Christmas cards!  And we had a great time, sharing s’mores and exploring.

Then it turned brrrrr, oh so cold, and we saw our first snow of the season, the day before Thanksgiving.  Not very much snow on the ground, but beautiful thick snow from the sky, and slushy enough to stomp around in later that night. 

On Thanksgiving Day, we went out for a special family dinner out, worked on our Christmas tree, and packed for our trip to Sesame Place!

We had a great day at Sesame Place again this year.  We rode SO many rides, and enjoyed watching the shows and the parade.  Our favorite things:  Katharine danced in the parade with one of the performers, and we rode our very first roller coaster many, many times! 

On Saturday, we delighted in breakfast at the hotel, and headed for home, stopping for our first visit at the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore, where we had a wonderful time exploring!  From model trains to real train cars and locomotives to explore and learn about, we were tickled to see everything.  The Museum was decorated so colorfully for the holidays, and we had a special visit with the Civil War Era Santa there, and even met Mrs. Claus, too!  And we took our very first real train ride on their “mile one” train, surrounded by holiday music, and accompanied by a surprise visit with Santa, who walked the aisle to share candies and smiles with all the kids.

Back at home, we finished hanging ornaments on the tree, setting up our Advent Tree and calendar, and getting all our Christmas books, nativity sets, and other decorations ready for December! 

We are so excited for December, to see our families in Ohio soon! 

 

Love,

 Christopher and Katharine

October 2014

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October brought the beginning of fall, and all things fall fun!

We enjoyed playing with our friends at school and at church this month.  We had lots of fun learning new things in our dance and swim classes.  At home, we continue to work on letter practice and building masterpieces with large blocks!  And on warm days we had fun playing outdoors, biking, and putting up Halloween decorations

We had a great family fun day at Cox Farms Fall Festival one weekend, and enjoyed a beautiful family hike on the Cross County Trail the next.  We spent warm days playing and hiking in our neighborhood and exploring some of the new paths being completed.  We even stumbled across the opening ceremony for the new bike path that connects our street directly to the bike path the next! 

And oh my, we had SO much Halloween fun!  We chose to dress up as Chuggington trains together.  Christopher was “Wilson” and Katharine was “Koko”, while Mommy and Daddy were mechanics.  We trick-or-treated in our costumes at the “Air and Scare” event at the Air and Space Museum.  We attended our very first concert at the Kennedy Center – “The Whodunit Mystery” of the Missing Tuba, played by the National Symphony Orchestra!  We got to wear our costumes for trick or treating and tried out all instruments we could at the “Instrument Petting Zoo” beforehand.  AND the student performer who had taken the missing tuba turned out to be one of Mommy’s students, and we got to watch him perform with the NSO!

We marched in our very first Halloween Parade, a Vienna tradition - what a thrilling, but very late night! We remembered to make jack-o-lanterns on the eve of Halloween - Whew!  On Halloween Day, we marched in the costume parade at our school, and then Trick-Or-Treated in our neighborhood, after their annual kick-off party.  When we got home, we were thrilled to pass out candy to the kids still making rounds on our street. 

Next on our list is to prepare for the time-change, the end of fall, and the upcoming holiday season.  We are so excited to look forward to snow, but for now, revel in marching through and kicking up the leaves, and trying to catch them as they fall.

We hope you are enjoying a wonderful fall, and please enjoy our favorite photos from this month!

Love,

Christopher and Katharine

Back To School! September 2014

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September was a wonderfully fun and busy month!

We celebrated Labor Day together at the National Harbor.   We enjoyed the morning exploring the Children’s Museum, eating lunch out, and even rode the Capitol Ferris Wheel, with incredible views over the water!  What a special treat!

We were so excited for the opening of school, to meet our new teachers, and begin our Pre-K 4 year at Holy Comforter.  We are happy to have new and old friends in our class, and we still get to play with other friends at school on the playground!  Katharine’s first job in class was weather helper, and Christopher’s was snack helper, but we get new jobs each week.  Mommy and Daddy are already surprised by the way we are learning to draw and write our names, and we have fun learning together at home each week, cutting out pictures for the letter of the week book we are making at school!

We celebrated Mommy and Daddy’s birthdays with dinner out and special desserts at home!  For Mommy’s birthday, we picked out cupcakes from Whole Foods on our way home from school.  For Daddy’s birthday, we put our “chef hats” on to surprise him with a special pudding, chocolate, and graham cracker dessert we helped make.  He was SO surprised!

And we had a great time making cards and gifts for Kristy for Nanny Appreciation Week!  Each morning, we had so much fun giving her special surprises!

After “A” week at our school, learning all about apples (apple coring, apple painting, cooking free-form apple pies), we were so looking forward to our first family apple-picking trip!  We went to Waters Orchard in Maryland, a new orchard, where dwarf apple trees are trained low onto a trellis.  After a neat wagon ride to the orchard, we were delighted to see that we could really pick all our apples, right at our height!  We quickly collected a half-bushel of apples, and brought them home.  Then we washed them and helped make the pumpkin dip to go with them for our special snack for school.  Mommy let us stir in the cream cheese  and spices, and even let us try out her electric mixer.  We could hardly believe that her mixer used to be Grandma’s mixer!  Our friends LOVED the special, yummy snack, and we had fun sharing about our trip to the orchard with our class!

The last weekend of the month was beautiful, and perfect for our first race!  We ran the Teddy Bear 5K (we really did the 1K Fun Run/Walk) to benefit the McLean Children’s Center.  We had a ball playing all the fun games before the race, and were thrilled to receive a teddy bear as we crossed the finish line!  We certainly tired, and walked parts of our race, but were quickly motivated again by other children running by us.  And how exciting it was when we saw everyone cheering us on at the finish line!  What a fun day!

Love Christopher and Katharine

We're FOUR! August 2014

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We had a great August!

With the school year around the corner, we made the most of every moment together this month. We continued to enjoy our soccer and ballet classes, and had fun working on projects at home too!

We saw ballet and concerts, visited the farm at Frying Pan Park, and learned about puppets at Wolf Trap Theater in the Woods.

We practiced riding our bikes, and even got to watch the new Metro rail in action, running right under us on the footbridge!

We got to see and explore in all kinds of service vehicles at the Reston Public Works Day, and enjoyed an up-close tour at the Vienna Fire Station!

We played with friends at a Sprinklers and Snow Cones event in the Vienna Town Green, and enjoyed a late summer trip to ride the Carousel and explore the playground at Clemyjontri Park.

And WE TURNED FOUR!  The week of our fourth birthday featured many fun celebrations, beginning on our actual birthday.  After opening some presents, we met Daddy for lunch in DC at Founding Farmers, where we enjoyed our 2^nd annual tradition of blowing candles out on our big bowl of ice cream, with warm homemade cookies.  After lunch, we had a great time running our fingers through the fountain that runs down the side of the IMF building next door. Once we were soaking wet, it was time to go home for nap.  After nap, our singing balloon and another birthday package arrived in the mail, much to our delight!  It was all birthday, all day!

Later that week, we were SO brave in getting our four-year old-shots, and made a well-earned stop at Starbucks with Mommy for treats of our choice. We even got to take some favorite stuffed friends with us!

And then we had a wonderfully fun Dinosaur Dig themed birthday party at Riverbend Park Nature center.  Friends from school and playgroup joined us for a dinosaur talk, a nature discovery walk, a mini-dino dig, and then a turtle feeding and petting demonstration.  We loved sharing treats and camouflage dinosaur cupcakes and balloons with our friends!

When Mom started back to work, we enjoyed some adventures with Kristy, Emmie, Alex, and Jordan, playing at playgrounds, a water park, and PB & Jack.

We rounded out the month, and the summer, with a very exciting trip over Labor Day Weekend – our first official camping trip in Shenandoah!  We spent two nights in our tent at Big Meadows campground.  We cooked and made S’mores over a really legitimate campfire two nights in a row.  We even got to roast our own hot dogs and marshmallows!  We visited the visitor’s center for bear and tool-related presentations, and even decorated our very own keepsake for the 50^th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act!  We hiked to Dark Hollow Falls and saw a really pretty waterfall.  Hiking back out, Daddy even saw a bear running through the woods!  But we didn’t get a picture of him. We also got to see a beautiful view of the valley below hiking just behind Big Meadows Lodge.   Our trip ended a little short because Katharine had a really rough wheezing cough on our last morning, and we thought it best to head home.  But we made the most of being at home on Labor Day by exploring the National Harbor (which will be featured in the September blog and album!).

We are so excited for the school year, and can’t wait to share all of our new four-year-old adventures with you!

We hope you enjoy our favorite photos from our August! 

Love,

Katharine and Christopher