Fourth of July at the Shorter's

The Shorter family invited us over for July 4th dinner and backyard fireworks with the Sample and Lovelace families. More captions to come.

 

April 2012 Fun

Besides Easter, Dave's birthday, and bookclub, this is some of what we did in April 2012. Lots of playing, for sure. Jessica is such a fun, happy, energetic kid. 

She invented this game where she climbs up behind me to smell my hair ("I mell your hai--rrrr!") to get my playful reaction. She thinks it's the funniest thing in the world, and I love her laugh. Although technically she is blowing out her nose into my hair, so I avoid this game when her nose is drippy.

For semiannual General Conference, I tried a new tradition: chocolate waffles with strawberry syrup. Pretty yummy. We love listening to the prophet and apostles speak.

Apparently, April was "wear pink" month, since in all of Jessica's pictures she's wearing it. Like at the Arbor Day celebration at Miller Park, which had a tree dissection, a tree climber demo, lift bucket rides, free trees, free lunch, and a lumberjack contest. I found out about some naturalist and master gardener classes that I really want to take.

Playdate with suckers at our neighbor's home 2 backyards away.

New porch furniture, swing, flowers, lanterns, and garden/outdoor toy trunk: which was my birthday and Mother's Day presents combined. Sure beats 2 camp chairs and a pile of grass-covered toys.

We also went to a local strawberry festival, and I spent Jessica's birthday money from her great-grandma Jane for her to ride on a horse named Red.

She was a great helper, and we came home with a small mountain of strawberries, none of which made it to the strawberry freezer jam I envisioned making.

Below I snapped a picture of Jessica watching Dora. I am not the kind of mom who limits TV watching to 1 hour/week. I need times when she is not dismantling the house, and there are times when she needs to eat, drink and rest so she's not so grouchy. I borrow DVDs from friends, the library, Youtube and Netflix to keep her learning. And so I don't have to listen to the same thing too often.

She loves her music, dance, ocean, volcano, body, weather, song, nature, Jesus, and Disney movies. I use the internet to teach her about fire stop-drop-and-roll, figure skating, dimples, how to swim with goggles, and hatching chicks. She also likes Bubble Guppies, Mickey Mouse clubhouse, Team Umizoomi, Curious George, Charlie & Lola, Super Why, Baby Einstein, Little Einsteins, Sesame Street, Max & Ruby, Little Bear, The Cat in the Hat, Backyardigans, Oswald, Yo Gabba Gabba, and Go Diego Go. Several are very educational. And occasionally I say "No more movies; turn it off!"

She's pretty good at playing by herself. She'll make up different voices in a toy dialogue, tell stories, sing made-up songs, turn everyday stuff into toys, and change up her toys in ways that were never intended. I'm thinking of her "family" of pencils that entertained her for an hour, mixing lots of objects into her play dough, and pushing around shoes in her doll stroller. Funny little kid.

Dave's 35 Birthday

For Dave's 35th birthday, he asked for a lathe (the spinning woodworking tool that makes spindles and pens.) I thought he wanted a canoe, now that we have room to store it, but no. (He thought I wanted a mattress for my birthday, but I opted for porch furniture instead. It's just easier to pick out your own present.)

He's smiling a lot in this picture because in the previous photo he held up the numbers "5" and "3" like he was turning 53, which gave me a genuine smile for the "35" picture.

We also got Dave some golf frisbees, which we played later as a family at Peak's View Park. We decided afterward it's too hard to play 18 holes carrying a toddler on your back in the steamy summer forest.

We also got the Wii game Mario Kart, which Dave grew up playing with his siblings on Nintendo.

Dave also got a peach tree, his favorite fruit. We harvest 6 small yummy peaches from it in July. The bugs and birds ate as many, and we lost another 20 immature peaches when I stuffed it in my PT cruiser to bring it home from the nursery. Happy Birthday to a great husband, a caring father, and a good provider.

Hosting Bookclub

There is a great book club in our ward here in Lynchburg. The girls are funny and smart, and this night, as usual, I end up laughing until I cry. I hosted in April, and chose a happy memoir: "The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio; How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less". It's about how a mom helped provide for a family by entering jingle-writing contests and sweepstakes. 

Kristina Randolph, Natasha Manning, Jennifer Wight, Kim Mace, Dacy Ayres, Natasha's friend, Melissa Wolf, Lauren Malone, Talina Salimiento, Kirsti Lovelace, Lyndsey Leech (and later, Lyndsay Greer). Michelle Samples, and Shelene Shorter are part of the group too.

I bugged Dave to finish our new walnut and birch bookshelves, and they were done just in time.

I sponsored a jingle-writing contest that night. Best 25 words or less about bookclub won a $20 gift card to Barnes & Noble. The best compliment to the hostess (moi) would win a copy of the book. Everyone wrote great entries.

Melissa Wolf won my vote in category 1 with this ode to our group:

UB

This, the hub

Of no typical scrub

An emotional sub 

For a backrub

There'll be some grub

And some hubbub

I'm in lub

My bookclub.

Lyndsay Leech won category 2 with some amazing limericks in the style of the book's main character, including the type of contest where you had to write the last line of a jingle. (Plus she imitated her multiple contests entries under her children's names, and the reference to me and the mitten story was very clever. )

In a world of sameness

She is a red mitten

We reaLIZe we are smitten

Because her hosting, only awesomeness

...?

"All endeavors taken with zealousness!"

-Mrs. L. B. Leech

"Her home exudes beautiful kindness!"

-Mrs. Beth Leech

"We are overflowing with thankfulness!"

-Mrs. Eliza Leech

"She is best described: Personableness!"

Mr. Xander Leech

My socca didn't turn out, but I got to use my letter cookie cutters (which 6 months later, are still sitting on the counter full of dried cookie, part of a laziness contest & casual debate between Dave and I about whose job it is to clean them.)

The funniest chapter is about a grocery shopping spree the main character won, so my centerpiece was Jessica's shopping cart. You can read that chapter here.

Dave started a fire so we could roast s'mores, and we got to hang out on our newly furnished porch, (my birthday and Mother's Day presents.) The only picture I got was this dark one of Dave burning his scrap wood in our fire bowl. But the other pictures give you a feel for it: great April weather to swing and chat with flickery lights and friends.

St. Patrick's Day in Washington, D.C.

Don't be too shocked, but yes, I am going to try to start posting on the blog again.

Dave's sister's family was going to Washington, D.C. on St. Patrick's Day (2012) where her husband was going to run the Rock-N-Roll marathon. It was also my birthday that week, and since Dave's aunt lives there too, so we decided to drive up. Thursday night we drove up to the Washington area, and Little Miss Stay Awake didn't sleep in the car, surprise surprise. Friday we hopped on the subway in Centerville and rode to downtown D.C. Jessica loved it.

We found Melanie & her kids all dressed in green for the holiday. But we didn't see Uncle Sam finish his race: there were just too many people. The subway (unlike these pictures) was so packed with runners and families they stopped letting people into the station until the trains took more people out.

And actually, Nathan (front center of the next picture) got separated from us. He got off on the correct stop, but Melanie & I couldn't get off before the doors shut. Melanie said "Hey, that's my son! I need to get off" and Nathan looked panicked when he saw the train pull away with us still on it. People started hollering, and the emergency brake was almost pulled. Luckily, Dave had squeezed out another door, and they hung out until we got back to the correct stop. It wasn't nearly as traumatic as the time their daughter got caught alone on a busy elevator, which they retold.

Our first stop was the Library of Congress, my favorite building from my first trip to D.C. at age 16, touring with my family. It's a shrine to knowledge and books and betterment.

The quotes carved in stone are things like:

"THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD IS THE BIOGRAPHY OF GREAT MEN" 

-Carlyle, Essays

"THEY ARE NEVER ALONE THAT ARE ACCOMPANIED WITH NOBLE THOUGHTS" 

-Sir Philip Sidney, Arcadi

"THE NOBLEST MOTIVE IS THE PUBLIC GOOD"

-Virgil

They had a curved-wall replica of Jefferson's library, as he organized used to do by Memory (history), Reason (philosophy), and Imagination (arts). He originally designed the curved wall for a garden, which would use 25% fewer bricks than a straight wall to support itself. I feel a connection with Jefferson now, since his summer home, Poplar Forest, is in Lynchburg.

 We at lunch at the Smithsonian "castle".

Jessica was able to skip her nap by tuning us all out and drawing for an hour in her stroller.

Unfortunately the Mint was closed, so we walked over to the tidal basin. Some of us walked all the way around to the Jefferson Memorial.

This is the 100th year since Japan gave our capitol the flowering cherry trees. They were blooming early due to the warm winter, and hundreds of people were there to see them. I heard this week that the U.S. this year is giving Japan 3,000 dogwood trees in return.

There is something very solemn and strong about a building that's open to the elements, with words carved in stone. The ceiling is so high, and the steps up so broad, it's like a temple to democracy.

Posing with Dave's sister Melanie, husband Sam, and their kids Samuel, Nathan, Jane, and Andy, and Dave's Aunt Denene, who lives in metro D.C. and who served us a delicious dinner that night.

Jessica loves new places, (read: she doesn't want to sleep if there's something more fun to do.) Dave picked a Residence Marriott hotel, which was exactly like the place we stayed when we adopted Jessica.

The next day we found an LDS congregation and attended sacrament meeting, then went to see more sites in Washington. Sunday was a harder day: we couldn't find parking, Jessica wasn't cooperative and cried more than she napped, we got frustrated with the heavy traffic and confusing highways, we couldn't agree on how to do everything, we we wore ourselves out with walking. But the buildings were still impressive.

Jessica can identify Lincoln after visiting his memorial.

The Vietnam memorial. This is Dave's first visit to D.C., and he liked it. He said he didn't want to visit the Smithsonian Air and Space museum until he had a whole day to dedicate to it.

We stood next to our respective states at the World War II memorial; Jessica loved the fountains, and I loved the relief carvings of war contributions.

The Washington Monument was closed due to damage from the Virginia earthquake last year.

We parked at the utterly confusing Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, with this view of the hall of nations.

With all the construction, traffic, and sore feet, we choose to just drive by and see the back of the new Martin Luther King memorial.

Three and a half hours later we were home after lots of snacking and creative distraction for Jessica in the form of singing, story-telling, toys, drawing, movies on laptops, and watching us play Angry Birds on the cell phone.