Kid Update on St. Patrick's Day

John is crawling up a storm...and up the stairs. He's a happy, happy boy who loves to play with, follow, and wrestle his big brother and sister. He used to sit, flapping his arms when Adam played monster with the other kids, just dying to get in on the action. Now he crawls on over, yelling all the way in his somewhat gruff boy baby voice, to join in the fun. It's a pretty great stage he's discovered. He eats anything and everything, preferring the rubber tips on doorstops to just about anything else he can scavenge. Needless to say, we are trying to be careful about closing doors since we have removed most of those little rubber things.


Emma continues to prefer skirts and dresses to any other apparel and wears her shiny ruby slippers anytime she can...that or her pink snow boots. She plays almost daily with a friend up the street named Reagan, who is just a few weeks older than her and shares her appreciation for the color pink. It's fun to watch Em as a big sister; she loves her little brother (even listed John as one of her "treasures" in a preschool activity today). She has also become an excellent and imaginative playmate for Spencer. She can play Star Wars and build Lego creations with the best of them. Emma is taking violin, and can play the first phrase of "Twinkle."


Spencer is thriving in kindergarten, loves all things Star Wars, rides his scooter perpetually, and has taken up a recent interest in basketball. We have a spring soccer league starting in a few weeks, which he is also excited about. A few weeks back, Spencer started taking piano lessons, and he is doing SO well; I am really proud of him. It is wonderful to watch him as he tackles a tricky part or a new piece, gets frustrated, comes back to conquer it, and gains a whole new level of confidence as a result. Spencer is my project man, always creating something out of markers, construction paper, tape, staples, and any other supplies he can get his hands on. He is also very handy. We finally (today) moved John out of our room, and as I was setting the crib up, Spencer was the one who noticed I had put one part on backward. I was glad he was there to help since I'd already tried righting the piece once before...I have never, not once, set that crib up correctly on the first try.



A tricky leprechaun visited our house this St. Patrick's Day. He drew a shamrock on the kids' hands while they slept, and they awoke to green toilet water AND green milk! Sneaky little fella. (The kids were thrilled! Anything for a holiday. Spencer has declared that April 2nd is "Spencer Holiday" when we all get to eat sugary treats all day long. Sounds like a good excuse to ingest some delicious Easter candy.)

Piano Man

piano man
Originally uploaded by Adam W.

We interrupt the regularly scheduled catch-up blogging for some current news. Spencer is now playing the piano! He has had 3 lessons so far from an AMAZING teacher (Melaney Tagg), and he is loving it. At yesterday's lesson, he played his first duet; today, he asked me if I would play it with him. Never mind that it has 7 flats and is written in the bass clef (NOT a friendly clef for a violinist). I figured it out, and we played this about ten times this morning (yes - still in our pj's). It was a fantastic, fun musical moment. Emma even had her dollhouse people dancing to the tune.

Later today, I went in to volunteer in Spencer's kindergarten class. They were reading from their writing folders when I walked in, and Spencer proudly showed me the "story" he had written, complete with illustration. "I play the piano. I play the piano really well" it read.

Yes, you do, Spence, and we are so proud of you!

John at 5 Months

This baby needs his own October post to note some milestones. I cannot look at this sweet little face without smiling. John-John is a champion bouncer in the exersaucer (thank you, Papa). It's one of his joys in life to make lots of joyful noise by going into jumping Johnny mode when he is in that fun contraption.


John is also an all-star sitter.

...when his brother and sister don't mow him over by smothering him with lovin'.


October meant solid foods for John. He LOVED rice cereal the first 2 times he tried it.

Look at that face - pure joy at having something solid. It didn't last long, though. He took a look at what we were eating, saw what he was getting, and noticed that there was no crossover. He only wants food with substance - the bigger the better. When I put a banana on his tray to cut it up, he dives for the biggest uncut section he can sneak. Applesauce even makes him mad - not enough texture to satisfy the palate. That's okay, though. I had high ideals of making my own baby food this time around. This saved me all the effort. Straight to the solids for our little man.

October

I am committed to some level of completion when it comes to this family record. In an effort to achieve that, I give you the month of October 2010 in recap:

I chaperoned Spencer's kindergarten field trip. We went to a local farm to pick pumpkins and see the animals. I got to keep an eye on this group of cuties.


Here's my favorite of the bunch picking out his pumpkin.


We did another round of the daddy-coached soccer league with some friends from church. Spence has decided soccer is his favorite sport. As I am writing this recap in February 2011, I can note that we pass the time waiting for the kindergarten bus by passing ice chunks back and forth trying to score a goal on each other. His idea, not mine, but I go along with it. Quite fun, actually.


Our local airport sponsors an annual air show; the airport is small, and the event is free. We love planes in this family, so we were off to check it out. We got to bring Gpa Barnard with us, since he came to spend a few months in VA. (We miss you, Gpa B!!!)


We checked out the fancy planes, trick flying, and wing walking.


Adam talked shop with Barry Barbini, a friend and FAA inspector who was working the event.


We saw some friends at the show, too! Here's Spencer with "the other Spencer."


My favorite picture of the day has nothing to do with airplanes. It's lovely and her lolly. Doesn't take much to keep this girl content, even on a hot October Saturday.


Because we can't get enough of planes, we headed from the air show to the Udvar-Hazy Smithsonian Museum for the Air and Scare, a trick or treat event. It was a fun time, but we'll never do it again. Traffic was HORRIBLE trying to get to the museum, and once we were inside it was difficult to maneuver because there were SO many people. Still, it was worth it to get a picture of my two aviators. (Spencer wore the costume John has on for his first Halloween. Spence's outfit comes from a dress up area at the museum).

It was also fun to meet up with some Storm Troopers. The kids are on a major Star Wars kick right now, so I need to pull these photos out to show them again. Spence watches the Endor battle scene over and over from Return of the Jedi. Emma likes the part where the ewok pokes princess Leia, so the film is a crowd pleaser.

We went to the museum with our friends and neighbors, the Abramsons. Thank goodness we had people to chat with as we made our way through the crowds.


On to more dressing up. Here is Emma with her preschool buddies for their dress-up day. She loves this dress from our dress up box. She was a ballet shoe-wearing princess - always a happy combination with this little lady.



Spencer's school doesn't allow dressing up in costumes, but they get into the fun of the season by having WACKY DAY the Friday before Halloween. Siblings were invited, and Emma was just as into it as Spencer. They had a great time planning their outfits. Spencer grew his hair out for a month before the actual day to achieve some pretty impressive height with this mohawk. It was his idea to do a little swirl of hair in the front as a departure from the traditional mohawk. I love that boy.

Emma's peep-toe pink shoes deserve a mention here. She wore them EVERYwhere, no matter how cold it got, until the snow came and, with it, the arrival of pink snow boots. Fashion before comfort for this girl.



Our final opportunity to dress up came when we saw the Pickwick Players' production of "The Wizard of Oz" starring none other than Papa as the GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ. Other characters of note: Joel as the Winkie General, Sarah as the poppy/Winkie/Oz resident, Trina as the munchkin barrister. We prepped for the production by watching a few of the songs on youtube, but our kids didn't know much about the storyline in general. Spencer enjoyed the production; John slept through most of it; Emma was ENTHRALLED. Obsessed, really. She went back with me to see it a second time with the Young Women. Emma can sing most of the songs, quizzes everyone involved about the characters, requested the chapter book "Wizard of Oz" for her bedtime story, and can effectively mimic Papa's antics from the Jitterbug number - an absolute highlight. Ask Em about Wizard of Oz, and get ready for a long, entertaining conversation. She LOVES to watch videos of the performance on Grammy's iphone.

Here's Emma getting Dorothy's autograph. THRILLED to be near her.

Maddie has long been a Wizard fan. She was even Dorothy for Halloween and dressed up for the play.

The group shot. The kids wore Halloween costumes, since the performance was on Saturday, October 30th.

The Tower Master

Spencer is a very clever fellow. He found a bunch of plastic cups down in the food storage room and discovered a quick use for them. We now have in our repertoire of play things 100+ plastic cups specifically for fort building and, subsequently, battles that involve some serious destruction.

Dulles Plane Pull

The Dulles Plane Pull is an annual event in our area, and one that has always intrigued me, but we seem to always hear about it after the fact. Thankfully, these cute friends, Amanda and Areeje, invited us to go along with them when Amanda's work team needed a few more people on their plane-pulling team. It totally made Adam's day; he has always wanted to participate in the plane pull. I was pretty happy to be a spectator.


Here's a photo of the team. They didn't have as many people show up as they had hoped, so at the last minute Spencer got to jump under the spectator rope and help pull the plane using the tow rope.


Emma was really sad she didn't get to join in the plane pull, but don't worry...she got her turn to show some strength. Look at those fierce muscles just after she helped her dad and brother pull a school bus. AND she did it all in her pink peep-toe pumps. Love that girl and her shoe fetish.


Here's Adam talking shop with the kids. Adam loves aviation and used to work at the airport. Those were the days.


Here we are by a C-something or other...some big military plane. Adam could tell you. There were some really impressive planes in the line-up. Lots of small aircraft, but the military planes are so big it seems implausible that they could ever make it off the ground. This picture makes the blog because it shows the double stroller at full capacity. It was about 100 degrees the day of the plane pull, and I found myself HUGELY grateful for the double stroller and the Baby Bjorn when we were walking along the hot tarmac with tired kids. Despite the heat, we all agreed that this is definitely on the list of things to do NEXT September.

Kayaking

Adam works from home, and it has some definite perks - one being the flexibility of schedule. On a regular old Monday morning, we got to go kayaking with some awesome folks, Mike and Cate Todd, to celebrate Mike's birthday. We had a great time paddling around the Potomac and chatting with them. Thanks for the invite, Todds!