BIRTHDAY GIRL

Sophia is now officially 5 years old and her day was appropriately completely saturated in pink ballerina princesses (thanks for the cake pan Angie - totally busted for not waiting until Christmas to open it). She got some great presents so thanks to all who thought of her. And thanks for the suckers, Sharon, which are hanging out of the kids mouths in every birthday picture we took!!


Sophia got a ballet outfit, complete with a crown which her sister promptly stole as soon as Sophia put it down to open the next present. Those 3rd children sure are smart!!

We are looking forward to heading home for Christmas in a few days. I am driving the kids BY MYSELF to St. Louis and Mike will be flying a day or so before Christmas....who got the better deal there?

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas.

Underpants on the Outside

So, I've spent the past hour or so retrieving pictures to add to this week's blog and I'm feeling a bit uneasy about a pattern that i'm sensing. Seriously, where does she get these poses from - my little stripper pony??

I've also realized that apparently we think there is nothing funnier than kids running around with underpants on the outside - or bettter yet, only underpants. We can grow older but still resist growing up

Looking forward to going home for Chistmas. I can't believe another year is almost finished. Have a great week....

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving here in Virginia. My mom, dad, sister Sharon and her 3 kids came out to join us for the week. Thus began a very crowded but great visit. Luckily kids can sleep just about anywhere because we had 5 sleeping in a hallway for several nights. Mom has "done" DC several times, so volunteered (thanks, again, mom) to watch kids so Sharon, Dad and I could do lots of sightseeing. We were able to get in Arlington Cemetery, a few Smithsonians, the Archives (Sharons fav :), the Spy Museum, and Manassas battlefield national park.

Mike and the kids raked up at least 100 billion leaves this week. In fact, there are so many that the village comes around and sucks them up for us - all we need to do is get our piles to the curb. Why can't everything be so easy?

On the potty training front - William has shown himself to be quite adaptable. Who said sitting on the potty has to slow down your game?

The Rice Krispy incident

Just when I thought I had no good story to add to this week's blog... All I needed was 48 minutes. That's how long a Grey's Anatomy epispode on the computer takes to watch. Granted, that is a long time for the kids to leave me alone, but I thought I'd roll the dice and give it a shot. As you can see from the picture, Anna made good use of her time. What you are looking at is an entire box of rice krispies ground into the floor.

William is on day 476 of potty training and today was a doozy for him. He peed once in his pants, so I cleaned him up and got him a new pair of pants (but no underwear - just one less item to wash - mom's understand). Some time later I smelled something and asked William if he pooped - which he wholeheartedly denied. I grabbed his butt and sure enough - no poop. About an hour later I was sure I still smelled poop so I questioned him again. Turns out he had pooped the first time - it dropped down his leg, got caught in his pant leg and he decided to just wear it until he got busted. So, he found himself in the bathtub and I found myself doing load #3 of laundry today. Not suprisingly, I have not attached a picture of that!!


















Today is cold, rainy and very dreary. I decided to add some pictures of our trip to mom and dad's cabin to remind me of sun and WARMTH! Have a great weekend.

Welcome to our blog

So, my good friend Angie has finally shown me the light and I think that I am now ready to enter the blogosphere. Bear with me - I still can't figure out my cell phone.

After nearly a week of rain, the sun coming out again was a welcome sight. Personally, my sanity is directly correlated to the amount of time my children spend outside playing.

Monday the kids and I spent the afternoon with a fellow foreign service mom (and her kids) whom we met in St. Louis. They came here to DC about two months ago and will be headed to FIJI in the spring. Two years in Fiji...does it get any better?

Wednesday the kids had a blast trick or treating. Sophia was a cowgirl (thanks Chloe), William a sheriff and Anna a ladybug.

Mike and the kids made a delicious chocolate layer cake for my birthday - all in all a great day. Friday we finally met up with my friend Angie and her two kids. Angie and I have been friends since Nairobi - she lives nearby'ish here in Va., but we can never seem to finagle a visit.