Kite Festival and Zoo

Among the MANY awesome things DC has to offer is a kite festival on the weekend of Cherry Blossom Festival. There were so many kites and the boys had a blast. They ran around and I just sat on the ground and took some pictures to make up for lost time. I have been SO bad about taking pictures the past few months (or maybe years...).

We go to the zoo about 2 times a month and these are a few pictures from our latest trip. Again, DC has SO many wonderful free resources to visit! The zoo is a part of the Smithsonian...come visit us all you out there with kids! (But I don't think anyone reads this except our family, but you all better come visit soon, we will show you a good time!)

Scroll down for 2 more blog entries, mostly pictures......Can you tell I am nesting? Cleaning out everything, including the cameras.

Birthday Pictures....32 and 5!! (and 2.5)

Irby's birthday cupcakes.

The Star Wars Jedi Knight Training Party. We had the party a little early because we thought the baby would be here around his birthday! HA! It is April 5, and I am still pregnant...

Charlie and Griffin also turned 2.5. I can hardly believe it.

Big Irby's birthday. The boys were so excited you would have thought it was their birthday.

Been a busy few months around here, we are tired because we are all getting older!

Been Meaning to Post This Picture....

So proud of my big 2.5 year olds!They wanted to potty train right before Christmas, and boy did I NOT have the energy, but we went with it and they have done great!! The boys also turned 2.5 last week while Irby turned 5!! I'll post some pictures of that soon, I hope! In the meantime, here is a picture of sweet baby #4 from about a month ago. Hope we will get to meet this one soon!

Winter 2012

My little red-necks. A lot of laughing in the back seat and I turned around to see everyone with their shirts off. Somehow they got them off while they were bucked in. My boys always prefer to be without clothing. Must be a boy thing.

One of the most fun things to do in DC around Christmas is the Botanic Gardens Train Display. They make all these trains and tracks and surroundings out of all natural material, like leaves and branches: replicas of the Capitol, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, and tons more...all out of plants. It is pretty amazing what they can do!

Irby's lemonade stand at school. Learning about money and the letter 'L.' We came equipped with lots of dimes and Charlie and Griffin bought 3 cups each! It was a success!!

Irby's first real trip to the dentist. Until now he would just go with me and they would look in his mouth and count his teeth. He actually got his teeth cleaned this time and he was such a good patient!

Ahnie and Papa came to keep the boys while we went to Will's wedding in Dallas. They had the best time and here they are in Annapolis for the day. We were so happy to have a getaway in February after our getaway in January(see below). Our kids have such WONDERFUL grandparents!! Thanks Nana and Doc and Ahnie and Papa.

Riding around in the jeep. A hit at the park, the boys are pretty good about letting others hop in for a ride. Irby is a great driver and thankfully Charlie and Griffin just want to ride around. My parents also came to keep the boys in January so I could go to LA to see Kea and then drive up through Big Sur with Irby who was out there on business. Once I get the pictures off my camera, I will post some from our incredible trip.

Funny Story and Thanksgiving in AL

First I have to tell you one of the most hilarious things about having identical twins. We don't have many full length mirrors (or at least mirrors that the little people can see themselves in without a stool), so whenever we are up in my bathroom we play this game in the full length mirror: Charlie stands in front of the mirror, I ask him, who is that Charlie? He yells, 'BIN!' (Charlie-speak for Fin, which is a nickname Irby gave Griffin a while back). Whenever 'Bin' stands in front of the mirror, he gazes at himself and just says 'hi Charchee....bye bye Charchee....' When they are both in front of the mirror, well, that's just confusing. Imagine how confusing the concept of a mirror is for an identical twin!? It is adorable and hilarious and just so precious to see how close these two are.

We drove down to AL for the week for Thanksgiving and had an absolutely wonderful time. Papa took us on a boat ride...as if riding on a boat wasn't exciting enough, we went shrimping, got porpoises to follow us and fed them fish right out of our hands. The boys LOVED it and so did we. It was pretty incredible! (Nana, note the adequate supply of life jackets:)

Watching the porpoises.

Irby feeding the porpoise.

Picnic down on the beach.

Irby and Ahnie in an intense game of Bocce.

Riding the lion at Ahnie and Papa's after church.Santa at the Wharf. The men took the boys to play while we girls did some shopping. Irby's family is VERY fun to shop with.

On the way back we stopped in Asheville. We stopped over at the Grove Park Inn to see the gingerbread houses, and got our picture in the sleigh.

Our Christmas card picture. I am all for the all family Christmas card, but I took the liberty of giving myself a pass this year. I was ruining the cuteness of the other 4 cuties, so maybe we'll try for that next year. Trust me, it is WAY cuter without me this year!

Santa's workshop by the White House. Last year we thought we started a great tradition of going up the Washington Monument at dusk, watching the sunset, going to Santa's workshop across the street, and then for pizza. This year the monument is still closed because of a big crack after the summer earthquake, so we just did Santa's workshop instead. We had a great time anyway. I think I'm the only one who missed the Washington Monument.

Lollipops!

I took this picture on our way to pick up Irby from school. We had stopped at the cleaners, which is a very exciting place because they have a dog AND they give you suckers. As you can see, my boys love it! (Griffin-L, Charlie-R)

Halloween and Cow Farm.

Pumpkin Carving Fun! I know the kids are all making strange faces, but how cute are my boys and how handsome is my husband?

Irby drew the design...he wanted it to have a tounge like a lizard.

Thing 1 (Charlie), Yoda, Thing 2(Griffin). Due to Irby's recent obsession with Star Wars, light sabers, and jedi knights (although he hasn't seen the movie), he wanted to be Yoda for Halloween. Yoda is the good guy, I hear.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 got more comments, it was pretty fun. Most were really sweet, but the strangest comment I got was from another lady with twins; she asked which was older. I told her Thing 1, and she was SO appalled that I was disclosing to them which was older. She said she would not tell her kids until they were 18. Am I missing something or is that strange?

Charlie. And that is his real hair. I tried wigs, but have you even tried to get a 2 year old to wear a blue wig?

Charlie in front, Griffin in background. Just trying to show off their hair. I used blue hairspray and it was incredible (and thankfully it did wash out!)

Charlie

Before bath.

Blue bathwater! Yes I let my kids eat suckers in bath. I felt so bad we had to take away about 95% of their candy so I let them eat suckers and Nerds all night.

Yesterday afternoon we went to a dairy farm to see some cows, chickens, pigs and just run around in the country. We have a milk/egg/meat delivery and they open their farm to visitors in the afternoons. It was so amazing bc it was just us and our 2 other families that we went out there with. It was especially fun because I was thinking it might be kind of lame, but the kids and adults absolutely LOVED it. Irby loves the country. He cried when we left and said he wanted to live with the cows in the country. We got to see cows being milked, grazing in the pasture, feed calves their bottles, see 1 day old piglets, and just run run run the the fields. Here is Irby bottle feeding a 2 day old calf!

Don't think I have 1 picture in 2 years of all of them smiling or even looking at the camera for that matter. (Fin-L, Charlie-R--if you can't tell it's Charlie just notice his tell-tale smile/grimace. It's starting to be a trend in pictures).