busy busy

It's been a busy week trying to catch up on all that we had waiting for us, and the nice weather is keeping me from my computer too, which is in our basement. I want to be outside- and I love how tired Caed gets before nap time and bedtime with being in the fresh air. I have done some work in our yard- trying to make some decisions about changing around our backyard and trying to get motivated to start our veggie garden in the front of our house. (more sun)

We have a couple of things going on this weekend, including out first 'destination' birthday party. Yup, one of our neighbors invited us to their daughters 1st birthday party at Gymboree! :) I've never been to a party at one, and i've been to many a child's birthday parties with the family I nannied for. I told my older (wiser) sister that I was looking forward to checking it out, and she told me it wouldn't be what I think. We'll see!

I'll be back soon with pictures too from our visits last week.

home

we're home after a week of travelling. It was lots of fun and really good to be back on our turf. the end of the trip was a little rough with caed being extra clingy and a slight fever. But he's happy today and loving all his toys again!

I'll have lots to post later, after I take care of the things on my list today.

Cherry Blossom Parade

Dodging the rain Caed and I went downtown to the Cherry Blossom Parade. (Jon had some computer appointments to take care of) I've lived here for 8 years, and I've never been. April met us down there too. Going this year, I thought Caed would be able to process it well, but I can't tell you exactly how wonderful he thought it was! If you ask him about the parade now, he'll tell you all the things he saw. He loved the music, floats, clowns, trucks, huge balloons and marching bands! He clapped and waved and wanted to stay glued to our shoulders. We even had the opportunity to check out some Navy trucks and Caed did well with other people helping him and holding him so he could do it! It was such a fun day, and I was only able to do it so well because I did have April there to help too. Thanks Auntie April! And when Caed wakes up tomorrow asking for you again, you are getting a phone call, and you can come get him!

Bob the Builder balloon:





Clapping to the music:

The old bikes. A couple of years ago we went down to a parade and they fell off these bikes. I was scared to watch this year!

Mom and Son. see how frizzy my hair was? It was so humid and rainy that my hair without any product couldn't hold up. By the end of the day it was looking beautiful!

i thought this was an appropriate part of the parade, singing 'Singin' in the Rain'! :

Garfield float:

Checking out the Navy trucks:

View out my front door

My neighbor has a cherry tree in his front yard. He's blind, and this year his mother is in the hospital, so neither of them get to enjoy the beautiful blooms! I thought I would share how pretty they look outside my front door, and make even my ugly awnings okay...

Catching up with photos

When I went out to take photos of the Cherry Blossoms a few weeks ago, we also stopped by a playground out at Haines Point. Just a few photos, excuse the weird outfit because Caed had an accident on our way down there, and of course these were my back up pants...

He loves to drum, and this tunnel slide was a fun sound:


He was so good about taking staying still for a photo. Sometimes all it takes is a bribe of being able to look at the photo after I've taken it:

I brought my camera down to the Mall when we went to the Kite Festival. Unfortunately this is the only photo I have, my camera battery died after this. There were hundreds of kites and Caed loved chasing after the ones that were taking dives and were on the ground!

Last Friday we met our friend Jan downtown at the Botanical gardens. It was still really chilly and rainy, and so it was nice to be inside. There was an orchid display intertwined with letters of the alphabet. Caed liked the puddles that formed and got himself decently wet from all the splashing!

Gardenia:

Traveling and a little sun

Next week we head off to CT to visit Jon's grandmother and Aunt Betsy. We take off on Monday and Caed and I will stay with Aunt Heather and Uncle Jerry. On Tuesday we head up to Connecticut. We will also get a short visit with my college roommate (randomly chosen, and stuck together for all 4 years!) Janet and her husband Mark, and daughter Hailey and baby on the way. Jon will (hopefully) fly into Hartford to join us on Thursday evening, and then we'll return back to his grandmother on Saturday for an overnight visit and head home together on Sunday.

It will be a great road trip, not too far, and dad comes to help finish out the end.

I can't help but feel a pull to the beach though! I'll plan that trip soon.

Today I got out for a walk/ jog with our new jogger stroller (2nd time) and with today's sun, once I was out, I noticed tonight that I have a little redness. I was wondering why I could see white wrinkles next to my eyes when I looked in the mirror after Caed was put to bed. Then I came downstairs and saw a watch mark. Too funny. I never get sun in this city life!

With potty training Caed, today we had a milestone. I convinced him to go 'peeps' standing up at a bush! We were on a long walk home from the playground and I knew he had to go. It was really funny and as a mom with minimal boy experience, this made me laugh and feel so proud! At least he stayed dry! Oh the joys of motherhood!

Khaki girl

When we came into our house this afternoon after being gone for a couple of hours, Caed called for Khaki. We used to call her and simultaneously she'd be right at the door. It's been since that first week since he's done that. He's mentioned her and called for her in the house (he wants to give her treats most of the time), but calling her at the door, which I tend to have a strong desire to do almost every time, was the first he's done since that first week.

We miss our dear girl.

Spinach & Artichoke Dip

This weekend I made a great Spinach and Artichoke dip. There's lots of unhealthy things about it, but I was asked for the recipe. I didn't really want to share it because of how simply caloric it is for you, but it was a nice treat. I decided I'd share, although, I just grabbed it from one of my favorite recipe websites: allrecipes.com and I saw it had a lot of good reviews (855 of them!). One thought about it, if you try it- combine all the ingredients in a bowl, and mix together, then pour into the dish you are going to cook it in. The way it's written seems to indicate layering, but that's not how it should be...I doubled the recipe for what I was using it for, and it still came out great (and I do have lots of leftovers!).

So here it is:

Spinach & Artichoke Dip Restaurant Style

4 cloves garlic

1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained

1 (14 ounce) can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped

1 (10 ounce) container Alfredo- style pasta sauce

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2. Place garlic in a small baking dish. Bake in the preheated oven 20 to 30 minutes, until soft. Remove from heat. When cool enough to touch, squeeze softened garlic from skins.

3. In an 8x8 inch baking dish, spread the roasted garlic, spinach, artichoke hearts, Alfredo-style pasta sauce, mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese and cream cheese.

4. Cover and bake in the preheated oven 30 minutes, or until cheeses are melted and bubbly. Serve warm.

Friendships

Friends have ALWAYS been an important part of my life. Being the third child with my older sister being 5 years older and my younger sister being 5 as well (my oldest sister was 8 years), my friends filled in that time gap. I feel so blessed because my sisters are so close to me, and I also have some close friends.

Recently I've reconnected with one of my first friends. When I was 5 we lived in Texas, and my neighbor who lived two doors down had a daughter a year older then me. After first grade we moved to New York and I was heart broken. We had moved while she was away visiting family. I didn't get to say goodbye. I spent lots of nights as a 7 year old crying from missing her so badly! In an e-mail recently she put it really well, it was one probably the first times I understood what friendship really meant.

Since then I've been blessed with many friends, and I've always kept them close. Living on Long Island, I didn't say goodbye to friends too often. Most families stayed put. Now living in DC it's been a struggle for me. It's such a transient place, and people move in and out all the time. I've really had to pray for peace over the distance put in my friendships developed now. (and sometimes I pray for the Lord's direction for them to be kept here!) As of now, we have friends planned to move to San Diego in July- so hard to process losing them!

My mom has always demonstrated the ability to keep in touch with her friends from long ago. I've luckily got some of that in me. So I find a peace in having friends all over the country and even in different countries. We've had the chance to visit from time to time, and I hope we'll continue to keep our connection as the Lord leads our lives apart from each other..

I also have to work really hard at it now with a developing family. I know it's possible though, and I remember many times my mom on the phone catching up with friends, which seemed like for hours to me (probably because I wanted something from her!) despite having four kids. I am really encouraged by my reconnecting with my old friend and how technology has been able to put us back in touch with each other... who knows, my mom may have been able to connect with more people had she had e-mail to do it so quickly, rather then the money for those long distance phone calls! (actually she has been able to recently catch up with friends she lost touch with for many years because of e-mail!) I do love that my mom has always shown a strong value on her friendships- and I hope that I carry that on!

Celebrity Gossip

After I had Caed and knew that there were other celebrities who had had kids right about the same time, I all of the sudden had this obsession to want to see pictures of them with their kids. (I think it was all the hormones after having Caed) It became an addiction to check out people.com too often. I recently read the blog of another mom who said for Lent she was giving up celebrity gossip. I had contemplated this as well, but thought it was so dumb that I even had to "give it up"- it shouldn't matter to me in the first place. About the same time I was looking on people.com and saw this picture of Adrian Grenier (i don't even really know who he is) and it made me really evaluate what searching for celebrity gossip was keeping me from. I felt like his note was being held up just for me. These poor people are being photographed doing everyday things and can't live a single moment without a photographer. Why was I contributing to this...? So I was challenged to not be distracted by celebrity gossip...I've gone to look at the home page a few times, but I've definitely stopped looking through photos of celebrities shopping, pushing their kids, working on sets, going to premieres and awards shows and all the other things that they do.

I had decided to stop being concerned with it before, but I always wanted to check it out one more time. This time I was really encouraged to use my time more wisely and I'm thankful that Jess posted her thoughts about 'her time'- as a homeschooling mom, I'm sure she's got less time to herself then me!

Running with it!

So we've launched a new co-op preschool in DC. There are a few other mom's who were interested in starting one that was faith based- and they launched a team right away. I was a little more hesitant, but then Jon and I talked about it, and we decided that it would be a great thing to be a part of. Here's the logo that I had the opportunity to design for the school. We are excited to see this take shape...

Mom's Blog

My mom's got a blog and she always writes the best things. That's because she's the best- and she raised four daughters.

Check her out here: http://www.beautyofbamboo.blogspot.com/