a day at the arboretum

One day my friend and I decided to take the kids and meet their friends at the National Arboretum. It's beautiful there, and there were going to be kiddos and bikes and picnicking...

To say getting C to pedal is a test of patience is an understatement.

To say that it required composure of the greatest kind would not reach far enough.....

We made it. I can't remember how we made it from the parking lot to the columns, but we did, and that's all that matters now. I refuse to take the trike out since, until I get a new pole to help push him along. Something happened to our other one and I think it had to do with the construction and the cleaning up, and the guy who wasn't so careful with the throwing out. grrr. Anyway. We had a lovely time. The day was beautiful. The twins did mostly okay but "lunching" on a blanket is fruitless. I always try, but they do better when strapped into their car seats.



Theron didn't venture too far. He didn't like getting far from the blanket.


Aldan's hair is extremely light and with the nice wind blowing...it ended up looking like George McFly from Back to the Future. Ha. Didn't know I could pull that out of my memory.

Here are the columns...and we can go play in them any time we want. We are lucky! (next time I'll park at the lot right behind them and walk the kids across...may save the whole day that way.)

And we went before they filled this fountain...it was filled with nasty water which the kids stayed out of, until they didn't. Now this fountain is all pretty and clean. too bad we were a little early.

I might as well

just keep going with the old posts...not even sure if I posted Easter at all, and I'm not willing to go back and check and risk never actually posting some of these memories.


After Aldan and Theron's birthday party on Saturday, Sunday was Easter! I didn't have enough time to plan through the two celebrations and our good friends invited us over.


We had a yummy brunch, the twins napped through, and C and A had an Easter egg hunt in the yard. It was so sweet watching them look together, I hope some of these things are memories that C keeps for a good while.

They made over a pound of bacon, and we ate it all! Yummy!

We are so happy to have the opportunity to celebrate these times with friends, who are generous in opening their home up to our family of 5!

There isn't anything C wouldn't do to spend time time with A. He wakes up most mornings asking to play with her. And although most days we don't have a plan with her, it usually comes around to that...

I love A and how kind and generous she is to my son. She loves to play similarly to him, and she'll even get him wrestling, and it's usually C who wants to stop first! The thing is A is so sweet, and girly...you'd never guess it running into her on the street. What a good match for C. I remember one of my first conversations with her mom at our mom's group through our church. I told her an easier way to get to the group from where she lived. Their family lived closer to me then some of the other families, and so I was excited to connect. But we were both hesitant at the time. It wasn't instantaneous. But it's awesome to see how it's all fit so nicely. Now they are expecting another, and I can't wait to meet the new babe at all! So lucky to get to share life with them!

We like to party!

Back in March when the twins turned one, we had I think 3 parties for them. One with Jon's parents, one with my family who came to visit (and get sick! :)), and one with their "friends"! Whew!

All the parties were so much fun, and I felt really excited too! It was certainly the best way to celebrate getting through that first year! I still can't believe we have twins! Aldan and Theron are such characters....all these boys will keep us busy for the rest of our lives! I think it's fun that they get to celebrate turning another year older with each other, how fun to have a partner in life like that for the rest of your life!

So for the party with their friends (read, Caed's friends with younger siblings :)) My family helped me prepare the details. My mom and sisters had been here the week earlier and were heading home be back for Easter- so it was great to have their help. I wouldn't have been able to have the nice finishing touches if it weren't for them, and what's a themed party without finishing touches?! It turned out to be the perfect day for celebrating and grilling outside too! What a blessing, because all those kids would not have fit inside our house!!

So it was a Monkey theme, Martha Stewart has some good ideas for the theme, and I went with some of my own.

The goodie bags- brown bags filled with a monkey washcloth, soap, barrel of monkeys key chain (not suitable for little kids at all), banana & banana cookies. Kik did the outside of the bag nice and simple- so glad to have had her input, I was starting on a much more complex design that would not have turned out so nicely!

My mom spent a decent amount of time putting these adorable cups together. She cut out and glued all these pieces onto the brown cups! Aren't they adorable? It looked like an army of monkeys when put together. And actually, I think they were a bit too cute. People didn't end up drinking out of them because you didn't want to ruin them of course!

My first ever attempt at a cake design other then rectangle! Did you know you could bake in a Pyrex bowl? I can't believe this thing turned out half as good as it did...I had low expectations.

and here are the birthday boys....we love you Aldan and Theron!

So at their birthday Aldan and Theron were not walking...Aldan was closest, and luckily Theron made it to crawling before his 1st birthday!

And their stats at 1-

Aldan: 25 lbs 13oz 31 1/4"

Theron: 26lbs 14.5oz 31 1/4"

two pounds difference and same length...now that's fluctuated of course, and when we were in the ER (yes...pneumonia two weeks ago) Aldan weighed more then Theron. So you just can't tell at this point...

I'll be playing a little catch up with more up to date things...man it's amazing how when the twins go down for only one nap a day it takes away the extra free time to blog!