My ONE Exception... for now

I have a lot of things I have to nurture in this stage of life.  So I have a strict rule about no other living things to reside in our home.  No animals.  No plants.  And then I saw this sweet little guy at Aldi.  I thought it needed to come home with us.  

It's been fun watching it grow and it has taken little-to-no effort on my part.  I guess now that our Baby is potty-trained I might have a little more space in my life... at least to water a sweet plant.

We'll see how this goes.

International Spy Museum

We've had a very special week.  The youngest two boys are visiting their cousins in Ohio for the whole week.  We ADORE the little ones, but it has felt like a vacation in many respects.  I know they're having a blast at their Aunt Charlotte & Uncle Chris', so it makes missing them not so intense.  But while the cats are away, the mice will play. So we've had our fair share of playing school and one of the highlights was visiting the International Spy Museum. 

The production level of the museum was really impressive.  We entered in and picked out alternate identities that we had to take pictures memorize the details of. This is my spy face...while blinking.

Then through the whole museum, details were added to our cover stories and we tracked to see if we could retain the info and pass with our covers.  Pretty cool.

They also had a ton of hands on stuff.

William operating underwater sonar.  

We also learned about the Enigma machine.  They had a fantastic interactive console to see how the device worked and to actually code-break a message.

Worthy's sneaking spy face

As we headed back to our car we passed Ford's Theatre.  Worthy's in the throws of Civil War history so this was another added treat. The house where Lincoln died is across the street so we got to see that too. 

A really fun (stroller free) day.

Museum of Natural History pop-in

This weekend we decided to pop into the Natural History Museum and see the precious gem exhibit.  The boys have been into different types of gems because of Minecraft so we decided to raid my jewelry box visit the museum and check them out. 

We saw the Hope Diamond.  I've seen it before, but it was still a bit anti-climactic.  I remember it larger in my memory.  The boys were more impressed by the other gems too.  The colors and patterns were just amazing.

each boy had a favorite

and each girl did too...

 They also had a magnetized rock there where the kids could build paperclip towers on it.  Very, very cool.

 Another great afternoon out in the city.

Striking While It's Hot (or at least not frigid)

The boys love to ride their bikes up and down the sidewalk outside.  Sometimes we will head to the end of the street and ride in the church parking lot, but if it's cold and they just need to channel some restless energy, we stick close.  

William opted to push Christian.  He probably did this 50 times or so.  

Calvin was content on the tricycle.  Usually he opts for his bike, but he found this in the basement and got quite excited.

forgive the bumpy filming...

Oh - this kid.

Just wanna squish those cheeks

Love these energized boys.

A New Year. A Fresh Start.

I've taken a bit of a blogging break.  For a number of reasons.  The main one being that adding home schooling into the mix of things has taken up a very large chunk of time and energy.  The moving process has also presented its own unique time drains. The other one was we were back in the States and the blog was a way to communicate to friends, family & fans in one fell swoop.  Family (and fans too!) were often clamoring for new pictures of the kids and posts.  It was a great way for us to keep in touch with loved ones.  Well I'm finding that the same is true now.  We've moved back to the States, but although we are geographically closer than we were, we are still not nearby.  And incidentally, I've had quite a few requests from abroad to resume.  So, here I go.  Disclaimer: I don't promise consistency, wisdom or insight.

December review:
It was such a sweet, sweet holiday.  We had some special birthdays to celebrate. William turned 7.  What a great age.  Six was really good too, but I think there's just something a bit magical about seven.

as an aside... he did get a cake in the evening... this was just a breakfast treat :)

And our little Calvin-man turned FIVE.  What?!  This went fast.  Four has been a blast.  He's such a pleasant guy.  Praying that pleasant-ness continues for decades to come.

Christmas was a complete joy.  It was so wonderful to have my parents visit for the holiday.  The kids were really thrilled.  William came downstairs on Christmas morning saw the tree and all the presents and said "this is the Christmas I always dreamed about.".  

It was a celebratory, relaxing, PJ-wearing kind of wonderful.

This kind of sums it up.

A perk of being in DC area is that there is always something fun (and FREE) to do nearby.  We went on a quick trip to see the National Christmas Tree.

...a few snippets from our December.  

I'm looking forward to getting back into the blogging routine.  

I have missed it.