The Great Boat Challenge of 2014

What else can you do on a rainy day aside from building your own ark?  I challenged the kids today to build a boat that could float using relatively easy, light materials:  coated paper plates, popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, cardboard, paper towel rolls, and masking tape.  Each kid was definitely true to his or her nature.  Michael dived right in, specific designs in mind.  He knew that he wanted the flat, sturdy bottom of the plate, combined with the tall mast of the paper towel roll.  He finished it off with some flare:  a sun made out of popsicle sticks and a flag.  Katie, who admittedly does not like open-ended challenges much, hemmed and hawed for awhile and was not happy that Mom would not give much help.  She decided to cut a paper towel roll in half, re-shape it, and then tape it up to "re-water-proof" it.  Nevie, obviously, just wanted to eat most of the supplies, so Mom helped her to build a raft out of popsicle sticks and masking tape.  Mom gave no guidance on topics such as weight, waterproof materials, etc.  See for yourself how things turned out!  (PS - All three boats ended up sinking after awhile as none of the materials were completely water-proof...but some things stayed afloat much longer than others!)

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

After a relatively quiet fall and winter, Katie's Daisy Scout troop has really picked up on their activities this spring!  Of course, everything kicked off with the great cookie sale season.  Katie did a fantastic job personally asking many relatives, friends, and neighbors if they wanted to buy any cookies.  She personally sold 67 boxes, worked at a rather successful booth, and helped her Troop to reach their goal of over 700 boxes sold!!  The girls were recently rewarded with a trip to Build-a-Bear, where they put together their own Samoa bear.  (Note the samoa-stripes...and it even smells like chocolate and coconut!)  We also got tickets to the circus and will be camping this weekend!  (I'm sure we'll have some good pictures and stories from that adventure.)  The girls close out the year with a visit to a Brownies (Grades 2-3) meeting, a Frozen-themed slumber party, and an awards ceremony.  Katie dearly loves her troop leader, fellow Daisies, and all of the activities they've done this year.  We have no doubt that she'll "cross over the bridge" into Brownies next year!

Easter Reprise - The Hunt!

Hippity-hoppity...

Now for a more detailed take on our glorious Easter holiday!!  The kids woke up bright and early (6AM!) to eat breakfast and start on their egg/gift hunt.  (That's OK...we try to make it to the 9:30AM mass, so an early wake-up is not the worst thing in the world.)  All three kids thoroughly enjoyed finding all of the spoils of the Easter Bunny, including some new posters, stuffed animals, books, and OF COURSE lots of candy.  By 8:15, they were basically bouncing off the walls as we tried to cram them into their Sunday's best.  We then enjoyed a beautiful service at church before coming home for a quick snack.

After that brief moment to catch our breaths, we headed out to Leesburg to spend the afternoon with our best pals, the McCabes.  They filled us up with the most decadent, yummy foods (including rice crispie treats AND carrot cake!!) before shooing the kids off for hours of play.  The kids were even treated to an afternoon matinee of Frozen, much to their undying delight.  It was so, so tremendous to just sit at the table, sipping copious amounts of wine, talking the hours away while the kids were doing whatever they do.  What a blessing this family will always be in our lives.  We hope you all had a wonderful holiday as well!!!

Happy Easter!

Bunny Prep

Let the Easter fun begin!!  Today we kicked off the holiday weekend with a little egg dying.  Nevie was especially excited as she is finally old enough to join in on the action.  In reaching our perfect 21 eggs (out of 24...not bad for three young kids), each kid had his/her own methodology:

Katie was the semi-professional, utilizing some of the same techniques she had seen from Mom and Dad in the past.  She deftly wielded her little egg spoon, mixed existing colors to make new ones, and created bi- and tri-colored eggs.  The other two kids can only hope to match her expertise someday.

Michael chose a much more in-your-face method.  He by-stepped any spoons or other paraphernalia by simply dunking his entire hand in each cup of dye.  By the end of our coloring session, he basically looked like the Incredible Hulk.

Finally, Nevie showed her newbie stripes with her beginner methodologies.  She would just grab an egg, throw it as hard as she could into whatever color was near her, and immediately ask for another egg.  Miraculously, she did not crack a single egg, but the splashes emanating from her cups were enough to dye much of Mom's shirt.

Gangnam Style

What to do, what to do when you are cooped up in a condo, with a baby sister napping upstairs and three of your best buddies over...  Why, dance Gangnam-style of course!  Please bear with the long video because it's funny.  Be sure not to miss the 1-year-old who upstages them all.  That's our Goddaughter!!!

Blossoms

Sunday evening, the whole family headed down to the Cherry Blossom Festival to take in one of D.C.'s most beloved sites.  It was a perfect day and we figured, with Spring Break this week, we could keep the kids up a little bit later and try to catch the blossoms as the tourists headed back out of the city.  We were right!  The scenery was spectacular and we had a great time strolling all the way around the Tidal Basin.  There were still plenty of people about, which made for some interesting stroller maneuvering.  Highlights: FDR Memorial (our favorite), Mike's first visit to the Jefferson Memorial, Traci loving the fact that MLK stares down Jefferson (and his slavery practices) across the water, experimenting with Mike's new digital SLR camera, ice cream, and the kids delirious joy at being out late at night with a sugar rush!

For kicks, here's a picture of a much younger Mr. and Mrs. M taking in the cherry blossoms almost exactly eight years ago.  Don't these two look boring without their kids?  I guess it took us almost a decade to gain the courage to face the crowds with three kids in tow, but we are glad we did it.

Cross-Country Friends

What a treat today!  Some of our buddies came all the way in from Washington (state...not DC!) for Spring Break, and we were able to brunch with them.  A big thanks to Kelly, Rose, Megan (6-years-old) and Tyler (2) for taking time out of their extremely busy schedule for some yummy french toast and happy catch-up time.  (They used to live here and moved out west about 2 years ago.)  Just look at those goof-balls above....what a crew!

We were also able to make it downtown this evening to check out the cherry blossoms before they all blew away.  More pictures tomorrow....

Hey Batter Batter!

Michael had his first T-ball game this morning.  All things considered, he did great!  He "impressed" his Mom with three pretty solid hits for a 4-yr old.  And, in the field, he seemed to have no trouble covering ground to get to and stop balls hit his way.  After a short Spring Break this week, we'll work on "next steps" with him, as it takes him a good 10 seconds (after hitting and/or making a stop) to remember to run/throw to first base!  Anyway, nice job, Muckdog #7.  A very successful debut...

Field Trip!

Busy week, so we never got to comment on the fact that Mike played the role of chaperone for Katie's 1st grade class field trip to the National Air & Space Museum on Tuesday.  The group was (decently) well behaved and we escaped the nation's capital without major incident.  I guess my educational account of the significance of the "Spirit of St. Louis" was lost on them.  Instead, they insisted that their favorite part was the picture of the funny guy taking a shower inside the space station.  One observation: Katie's teachers are definitely doing something right!  Those kids absolutely love each other.  Really.  Any one of them could be paired with another and be at ease, talking, singing, giggling, hugging, etc.  I remember having good buds in class, but not 15 good buds.  Well done, PYP program.

This was my crew for the day:

Katie with friends Kim, Victoria, and Diego.

Snip, Snip!

Neve was having a particularly testy morning; so Traci, on the spur of the moment, decided to take her in for her first haircut!!  You know, if she is going to cry anyway, might as well make it a productive cry, right?  Traci, Michael, and Neve headed off to the local Cartoon Cuts at the mall, where Nevie totally expected to watch the usual cartoons while her brother was tortured (got his hair cut).  Boy, was she in for a surprise when we wrapped the hair cut smock around her!!  In actuality, she behaved rather well, with a whimper here and a whine there.  She probably cried the least out of all three kids!  With her extremely curly locks, you can't really tell a difference post-cut.  But, her hair looks nice and neat and even now.  Way to hit another milestone, kid!!  (And, funny how different this was than when we made such a grand production for Katie's first haircut.  Mike didn't even know about it until he got home from work.  Poor third kid syndrome.)

Who's on First?

Michael during his first Muckdog T-ball practice tonight.  Looks like he thinks he belongs there, huh?

40 - 1 = ?

Mike, the old man of 39 years that he is (as of this morning), celebrated his birthday today by taking the afternoon off of work and spending it with his four favorite people.  He first met Katie for lunch at her elementary school.  Aside from being subjected to a table full of 7-yr-olds all trying to play April fool's pranks on him, it was nice seeing Katie in her element.  Mike next picked up Michael and spent the afternoon soaking in some father-son time at several local playgrounds (e.g., swinging, riding bikes, digging for earthworms, playing some T-ball).  Finally, the entire family went out to dinner at a new shopping/restaurant development that has popped up in the county, and later returned home for some ice cream cake.  Life is good...