Saturday Night Dinner!

Pre-dinner selfie.

Pre-dinner family selfie.

    

We loved that the three of them all crammed together on one side even though they didn’t need to. The boys were at the other table. 🙂

 

And I forgot to take a pic of the food (Slow Cooker Bacon Cheeseburger Sloppy Joes, Tangy and Creamy Macaroni Salad, and KFC’s Cole Slaw) and our group!

Saturday Night Gumbo Dinner

New friends (Nate, a co-worker of Tom’s I’d never met—and his wife), newbies to dinner (friends from T-ball, mutual friends, and now Owen’s first grade class), good food (gumbo, rice, homemade white bread and spaghetti bread), amazing desserts (peanut butter bars and carrot cake by Nate!), and great kids equals gumbo dinner party success!

Through a small comedy of errors, Allison spilled red wine on herself a mere five minutes after arriving…so I loaned her a shirt (same shirt, different color) and we were twins!

Katie LOVES swinging.

She still swings the entire time I’m taking my walk (which is about 18-20 minutes). I usually still have to get her started with a big push, but today she started all on her own! She was waiting for me to come push her and was just swinging her legs back and forth…and she started moving. I saw it happening and procrastinated getting over there…and soon she was swinging as high as ever! I love her hair in slo-mo!

With her friend Cayenne.

Another great slo-mo on the slide.

Kidisms 15

There are almost always geese out on/near the road when we take Owen to his activity camp in the morning—and Katie LOVES seeing them.
Katie: What are they doing?
Me: Maybe they’re looking for breakfast.
Katie: Cereal!
Me: No, I don’t think they want cereal.
Katie: Maybe they need a home.
Me: Maybe.
Katie: We should take them to our home!
Me: What would we do with geese at our house?
Katie: Put them outside!

Owen: I love red cherry snow cones. Except not much because I just ate five pieces.

Owen: Mama, I love you.
Me: I love you, too.
Owen: And I also love Sick Bricks.

We were riding home with all the windows open.
Owen: It’s 100% windy!

Katie: Mom, can I get in the box with Charlie?
Me: Sure.
Katie: But there’s not enough box!

Katie: Owen, do you love daddy?
Owen: Yes.
Katie: Owen, do you love Mommy?
Owen: Yes.
Katie: Owen, do you love me?
Owen: Yes.
Katie: Owen, do you love Cayenne?
Owen: [silence]
Katie: Owen? Do you love Cayenne?
Owen: [silence]
Katie: I love her, she’s my friend. She’s my girl.

Katie’s 3rd Birthday Party!

Daddy and Owen went to pick up the cupcake cake and the pizza before the party!

2015-07-11kids144

2015-07-11kids146

We surprised the kids with a bounce house borrowed from friends!

2015-07-11kids145

Owen testing out the Frozen stick-on earrings!

2015-07-11kids147

2015-07-11kids148

2015-07-11kids149

2015-07-11kids150

2015-07-11kids151

2015-07-11kids152

2015-07-11kids154

Everyone had a good time and the bounce house was a success!! I’m losing my mind, though—I didn’t take a picture of the decorated table OR the food table! 🙂

Friends came over to visit!

Cheyenne and I try to get together at least once a week at either house. Since we have grass and a shade tree, today was here so the kids could play in the water table. 

Surprisingly, it took a good half hour before this happened. (Notice the 4″ wood block under the right leg to level it.)

   
 

And then this happened. 

  

Look at this cute little bundle! Isn’t he just so stinkin’ cute?! I get my fill of baby time with him…then he goes home with his mom. 🙂

  

And then the girls found some Frozen birthday party hats (and Cayenne is in Katie’s rain boots). 🙂

Cayenne forgot her flower barrette here so Katie was keeping it safe.

 
 

Birthday plans didn’t go quite according to, well, plan.

Short story: I had lunch with a new mommy-group friend and then went out to dinner with the fam.

Long story: The original plan was for me and said friend (and our two toddlers) to drive/metro in to DC’s Union Station to see a free 30-minute Joshua Bell violin concert. (Joshua Bell is playing in the Metro again. This time, maybe you won’t pass it up.)

The stunt was seven years ago, but no one will let him forget it.

Hey, did you hear about the famous violinist who played in the Metro and no one paid attention?

Yes, Joshua Bell must say. That was me.

Technically, 27 people did stop the day The Washington Post asked the Grammy-winning violinist to don a baseball cap and pose as a street performer playing for change in the Metro. It was a social experiment for a magazine article: If a world-famous musician and his $3 million fiddle brought some of history’s most beautiful music to a rush-hour crowd, would people stop and listen? “In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?,” the story wondered. The answer: 1,070 people passed Bell without paying him any attention.

Now, after being asked about it nearly every day since, Bell is bringing his violin back to the Metro. This time, on his own terms.

I had heard about the 2007 stunt and thought how cool that would have been to be there, so this time, I figured since we lived THISCLOSE and it would be a cool thing to do—and it would be on my birthday—I wanted to go. HAD to go, in fact. But I also get SUPER anxious doing new things like that so I was sure I wouldn’t actually do it. But then this friend said “I’d love to go! We’ll do it together!” And so we planned. And commiserated about having to take the kids. And planned some more. She would pick us up after her doctor’s appointment, we would drive to the closest metro station that didn’t require an extra transfer (a 20-minute drive), take the metro in (about 40 minutes), watch the concert, then reverse the process home. It was going to be tight, but we were confident. (Well, I was filled with anxiety but was mostly confident!)

So the morning of, things were on schedule and I felt like I was going to throw up from anxiety. And then the doctor’s appointment went awry…he had never run late before but of course ran late today. So we didn’t go. At once I breathed a huge a breath of relief…and also felt a bit of sadness because I really did want to see the concert. But it was all good as we went out for lunch and had a great visit…which I am so thrilled about because before today, we had literally only met once and talked for maybe 30 minutes total at a playgroup at the park. She lives close (maybe two miles at most) and we really get along and are very similar in a lot of ways. So it was a good day, even considering we missed the concert. 🙂

These are our girls at lunch (her daughter is five months older than Katie):

IMG_1346.JPG

IMG_1350.JPG