Here's my new board:
And also, Liam blew me away with this. We were going through this book with different exercises of "point to the one that starts with..." when we got to this one- point to the one that starts with R and we have "rake" and... well in our house, this is "Rosie." Liam said both and I was so very impressed!
Also, here's a picture of Kayleigh, with all of her little friends that her sweet sister brought to her:
My two favorite sisters again:
We leave so soon! Today we said goodbye to my best friend in Annapolis. Amy's husband, Will, is in the same program Zachary was in- they did grad school together and then were both company officers at the same time. They'll be going to Newport about a year after we are there. Amy and I started our friendship in the yoga studio- we both loved Vinyasa yoga and went to as many classes together as we could. Eventually we started walking on the treadmill or getting on ellipticals next to each other and would talk our way through our hour long workouts. After that, we started getting together for play dates and our two families got together several times- even for Easter last year. When we first moved to Annapolis, we were both pregnant with our girls. Then, we both went through miscarriages around the same time and both got pregnant again around the same time. Her friendship was so very important to me- our husbands had similar crazy schedules so we really understood each other. It was really hard to say goodbye but with both of our husbands being SWOs and planning on retiring with the Navy, we're bound to end up at the same base at some point in the future. Here's the only picture I got:
But here's a little collage Amy made- so grateful she took these pictures and shared them!
We were leaving to get Liam from school. Malia decided to take her sweet time and sit on each step on her way down. Also, Malia hates wearing shoes 90% of the time.
Yes.
Joey finds comfort in odd positions.
Yay!! Rosie and Joey are friends!!
The weather is still nice! We met our friends, Amy, Evie, Myers, Jessica, Weston and Rory at the Naval Academy to play out on some practice fields. Zachary came to visit and he was put to work immediately by four toddlers.
Amy and Jessica had to leave before Liam and Malia were ready to head back indoors so we went to Kinder Farm Park. It's about a 30 minute drive and when we got there, the sign reminded me that they are closed on Tuesdays. Oops. But I drove around and saw that there was another way in and there were tons of people walking around so we joined them. People who work there were getting stuff done and didn't say anything so... totally fine.
Here's a quick picture of my babies eating at their table in the playroom. They had waffles and strawberries and both ate every bit that was on their plates.
Later we met two friends and their sons at a playground. Both ladies have boys and are expecting boys in one month and three months. We got there first so the kids played on the playground until our friends got there, then we went for a walk and then played on the playground some more before eating a picnic lunch. On the way home, Malia and I dropped Liam off at his group session and the elementary school across the street. We got home and I did a little cleaning and then decided it was too nice outside to be inside so instead of driving to pick him up, I drug out the jogging stroller and we walked about a mile to the school. Liam got so excited when he saw the stroller instead of the car! It was a great day with lots of fresh air and exercise!
On the road again! We ate delicious cheddar and bacon biscuits for breakfast before packing the car and heading back to Graham. Here are the three babies in the car:
Lots of people say that kids like the boxes their presents come in more than the boxes- it's true for this one:
My parents got Malia a baby doll with a little booster seat - Malia opened the booster seat before realizing she had a doll that was supposed to sit in it, so she tried to sit in it herself.
I guess I paid close attention to present exchanging because those are the only pictures I got! Here's Liam with Daisy in the background:
And this meme I saw on facebook- I took a screen shot of it as my friend Alexandra was texting me but I thought this was so funny- people dream of a white Christmas but this is what we got:
After presents we resumed the putting the blanket over our head habit... he was so tired.
Alexandra came over! We haven't seen each other in so long- way too long- she had never met Malia!
It was time for Liam to wake up- Malia decided.
These are the pajamas Grace got Liam for Christmas- glow in the dark snowmen.
Zachary snapped some pictures while I was getting a power nap in preparation for getting Liam down.
You may be able to see Liam's nice little toddler bed at the foot of our bed... we had to wait for him to rock himself to sleep on our bed before Zachary carefully moved him onto his bed.
We made it to North Carolina last night- it was pretty late and neither child slept for even a second. There were a few minutes where I really thought Malia was going to doze off but she held on strong. They didn't go to sleep until really late so I thought they'd sleep in but they had bigger and better plans.
Zachary and I left the kids with Pops and headed to Charleston. It was so nice to be able to ride in the car together and listen to music and have conversations and we stopped to get food and were both able to go in instead of trying to communicate over screaming children who should go in and order what. We went straight to the Citadel first and met up with some of Zachary's fellow classmates and stayed for the parade.
After the parade, we went to check into our hotel. It was amazing! And we walked to a beach house one of his classmates, Patrick French, was able to borrow from one of his Dad's classmates. It gets really fuzzy from there because I had a lot to drink. That's all I'm going to say because I don't want any evidence to be used against me later in life when my children read this one day ;)
This week has flown by! Today we dropped Liam off at the CDC and Malia and I met our friends, Amy/Evie and Ashley/Annie at the library. Malia had fun dancing and walking around. They had little egg shakers that Malia hoarded and towards the end when the lady leading the Babies in Bloom session had lots of toys out Malia started cleaning them all up- can you tell we have to clean up about 10 times a day?
Then we headed home and got a few things done before leaving again to pick up Liam and then we came home for nap time. Thankfully, Zachary and I had gotten a lot of packing done the night before so I was able to take a nap too! I didn't take too many pictures on the trip but here's one of Malia plugging her ears because Liam was shouting along with something on an iPad.
First I have to share this picture of my handsome husband- I've got to find a frame and somewhere to put it so I can see it regularly when he isn't home. And where my kids won't destroy it. Hmm...
I have been looking forward to today for a while- I mentioned before that I asked my friends to join us sometime and today was the day! Amy & Evie, Jessica & Weston, and Andrea & Brayden all met us at this playground I have newly discovered. We had lots of fun!
I think Liam's favorite part of today was walking on this raised, stone thing on the side of the sidewalk- there were steps and he had so much walking so high and up steps. I had picked him up from the CDC- I usually pick him up at 2:00 but Andrea lives really far away from the playground but was going to be picking up Brayden at 12 so I moved Liam's pickup time to 12 too because I was so excited about us all getting together. Anyway- we walked from the CDC to the playground and then when the playdate was over, we walked back so he got to walk on this narrow walk way both ways and couldn't have been more thrilled.
I captured him cleaning up a mess he made. He even threw the dirty paper towel away!
And I completed a project I've been thinking about for a few days. I made this daily chart for Liam- there's one for morning and one for night time. When he finishes each task, he gets to close the tab and when it's closed it says done. I'm going to use this tomorrow morning and hopefully it's a hit!
