Speaking of Lucas...

Last Friday was "80's Day" at Bush Hill Elementary. Sadly, we did not have acid-washed jeans, flourescent shirts, or a mullet to work with, but this is what we came up with: A blazer with pegged jeans. What really cracked me up was when I wanted to take the picture and Lucas said, "How did they stand in the 80's?"
"Uh, pretty much how we stand now, kiddo."
"No, they did it differently. Probably like this."
Click!
Perhaps he'd been inspired by this 80's picture (perhaps '90, which was dangerously close to the 80's) of his Uncle James:

*Picture pulled from facebook and used without permission...I hope it doesn't get me in trouble.
Or, perhaps it was "Blue Steel"?

Lucas Turns 7

Lucas wrapped up our month-plus of celebrating (beginning with Gabey's birthday in November) with a bang! He asked for a Super Mario birthday party and I was happy to oblige (happy to have a reprieve from Star Wars and Transformers). Cory and I put our heads together (and enlisted a little help from the Internet) to come up with a pretty fun little party! Each of the kids was given a green (Team Luigi) or red (Team Mario) hat as they arrived. We ironed on some Mario pictures (which we downloaded from the Internet) to some plain T-shirts and let the kids decorate them with fabric paint and markers. After the shirt decorating, it was time for the Mario obstacle course. Here is Team Mario, at the starting position. They had to climb down the ladder, jump over "lava" (red crepe paper blowing from a fan), slide down the stairs, crawl through McKay's playhouse door, throw three balls through King Boo's mouth, knock down the city of blocks, and then slide down the basement stairs to defeat Bowser. Once they knocked Bowser over (with plastic bowling pins), they broke through his "castle" (box) to find the key to unlock Princess Peach.

Team Luigi, ready to go.

Bowser and King Boo


After the awesome obstacle course, they played charades, ate pizza and cake, and watched a Super Mario cartoon as the parents came to pick them up. Cory and I were a little worn out by the end of the night, but we had fun doing it. And Lucas had a great time, which, of course, made it all worth it!
We love you, kiddo! Happy Birthday!

McKay Turns 1

Christmas night I was wrapping presents again...in preparation for McKay's first birthday! We let him "open" presents in the morning (he was re-gifted toys the other boys had played with at that age-- and loves them just as much as they did!) and geared up for the big bash that evening. My aunt and uncle were in town visiting their son and his family in Leesburg, so they all (and Scott and his boys) came over for dinner and cupcakes. We had fun wishing Mackie a Happy Birthday! Here he is devouring his cupcake. After a few pokes at it, Daddy put some in his mouth to give him a taste. That was all he needed.

I love balloons!

Poke, poke

(So they're out of order. I don't even try to fight blogger on picture moving anymore. I've taken the zen approach, and we're getting along much better.)
What good-lookin' parents he has! :)

McKay obliged when Cory REALLY wanted to blow out his candle.

Happy Birthday, Mackers! We love you!

Christmas

Christmas 2009 proved to be wonderful and magical!
For starters, Cory wasn't sick, I wasn't in labor, Gabey didn't throw up, and Lucas didn't wake up at 2:30 am Christmas morning (not that last Christmas wasn't memorable in its own way..I'll reminisce about that in the McKay's birthday post).
We enjoyed Christmas Eve festivities with the S&B Ras family, complete with a junk food supper (a tradition we've carried over from Cory's family), personalized emailed video messages from Santa Claus for each kid (VERY cool...in fact, in Lucas's words from his letter to Santa that night, "magical!"), Christmas jammies, and a re-enactment of the Nativity. A happy shepherd.

A wiseman, pointing to the star in the East.

An angel delivering the glad tidings to the shepherds (wait a minute...he bears a striking resemblance to the wiseman...)

The cast: Shepherd 1 (Lincoln), Sheep (McKay), Shepherd 2/Wiseman 2 (Gabey), Wiseman 1/Angel (Lucas), Mary (Brooke), Baby Jesus (Baby Natalie).

*not pictured: Joseph (Tad), most likely feeding the donkey after the long journey

I love Christmas jammies! And the boxes they come in!

Matchy-matchy Super Mario jammies!

Ready to see what Santa brought Christmas morning.

We'd told the kiddos they couldn't come wake us up before 6:00am. 6:00 on the dot, Lucas was whispering in my ear, "Mommy! It's 6:00!" Cory went downstairs to prep the ambiance (music, lights, fire) and Lucas woke up Gabey (we let McKay sleep; he joined us at about 7).

Santa did not disappoint (not to mention generous grandparents and aunts and uncles).

As it should be, Christmas day was spent (in jammies) putting together and playing with new toys, playing new games, eating too much, calling cousins and grandparents, and reading new books. Lucas said what we all felt (and how I always remembering feeling as a child), "I wish today would never end!"


And, although that day did end, the good times continued as we celebrated McKay's 1st birthday and enjoyed having Cory home for the entire week after Christmas!

Happy New Year

I saw this quote from an Apostle in our church on my sister's blog and found it very inspiring.

"...as a new year starts and we try to benefit from a proper view of what has gone before, I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone, nor to yearn vainly for yesterday however good those yesterdays may have been. The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we experienced, then we look ahead, we remember that faith is always pointed toward the future -- faith always has to do with blessings and truth and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives."

-- Jeffrey R. Holland

*From a talk given at Brigham Young University, January 13, 2009.

The National Tree

Two days before Christmas, we went with Scott and Brooke (have I mentioned how fun it is to have family out here?!) and their family to the National Christmas tree. I had the brilliant idea to begin the evening's festivities with dinner at IHOP. 2 reasons this was a brilliant idea: (1) Since I knew both Brooke and I would be doing a lot of cooking over the next week or so, a night off sounded perfect, and (2) kids eat free. Voila! Here we all are at IHOP...I don't know why you can't see Lucas or Tad, but they were there.

Then, it was off to the Tree.
And now, if I may be completely honest (which I will be, because if I can't be on my own blog, well, then...what's the point?). I remembered why we didn't go last year. You see, our first Christmas in DC (2007), we made the trip to see the tree. After messing with the metro, the cold, and tired kids, however, the actual time at the tree was hurried and not quite the magical memory we were hoping for. Last year, then, we weren't rushing out the door to do it again.

But, another year had passed, our memory was dim, Scott and Brooke are here now, and it seemed like a fun and festive thing to do.

Festive, yes.

And we are smiling in the pictures.

But...after messing with traffic, finding parking, C-O-L-D, tired kids, whiny kids (because they were cold and tired)...

All I'm sayin' is, if you're in town to visit us next Christmas (which we would completely welcome), and you want to go see the tree, please do not take offense if we say we'll wait for you back at the house with a crackling fire and hot chocolate.

Scooter