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Thursday, April 12, 2012
Fires, Field Trips and Easter
Well, the alliteration did well in the title right up to the Easter part, but that's the best I could manage tonight. And I'll put up thanks right up top here to Grandpa Q who contributed quite a few of the photos in this entry, and I think Aunt Christie may have snapped up the camera a few times to grab a few shots too.
March 31, 2012
The first fire of the season. It's the official start of the cooking things outside, hanging out by the fire after the kids go to bed, enjoying the warm weather season.
We start out in the daylight at dinnertime (Laney was here for our fire too):
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And go on through the twilight where we bask in the light of the fire and Grandpa's iPad:
Until it is well and truly dark and you can barely see Daddy poking at the fire:
It was a really great night:
March 3, 2012
Today was the class trip to Jamestown and Yorktown. I had never been before, I grew up in upstate New York and we went to Ticonderoga, Blue Mountain Lake and Saratoga. So with Sammy growing up in Virginia we get a whole different set of field trips and I get to see new places.
The first stop was the glass works:
where we watched them make some onion bottles that looked like this:
This was really the coolest part for me because I've always been fascinated by glass blowing.
After the glass we went to see the least convincing looking Native American ever:
And watched how they prepared animal skins:
We actually got to go on this replica of the Susan Constant which was one of the ships that brought the colonists to Jamestown.
And we walked through a little replica village:
That was the morning, in the afternoon we toodled over to Yorktown, which was a lot less crowded. You are greeted by a setup of the tents that the soldiers would have lived in:
They also have a little village and some gardens. When we were done we were waiting at a display where they have flags for the colonies and Sammy conquered North Carolina:
April 3, 2012
It was the day before Easter and cousins Layla and Makayla joined Sammy and Grandma Q in coloring some eggs:
Outside the boys were hard at work on the tractor. At first Daddy and Owen were just spectators offering moral support:
while Uncle Richard and Grandpa Q worked on taking things apart:
But who can resist playing with a big red tractor? And Daddy had to join in:
But they had no hope of fixing that tractor because Owen secretly had the missing piece that they needed:
That blue Lego was just too much fun to give back to the tractor!
Once the eggs were colored the kids all came outside. Layla couldn't get enough of throwing a stick for Jigsaw to fetch:
Uncle Richard thought that perhaps he was in the desert (or perhaps he was protecting that sunburn he had developed):
And Owen went back to his supervisory role with Grandma and Daddy:
April 8, 2012 - Easter Day!
We opted for the untraditional Easter dinner outdoors because it was such an unbelievably nice day out.
And the girls decided on dinner in the bed of the Beater:
There was much blowing of bubbles:
And people taking pictures of people taking pictures:
Kites were flown:
Bright ideas were had:
Bob!
And snuggles:
The girls were all ready for a much anticipated ride through the field in the Beater:
But there was a slight delay of game while the battery was reconnected:
Repairs were made and the girls (and Owen in my lap up in the front seat) got to have a squealing good time bouncing around the field.
After that it was almost time for Uncle Richard and family to head back to North Carolina so they got in some last minute snuggles:
and everyone posed for some more formal type pictures:
After they left I decided that it was just too nice of a day to not keep taking pictures for a little while to capture the sunshinyness of the day:
I did try to get a picture of the two kids smiling and looking at the camera, but I got things like these:
Sometimes though you just have to go with the silliness of the moment. Owen sees his sister being silly:
And decides to join in for the perfect fun picture of the day:
We will close though, with a nice Easter family portrait:
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Friday, March 30, 2012
March 2012
March 3, 2012
We left off at our cave trip in my last entry and that was on March 3rd as well. Later that day we headed over for some fun with music at Mya's house. Ms. Sara (who has been working with Ms. Julie our regular music therapist all year) was kind enough to come and play with us. We had a great time!
Playing a duet on the keyboard:
Thanks to Sammy for taking some of these pictures too!
Owen thinks that Mya just has the best toys!
Everyone loves to shake and bang on tambourines:
If you look closely at Sammy you can see her shaker egg up in the air as she juggles them:
I think the thing that Sammy looks forward to the most though is pushing Mya in her swing, and I think Mya looks forward to it too!
March 6, 2012
In this video you will see Owen showing incredible persistence, and some excellent long term memory. I had brought in his stroller to set it up for his upcoming surgery. The stroller is "naked" in this video because all of its padding had been cleaned and were hanging in the kitchen drying. But the back storage bag is still hanging on it. I didn't catch the part where he climbed up and got himself into this position, but this is how we found him:
And what was he looking for? His zebra!
He was never able to get it himself of course because you need to be behind the stroller and you need to undo a zipper, but he was unbelievably thrilled to have his zebra. The amazing thing is that it had been months and months since I had taken the zebra out of the stroller so I have no idea how he had even remembered it was in that bag.
March 7, 2012
Enjoying a day in the sun:
where Owen inspected his:
And then we went for a ride in the re-clothed stroller:
As the sun went down it got a bit chilly, but we just put on a sweater and continued on:
March 8, 2012
Owen looking casual stretched out on his sister's bed:
March 10, 2012
Time to take a moment to watch how much Owen has grown. Owen's PT was kind enough to bring over a Tumbleforms chair just in case Owen needed some help sitting up to eat after his surgery. Here he is sitting in it today:
And just for grins I thought I'd dig up a picture of Owen in this chair when our PT loaned it to us once before. Here is Owen on February 22, 2007 (so basically 5 years ago):
So yeah, he's grown just a bit!
March 12, 2012
I was packing up Jigsaw's crate for her to head over to Grandma and Grandpa Q's to join Sammy while we traveled to Duke for 5 days and I found this little present that Sammy must have made for our puppy at some point:
And just so the cat doesn't get jealous of all the attention that the dogs get in pictures:
March 18, 2012
I seriously hear the theme from "Risky Business" every time I see this picture:
March 19, 2012
The Wearing of the Green is something that Virginia takes seriously. Right around St. Patrick's Day the whole world just turns a brilliant shade of green here and it happens almost overnight. The trees start getting leaves:
The daffodils bloom:
And it's time to spend most afternoons outside!
Being silly:
Or handsome:
Or expounding on deep thoughts:
or asking for a cookie:
Or just being awesome in the daffodils:
March 20, 2012
OK, time to get Sammy back into the pictures. Between the fact that she spent two weeks at the Q's for Owen's surgery and because I spend all day with Owen, this entry has been a bit heavy on the Owen pictures. Sammy's choir had two performances this week. Here is their first performance at a school board meeting:
I do have video, but I generally don't upload them just because an entire song is quite long and so the files get really huge. Maybe in my next entry I'll do a montage of a few song clips so that you get the idea without having a 100 MB file to download which would be fine for people on FIOS, but would take me a week to upload on DSL.
March 22, 2012
And here they are singing again two nights later:
This was the fine arts night at Sammy's school and they also had the kid's work from art class on display. Here is a chalk drawing by Sammy:
and an ink decoration of a conch shell:
And no, she didn't leave a big empty space next to her name. She did a beautiful rendition of her full and complete name which I didn't figure needed to be shared worldwide :-)
March 28, 2012
And now we are up to the last day that I have pictures for this time. It was just over 80 degrees out and it was a beautiful sunshiny day:
Which meant that it was time for my boy to work on his tan while being silly:
 
 
and adorable:
and snuggly:
And when Sammy came home it was time to catch her looking beautiful amongst the Spring finery:
Welcome to Spring, it's a wonderful thing!!!
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