Our Christmas Elf

Santa enlisted a new helper this year...a Polish Elf who entertained us quite nicely and then went to
7-11 for Slurpees. He was spreading Christmas cheer to all who could hear!

Ahoy, Matey!

One of the things on our summer bucket list this year was a pirate cruise and when the weather finally cooled cool down enough to go guess what day it happened to fall on???  National Talk Like a Pirate Day! It was a gorgeous day to set sail on the Potomac and our little pirates were ready for action.

Luckily the dollar section just happened to have pirate accessories and two (just two!) swords the day before our adventure.

On board the ship.

Pirate lessons from the crew, including how to talk like a pirate.

Ahoy, Matey!!!

While cruising the Potomac we came upon Evil Edgar who had stolen the keys to the pirate treasure chest and was taunting our little pirates from his speedboat...a fierce water cannon battle ensued...our pirates were triumphant in the end and Evil Edgar returned the keys.

The treasure chest was opened and everyone got their share of the booty.

A treasure chest full of candy???? Yes!!!

Our little pirates celebrated their victory by dancing the limbo.

Our adventure was a great success and here are the final shots of our swashbucklers:
                               

Little

(he actually kept the eye patch on the entire time!)

Bigger 

(he really loved being a pirate!)

Biggest

(just 'cause)

The saddest goodbye

We got to have Katie for seven whole weeks this summer and the boys think she is theirs, so saying goodbye was a sad, sad affair. The good news...we will see her again in 10 days in the other Washington!

7/11

Whew! We made it just in time for the free slurpees from one of the boys' happiest places on earth. Once again thank you Uncle Tom for introducing them to 7-11.

Meet Mr. Slithers

Rafal and I were just outside the living room doing some much needed yard work when the boys opened the french door to this....

Rafal yelled for them to close the door and we had a little stare off with the snake with two boys and Katie peering out the windows of the door. Finally,  Rafal poked him with a pipe and he turned right around and slithered his way through a crack between the back of the steps and the foundation of the house. Tavish ran right upstairs and found his snake book that Grandma Pat had given him last year and updated us on all the particulars of rat snakes. Later, Katie and I found him in the exact same spot but this time he raised his head, took one look at us, and slithered right away through his crack. He appears to be a relation to our dead snake on the top of our chimney.  Now when I go outside I've got one eye peeled for Mr. Slithers...he could be a unwelcome surprise for those coming in this door!

fun family activity

At the military family retreat we attended right before Katie's arrival one of our tasks was to plan a fun family activity. We decided to plan something to celebrate Katie coming to visit but plan #1 and plan #2 got pushed aside by cruddy weather. So we went bowling instead...who knew they made such cute little bowling shoes?

Field Trip #2

 Tavish's second field trip was to an outdoor nature center where he learned about squirrels...

 did some pond-netting...Tavish didn't catch anything in his net but some others caught a few shrimp and tadpoles and only one kid fell in...

 they hunted for bugs in old logs...

and got to pet a snake (I passed.)

Little Shopper

A couple of weeks ago I caved and finally let Paxton push the little cart at Trader Joe's and he is in heaven. He insists on putting as many of the groceries as humanly possible in his cart while I am pushing a mostly empty large shopping cart. And he loves having access to whatever he can reach...he wanted corn on the cob, purple grapes and the ever popular fruit leather this shopping trip. He is actually a pretty good little shopper and only manages to clip my heels with slightly less frequency than Tavish does. (of note, I find it completely ironic that the background of this photo is of the wine section)

Back to the river

Three cute bums...with some goofballs in the background.

One of our favorite things to do on summer Sundays after breakfast-for-dinner is to go down by the river. The boys got new bug nets from the Easter Bunny with which they were anxious to catch fish. None were caught which was very disappointing but many rocks were thrown in the river and much exploring done which alleviated the disappointment. Paxton managed to climb up on a stepping stone without any assistance and was very proud of himself. We were just missing Katie...

Hibernation ends...

We are finally starting to feel as if our hibernation from this loooong winter and fickle spring is over and we can go do some of the things we have been waiting for...like miniature golf! Paxton got his own club this time and definitely has his own ideas about how to golf (one-handed). Tavish surprised me by remembering what I taught him last year. We only lost two out of the three balls to water traps (after rescuing one) and Tavish found the secret trap where all the balls are collected on the 18th hole...he opened it up and wanted to give all the balls away. So much more fun this year without  me repeating "hold the club this way!" and "stand this way!" at every hole while trying to speed-golf our way through the course before Paxton had a meltdown in the stroller. Bring on spring!

Back to the Farm

This has been a very drawn out spring after a very cold, snowy winter but the stars aligned and we had a beautiful sunny day that coincided with a day off from school! The boys and I headed back to the farm and jumped on bouncy pillows, slid down big slides, went on a hayride, fed some goats and enjoyed spring...finally!

Easter Morning

Easter fell on General Conference weekend which meant we got to have a relaxing morning...the Easter  Bunny hid eggs high and low and this was the first year Paxton understood what was going on and was excited to  hunt for eggs. Tavish was very sweet and would point out where some of the eggs were hidden so that Paxton could find them (he looked like a pointer dog!) They brought their loot inside and tallied it up on the dining room table...(Tavish has been practicing tallying at school). Lots of candy was consumed and the hot items from the baskets were the space goggles and the chicken popper :) Also chocolate carrots can be a weapon so watch out!