Happy Valentine's Day

2 of my 3 boys!  Busy checking out their Valentine's they got!  Jim had a good day, in the afternoon his class exchanged Valentine's, and he came home with a bunch of cards and treats! 

I also love how much these 2 love each other - so much fun that they have a best friend to play with every single day!  Just like any 2 brothers, they do have their moments, but for the most part they're constantly playing and having fun together! 

Sunday funday!

Another day spent outside.  I did my usual grocery trip to Wegmans in the am, while Mark & the boys hung out in the morning.  The boys played some Wii - some Madden football, Mario Cart, and Nitro.  Then it was time to head outside.  We went over to Mount Vernon after lunch & had lots of fun there, playing some soccer first, than some baseball, and finally some football.  Love how much they love being outside and playing sports!  Came back home & had more fun outside. 

Ben's latest haircut is a Mohawk.  I love it when he lets me put stuff in it to make it spikey!  A big smile from him! 

And Jim is all set to walk over to football field! 

(I feel like I should come back & update some of these posts with pictures from my phone.  I have some fun pictures of the boys at the field.  But I guess it's a step in the right direction that I've been updating these and actually using my real camera, so we will go with that for now!) 

My busy bees

Enjoyed another fun day outside, loving this milder weather.

I love their seat, watching Mark cutting away at some rebar.

Love the hat Ben!

Always smiling! 

Having fun climbing into the garbage can! 

From warm to cold.

Quite a difference from this post to the last one.  Last one the boys were in shorts & a t-shirt.  Now it's back to the winter jacket, hat, and gloves!

Ben really doesn't nap anymore.  I'd say I'm lucky if he'll nap once a week, or maybe it's once very other week.  But I think after the busy weekend of the car show...Being at the playground all afternoon on Monday...And then doing a triple playground on Wednesday (in the morning we went to Potomac Yards...then in the afternoon we met Maggie at Grist Mill...and then we played at the playground at school after pick-up) he was pooped.  I love pictures of sleeping babies & kids.

A good morning!

I love the mornings we get outside for a couple of minutes before walking over to school!  And what a gorgeous day yesterday was - warm enough for Jim to wear shorts to school!  Can't wait to have more mornings like this..

Jim decided it was a good morning to break out his bike -

And Ben thought a good morning to ride around in his pick-up truck.

Having fun together -

Cruising around!

Just doing some morning sprints! 

On a roll!

Similar to what we've done with Jim, Ben does a little 'school' once a week with a group of 6 other kids.  This is our 2nd year doing it, and we have a lot of fun with it!  Tuesday was school day for us (we normally do Monday's but with Monday being a day off we pushed it to Tuesday).  Had a fun day learning about geography!  Think Ben had fun doing that too.  I still can't believe that come the fall he's going to be a kindergartener. 

Like I mentioned in a previous post, the weather has been really nice here lately!  Both boys decided once we got home from school pick up they needed to put on shorts & a t-shirt since it was so nice outside.  Had them take a break from playing some football (note Jim's football glove) to take a couple of pictures.  Also note their soccer jerseys - they've really been into wearing jerseys & pretending their different teams & quarterbacks.  Ben can rattle off a lot of the QB's and their numbers for different teams. 

 Silly boys:

 Say cheese -

No School Monday

Jim didn't have any school on Monday - it was a teacher work day, with it being the end of the quarter.  Had a great day together.  I had Julia for the day - and we started our day off with a trip to Costco (I needed to price something, and now Ben is wondering when we can go shopping there.  We haven't been in awhile since I didn't renew my membership in August).  Then we made a trip to Target so Jim could pick out his Valentine's.  And then we went to Lee District.  We ended up being there for almost 4 hours!  It was such a nice day outside, and the kids were having a lot of fun! 

We got home around 4:00, and then spent the rest of the afternoon outside.  One guess with what the boys were busy doing -- more football, of course!  Love that they are always playing this together!  Also love Jim's latest style of this socks - he tucks his pants into his socks. 

Our Sunday Outside

We've been having some good weather!  It's beginning to feel like spring - and winter is headed out the door.  Not sure if we are going to get our big snow storm this year.  Looking out at the 15 day forecast it shows temps in the 50s, and before we know it, March will be here!  I do like a good snow, let the boys go out and play in it, do some shoveling, etc.  Guess we will see if it'll fall this year, or if we'll have to wait until next winter. 

Enjoyed the rest of our weekend.  The weather was pretty nice, so we spent a lot of time outside!  So happy that all my boys like being out there!  Ben & I went over to the playground at school with Renee & Parker.  Jim was having some issues over not having any more tall socks to wear, and wasn't very happy about that, so he ended up staying home!  But once we got home we spent the rest of the afternoon outside - Mark had a little fire going to help burn up some of the sticks we have:

 My hard worker - always smiling for the camera!

 A smoky picture of Ben!

 This picture is courtesy of Ben - he likes asking to use my camera - still think it's hard for him to hold the camera, look through the eye piece, and hit the button:

Sunday wouldn't be complete without some football!  

Posing with their football! 

Sunday night was the Superbowl.  Jim had no school on Monday, so he was able to stay up to watch more of it!  Although it wasn't going to well for him.  He wanted the Patriots to win, and they weren't doing so well in the first half, so Jim was getting pretty disappointed in that!  He was very happy to wake up Monday morning to see that they came back & beat the Falcons!

Between the gorgeous day outside on Sunday & the car show on Saturday we all had a great weekend! 

Washington Auto Show

So yesterday we went into D.C. to the Washington Auto Show.  Ben was sure to correct anyone who called it a car show, or the auto show, to him it was the Washington Auto Show!  Boys loved it there!  Ben even said he though it was better than Monster Jam!  They loved checking out all the cars, and going in all of them. 

On our way home from D.C. we stopped at Buffalo Wild Wings (Ben's pick) for lunch.  They love going there because they give the kids tablets to play with while waiting for their food.  They were very busy playing games, and Mark & I were able to watch Syracuse beat #9 Virginia!  We did a little Super Bowl family pool - where we each picked who we thought would win the playoff games, and whoever got the most right got to pick a place to go out to eat.  Jim & Ben both tied with 4 (Mark & I had 2), so it was Ben's pick, Jim will be next! 

The rest of our Saturday was pretty lazy - watching some more basketball on TV...playing some Wii...enjoying a fire (hence their red faces)!!!

On a roll

Haven't been very creative with my pictures - but I've been keeping up with taking a couple every day.  Now granted, it's on the 4th of February - and still have a ways to go, but hopefully I'll keep up with this trend for the month. 

So our typical Friday's - we get together with our neighbors for drinks in the driveway!  Such a fun tradition that we've continued with.  When the weather warms up we will be outside, but for now we've been doing the inside version.  We typically meet-up around 5:30, drink a couple of beers, eat some pizza, and the kids play together! 

We missed out on Friday's drinks this week though - Ben has a little cold, and we didn't want to be bringing his germs into someone else's house.  Instead we had a quiet night at home, just the 4 of us! Here are the boys just hanging out: 

Our Thursdays

Typically on Thursdays, Ben & I head to school to spend a couple hours volunteering in Jim's classroom.  We head over to meet his teacher at 12:45, she has a 2 hour period without kids (1st hour they're with another teacher for math workshop, and the 2nd hour they are at library!)  So Ben and I help her with whatever she needs - whether it's cutting things out, hanging things up, putting away books, and Thursday folder.  It's nice that Ben is getting a layout of the school to prep him for next year and kindergarten! 

Jim then has flag football after school, which yesterday was his last day!  We've been having our friend Levi over, and it's fun to watch how Ben & him have progressed over time, and this past week they both were very busy playing Paw Patrol together!

I love that when both of the boys are really concentrating on something, they both have their tongues out!  I also love how much progress Jim has made with both his reading and his writing!  He can read anything you give him!  And is getting a lot better at spelling out words (he's always been great at sound out words, but now he's getting the spelling down!)

Ben also has been great with his writing!  And we've started building his own sight word wall in the toy room for him.

F is for February and Football!

In an attempt to start posting here more often AND to start using my real camera again more often - I've decided to give myself a little challenge for the month of February.  I'd love to say let's use my camera every day, but I know that's not going to happen, so how about at least 50% of the days in February -- can I take photos for 15 days this month?! 

It's hard to believe that these boys are getting so big!  We will have a 5 & 7 year old very soon!  And come the fall a kindergartner & a 2nd grader - how is that possible??!!

The boys have really been into football lately - whether it's watching football games on TV, playing football in the house, or playing football together outside - they love it!  Jim's after school club he chose was flag football - which he's been having a lot of fun with! 

Love that they are each others best buddies!!!!

Monster Jam

This past weekend we took the boys to Monster Jam at the Verizon Center in DC. Lots of fun again this time!!  We took the Metro in and made our way to Verizon Center.  The boys had a lot of fun watching all the action - Ben was hoping Mohawk Warrior would be there to match his Mohawk - but no such luck this time!  I think these smiles show that fun was had all around!

Our Year in Review - 2016

January - We rang in 2016 with our usual neighbor get together - with dinner at Southside, and then a roundup at all 3 houses this year, lots of fun with great people!  January was lots of playdates, fun drinks with neighbors, and snow!

February - Was similar to January, with playdates, some snow, a snowy trip into D.C. to check out a museum, a fun visit from Aunt Ali, and an overnight trip up to Baltimore to see Monster Jam!

March -  We now have a FOUR year old, lots of fun celebrating with a monster truck birthday. Made a trip up to NY over Jim's spring break - and got to meet Avalon!!!

April -  And now we have a SIX year old!!!  Another fun army celebration with a fun 6 year old!  We poured our shed foundation - had 2 great helpers!  Soccer season started up for Jim, and we took another great trip to Lake Anna with our neighbors!

May -  Weekends were busy with soccer games, lots of fun playing with friends, a weekend with Aunt Ali & Uncle Chris, a Potomac Nationals games, and we bought our Explorer!

June -  Soccer fun, pool fun, friends, field day for Jim, and a kindergarten celebration sums up our month of June!  As well as a visit from Uncle Robbie, Aunt Jenna, Blake & Brody.  So fun to watch the cousins playing together!

July - Celebrated the 4th of July with a picnic at friends, a overnight trip into D.C. to watch the fireworks on the Mall!  Enjoying our summer break together - lots of fun activities, a trip to visit Aunt Ali, fun at the AMP summer camp!

August - We wrapped up our summer fun here in VA, and then took our trip up north, lots of fun visiting in Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Castile, and wrapping up with Labor Day weekend for a wedding in NY.

September - Jim started 1st grade - soccer season started, with Ben playing for his first time!  We went camping with P & family at Prince William Forest again this year!

October - Was more soccer, a Storm Trooper & Optimus Prime for Halloween, and another trip down south to celebrate Aunt Ali's birthday together! 

November - a big month for us, the boys first airplane ride which they loved!!!  And a trip down to Orlando/Disney. This year was our first year not traveling up to NY for Thanksgiving, staying home in VA, and celebrating with Allison & Chris.

December was all about the Holiday's, decorating for Christmas, baking for Christmas, and our usual Christmas trip back home!

2016 was a fun year for us!  Looking forward to seeing what 2017 has in store for us!