Goofy Twins!

Monday was President's Day - so Mark & Jim were both home!  And we got to enjoy another day with Grandma & Papa!  The boys took them on a walk in the morning while Mark & I got out to run a couple of errands.  Again, another day of being outside, followed by dinner at North Side.  (The owner of South Side opened up this restaurant up in Del Ray and we went to check that out.  Very similar to South Side, so I think everyone enjoyed their meals - it is further away so we will probably stick with our usual! 

I always love it when they plan to wear matching clothes - whether it's their PJs, the same top, or matching colors.  Here are my 2 boys being cute & and then goofy yesterday morning! 

Fun with Grandma & Papa

Ben found his devil ears from his Halloween costume, and has been wearing them around lately.  Here are both boys playing Sunday morning waiting for Grandma & Papa to come over!

They flew into BWI Saturday night, and ended up staying at a hotel, and came over Sunday morning.  We had a great day hanging out with them! And it was another day where we spent outside all day long!  Again, lots of jobs, football playing, soccer playing, and baseball playing fun for the boys!  We did walk over to the high school and played on the field for awhile.  I think it got up to the lower 70s, and everyone enjoyed their time together! 

After I accomplish this, I will need to update with some pics from my phone, loved the picture we got of the 4 of them on the bench.  I have been doing pretty good this month, I'm on my 14th post!  I'll have to keep this going! 

Our weekend mornings

Our weekend mornings typically consist of lots of playing, usually trucks or Legos, and then cleaning up.  And if the boys do a good job cleaning up they usually get to play Wii for a bit, or watch some movies on the computer (picking things out on You Tube).  I tried to get some pictures of them, but they were too into the game they were playing! 

Had a gorgeous day on Saturday - which we spent most of it outside!  Loving this warmer weather, feels like springtime in winter!  Hoping we don't get real cold weather again.  Boys kept busy outside, helping Mark do some jobs, playing some soccer, some football, riding around in their pick-up truck, busy busy day! 

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.