Painting the Town

On President's Day morning, we took one last opportunity to visit the city.  We wanted to get a few pictures of the kids with DC monuments before we left town the following Saturday. 

We started at the World War II Memorial.

There is a pillar for each state.  We found North Dakota's first.

and then Nebraska (my home state),

We made a stop at Maryland, of course,

and then we stopped at all the states Clancy might be born.

We were moving from Maryland to North Dakota when I was 38.5 weeks pregnant.  We knew that there was a chance that he/she could come as we plodded along through Ohio, Indiana,

Illinois or Wisconsin.

After our tour of Clancy's potential birth sites, we headed to the Lincoln Memorial,

where we got a great and distant view of the Washington Monument

and took a few pics with good ole Abe.

The girls bounded down the steps with Joe,

took a rest

and we finished out the tour at the Tidal Basin with the Jefferson Memorial in the background.

A few other items of note about our tour:

1.  It was chilly and there was LOTS of whining about being cold.

2.  Theia skinned her knees just outside the Lincoln Memorial and was crying and howling and carrying on so much that a Park Ranger stopped us and asked if she could help.  We explained the situation and she pointed us to a First Aid station.  Later we saw her again and she had thoughtfully gone out of her way to find to bandaids for Theia.  Theia, of course, then refused to put the bandaids on.

3.  I put Joey down at the WWII Memorial on a sloped concrete path and he immediately took two steps, lost control and fell over, smacking his forehead hard on the pavement.

4.  When we got to the Lincoln Memorial, I took Joey to the bathroom to change him.  After changing his diaper I put him on the floor to walk while I washed my hands and he immediately took two steps, fell over and smacked his forehead, in the same location as before, hard on the tile floor.

5.  No one fell down the steps at the Lincoln Memorial.  This felt like a real accomplishment for us.

Our last stop was Joe's office.  We ate lunch, packed up the remainder of his things,

and said goodbye to his office

and four and a half years at Ropes & Gray.

Attic Rats

They're pretty cute.  Maybe I should let them stay.

Bonbons

After a recent stint in Germany with the Army, our friend David, as he is oft prone to do after he's travelled the world, sent us a package in the mail.  This package, which arrived between my birthday and Valentine's Day (perfect timing), was stuffed FULL of German candy.

It seems before he left Germany, he robbed a local candy store (he really didn't, it just seemed like that to us), and then sent us half of the loot garnered from the shelves of said store.

The girls were VERY excited about the arrival of David's box, almost as excited as the adults in the house.

They were even more excited about eating these tasty hippos after dinner.

Before they gobbled them up, they made their best hippo faces

and then happily set to work trying to put a dent in the mountainous pile of candy.

A Set of Sweets

Here's a look at our annual Valentine's Day gift for Joe.

They certainly are one sweet set of Valentine's. 

Thanks, Naomi, for blessing us with the gift of your friendship and photographic prowess.  We love you!

Super Girl

We celebrated Theia's fourth birthday as a family in very typical Pull fashion.  We started with homemade pizza for dinner,

followed by Theia very eagerly opening her presents.

The first present was a small, red jewelery box from Ms. Carol.  It had a kitty embroidered on it and was stuffed with jewelery.

She LOVED this super girl costume from Aunt Tami and Uncle Josh

and wore the eyemask for the rest of the evening.

Joe found this Smashed Potatoes game at a local store and it was a hit for the whole family.

There were molds for making the potato head playing pieces out of playdoh.

The object of the game was to make it to the farm without getting snipped, cut, french fried or potato chipped. 

The first time someone got french fried, it was Aliyah.

She was shocked.  Her face was priceless.

We simply put her back at start and made her a new playing piece.  We laughed a lot playing that game.  There's something very satisfying about smashing a potato head in the french frier or making it into a potato chip.

After our cut throat game, we enjoyed some more pink blanky cake since Joe missed out on the first round of cake at the big slumber party.

Our girls never mind another slice of cake

and scoop of ice cream.

I never mind an opportunity to celebrate with them either.

How could I not?

she's a SUPER girl!

Convenient

Shortly after we scheduled a slumber party at our home involving nine children under the age of six, Joe conveniently had to take a trip for job interviews on the very day we'd scheduled the big event.

Conveniently, the other moms (Julie, Lauren and Naomi) dropping their kids off decided to stay and help me manage the troops for a few hours.  

One of those moms, Julie, had a birthday the next day and I had a birthday the next month.  Conveniently, we used all of this as an excuse to enjoy cheesecake while the kids dined on their cake.

  

First there were candles.  Lauren, the bringer of the cheesecake, conveniently left off 90% (or more) of the appropriate number of candles.

Then the extinguishing of the candles.  I'm glad we could be in this picture together, Julie.

Then the consumption of the cheesecake, which, conveniently, I have no pictoral record of how much cheesecake was actually consumed.  For all anyone knows or remembers, we didn't eat ANY cheesecake.

Convenient how that works, isn't it?