Is It Really Finally Over?

We have been plagued by a Utah winter, but in Virgina. Not appreciated. I do not miss Utah winters. I do not like snow. But today it was sunshiny and warm! We finally got to enjoy that beautiful playground that we have in the back yard!

Jack likes to spin up the swing, and then lay on the swing and let it unravel.

Cherry Blossom Festival: It Begins

 The Cherry Blossom Festival has just begun. We went into DC on Saturday to enjoy the activities at the Building Museum. Jack's favorite was making a cherry blossom out of balloons. As hard as I tried to convince him to pick another color, he could see the pictures of the cherry blossoms, and he wanted to make a pink flower. He picked out all of the balloons himself.

And to go along with the cherry balloons, there was this.....creature.....

Jack found him to be a bit intimidating. He kept calling it a bug. 

Then we got to decorate a decal for the van that they had on display. Jack loved the van so much. He just climbed into the back seat and sat down. It was really hard to convince him to climb out of the van, and as soon as we would walk away, he would start running back to it. As we left the museum he kept saying "bye car."

We did quite a bit of walking and Jack enjoyed the Navy fountains. He found a few kids to play with while we were there. And a fancy salad restaurant gave us some samples of their salads. Very delicious. 

And then we visited the botanical gardens because it is orchid season again! Jack loved their new fountain. It plays music and shoots colorful streams of water.

Cool Man

Tony recently taught Jack how to give thumbs up. He loves it. He sticks those thumbs in the air and says "cool, man."

My recent project in the new apartment involved making awesome cushions to sit on. This one fits in the window. This window is deep and great for sitting in to read. All it needed was some padding. So I went to Joanns and got some 2 inch thick padding and some super soft fabric. I sewed a cover for the padding and put velcro on the one side so that I can remove it to wash. Where you can see the edges tilting up, it covers the levers that open the window. 

And this is the beginning of my fireplace project. I have covered the whole thing in cardboard, and then made a smaller pad for Jacko to sit on. It's a cute little cubby that fits him perfectly. Now I just need to paint the sides so they are not cardboard brown and duct tape silver. 

And Jack wants to say thank you to Ariel for his birthday present of Jelly Beans. We did not let him eat them all in one sitting, but they are definitely gone now. :)

My Little Helper

For the last few weeks I have been watching my friends 7 month old during the day. I got some of the old baby toys out, and Jack has become extremely possessive of them. His favorite is this walker toy. He likes to climb in and then run in circles really fast until it almost tips over. He has had a hard time sharing this particular toy, so it has been good for him to learn. He loves the baby and gets excited every morning when he gets dropped off. 

He is also becoming more and more independent. He loves to help me cook and this past week when we had a snow day, Shelyn and her girls came over and we made crepes. Jack sliced 2 packages of strawberries and loved every minute of it. He also taste tested a few of the strawberries he was cutting, just to make sure they were good. :)

Tony's Birthday

Tony's birthday was a little bit stolen by me because of the musical I was helping with at the middle school. The 2nd performance was the night of his birthday, so he spent his birthday supporting me. Such a great husband! Fortunately, we were better able to celebrate the weekend after. 

My mom was here visiting and we also got to have Norm and his family over, and then some of our friends. Tony wanted a white cake with cream cheese frosting. We realized too late that we didn't have candles. Whoops. 

Snow Snow Snow

So we got hit by a decent snow storm last night. We got about a foot of snow and the whole state pretty much shut down. Schools, government, etc... Tony has still had to work from home, but he was able to go outside with Jack and I for a short moment. 

Jack loved the process of getting dressed in snow clothes. He knows the names of all of the pieces: hat, gloves, pants... He kept saying "snow" all excited like. 

And then we got out there, and just to prove that he is definitely my boy, he decided pretty quickly that snow is just not his thing. He kept saying "up."

We were able to build a snowman and he helped me pat some extra snow into its side to even it out. But then he was officially done. 

Mom I just wanna go back inside!

And this is the first thing he did after we stripped all of his snow clothes off. Warming up in front of the fire. 

Tony started to shovel the driveway, but it is pretty heavy snow and a ridiculously long driveway, so we decided to maybe wait a bit. It's supposed to warm up relatively soon. Our car is parked in the car port, which I am standing in to take this picture.

Gangsta Jack

Jack is getting into the "do everything myself" stage. He wants to put his own shoes on, and zip up his coat, and put his hat on. He also loves to buckle himself into his car seat. He has a hard time putting he hat on the right way I guess, cause he always puts it on backwards. Either that, or he is trying to be cool. Haha. 

Tony was building with Jack. It soon turned into Daddy building while Jack moved on to other things. Tony built a house and a "mario flag" and a teeter totter and a slide. Pretty impressive right?