"Dinosaur Eat 'Em"

Lydia loves to take her socks off. She can’t get them back on yet but she can put my socks on her feet. She is always very proud of herself when she is wearing my socks.

It is annoying when we got downstairs, ready to leave the house except for putting on shoes and coats, and Lydia is no longer wearing socks. I try to remember to check her feet before we go down stairs.

A couple of weeks ago, she was wearing green pants and matching green socks. When we got ready to leave the socks were missing. I asked her, “Where are your socks?” She answered, “Dinosaur eat ‘em.” "What?" I asked her and she replied, “Dinosaur eat ‘em” and pointed at Wesley’s dinosaur.

Then this week, I told another mom that Lydia often removes her socks and Lydia chimed in “Dinosaur eat ‘em.”

Thank You Note

Remember my eventful evening with dinner guests? I received a Thank You note from that evening that was too cute to not share.

Baby Jesus' Birthday Party

On Monday we had the Baby Jesus' Birthday Party for MOPS. This is fun event but it is a lot of work. Michelle and I had a lot of help from the mentor moms. Here the kids are putting baby Jesus in a walnut shell which represented the manager. My kids were obsessed with the babies.
Here is the finish product. They were very hard to photograph.
The kids also put nativity scene stickers on card stock. You can see how hard Lydia is concentrating on the stickers.

MOPS is a family affair when you serve on the steering committee. Chris helps me, in some way, with all the events. This time he printed out forty candy canes on card stocks. His parents helped me cut out the candy canes.

These two cute kids are Lukas and Julia. Their dad and Chris were college roommates.

We had tissue paper for the kids to crumble and glue on the candy canes. Wesley put a lot of tissue paper on his candy cane.
After completing their crafts most of the kids had lunch. I made a pumpkin cheesecake on Monday morning instead of packing lunch for the kids so all three of us enjoyed Fruit and Walnut Salads from you-know-where.

Next the kids enjoyed singing, especially when they got to play with the bells.

This kind mom below was such a big help to Michelle and me. She helped decide on the crafts and her hubby picked up the babies for the managers. She also led the singing and then told the nativity story with a felt board. It was wonderful!

After singing Happy Birthday to Jesus, the kids had cake.

I so want my children (and me) to remember this season is about celebrating the birth of Jesus and that He loved us so much that He died in our place so we could have everlasting life. Sometimes it is hard to keep our focus on that central truth.

Wesley demonstrated how difficult this can be by saying, "I want a present now" sometime near the end of the party. It took me a minute to realize that Chris' work party the night before had led him to hope for another present at this party. When I told he wasn't getting a present, he seemed fine with that and he didn’t ask again.

The Details - Probably Too Many Details

It was Chris' dad's idea to do a Segway tour. I think this just proves that loving technology and wanting to do things rather than sit around at home is a family trait.

I think there are three different Segway tour companies in DC. Chris chose this one in part because they claim to have the fastest Segways in the city. They claim that their speed governors don't kick in until 12.5 mph. (In order for Segways to be safe on sidewalks with pedestrians they have to have speed governors.) I will tell you more about the speed governors later.

We did our tour on Saturday from 3 to 5 while the kids napped at home and our 16 y.o. next-door-neighbor babysat them. Before the tour, they make you watch a short safety video. The girl, who was one of our guides and who showed us the video, said, “This video is meant to scare you. Once you get on the Segway and see how easy it is, you aren’t going to listen to us talk about safety.” She also said that almost all of the falls that happen on their tours occur in the last 15 minutes because people get so comfortable they stop paying attention to what they are doing and they run their wheels into stuff and fall.
After the video and demonstration, we put on our helmets and tried out the Segways in the store – just enough to make sure we could go forward, stop, backup, and turn. Then we went out on the sidewalk and waited for every one else. I was nervous at first. I am not the most coordinated person and I really didn’t want to embarrass myself. The time out on the sidewalk, gave me a chance to get more comfortable. I found it easy to shift my weight forward into my toes to go forward. It was also easy to slow down by shifting my weight back and then back up by shifting my weight into my heels. I was able to turn from an almost stopped position. I say almost stopped position because staying still was the hardest to master. A slight weight shift makes the Segway move.

We went across the street from the Segway store to a park where we got more practice. The Segway seemed very intuitive and it is didn’t take a lot to control it and make it go where I wanted it to go. It seemed very natural.

While going from place to place on the tour, we went as fast as pedestrians and crosswalk signal and the speed governors allowed us to go. When the governor kicked in, it felt like the Segway was coming up toward me. This felt very subtle but it moved in such a way as to encourage me to shift my weight back into my heels to slow down.

Soon after we went by the Washington Monument, I realized that I was starting to get very cold. When I looked at my watch, I was surprised that it was only 4:00. For the next hour, I was fine if we were moving on the Segways but when we stopped my feet and hands were very cold. Chris asked me which tour I enjoyed more, the Adventure Tour in the Outer Banks or the Segway tour. I had to say the Adventure Tour just because it was warmer and I love the beach and the ocean. He then asked if I would rather do the Segway tour when it was 45° or 100°. I can honestly say 100°.

Even with freezing hands and feet, I really enjoyed the Segway tour. I did learn more about DC on the tour because both guides were full of interesting facts. I would highly recommend this if you want try out a Segway and get a fun tour of the city at the same time. All four of us agreed that if given the opportunity, we would do it again.

Segway - Wordless Wednesday

Don't Be Jealous, But...

I am copying a friend's theme for her blog; “Don't be jealous, but”

Don’t be jealous, but …we had friends over for dinner tonight and soon after Chris got home he was walking upstairs and detected the smell of something burning. I had stepped away from the stove to discipline Wesley for being unkind to Gabriella. Suddenly I hear Chris yelling, "Something is on fire! Something is on fire!" There were flames coming off the stove (off of an empty stove eye) and something was burning beyond recognition. Chris' attempts to blow on it only fueled the fire. He was able to get the fire out by moving stuff out of the way and letting it burn safely out. He thinks it was a napkin or something. The three adults who were standing around the stove, but who were distracted by four kids four and under, are unsure of what really happened on the stove.

All Dressed Up

Last night we attended our first Holiday party of the year. My heart overflowed with thankfulness that Chris works for such a great company. The company is small which gives it a nice cozy and familiar feel. Chris' boss, John, emailed out the details of the evening. The men were expected to wear suits (they don't usually wear suits to work) and the women were to be in evening attire. Additionally, the children were expected to be there! I think it is so cool that we get to dress up and go out once a year as family to a nice party.

Lydia was not thrilled about dressing up. We gave the kids baths before their naps and they slept in clean PJs. After her nap, Lydia was not happy about changing clothes. She screamed, "No, wear that!" and pointed to her pajamas. Thankfully, she got over it once she was dressed.

Wesley was excited about his "fancy clothes" as he called them. He wore this outfit on our Alaska cruise in May. I was so glad the pants still fit. The party was at a local country club. We aren't country club people but is fun to get a small glipse into that world.

I didn't get a new dress and I was okay with that because I liked getting to wear this one again. I got it a couple of years ago to wear to a wedding and I wore it on our last two cruises.
Who is that in the Santa hat?John had gifts for the all the kids. He knew this would help entertain them. The boys got remote control vehicles. Wesley was thrilled.

Wesley and Layton weren't the best drivers but they had fun crashing into things.

Lydia got a cool kitten that purrs when you pet it. You can see how happy she was with it.

Chris and Brad.

Every year Brad and John say nice things about their employees as they hand them their bonuses. It is a great way for the spouses to get to know more about the employees. John likes to point out that he hired Chris (and a couple of other guys) right out of college.

John and Chris.

Brad and Monica
Chris and I drove separately in case I had to leave early with some misbehaving children. I am happy to say the kids made it to the end.
It was a wonderful evening. I always enjoy seeing everyone at the Christmas party. I probably won't see most of them until next fall.