A Day at the Park

I love this picture of our friend Colleen and Max. She is the cutest little thing with her pigtails and Max was sweet enough to go push her so that the mommies could sit and talk!

The Smiths go to Washington

My Dad and Suzanne came to visit last weekend from Florida. Unfortunately, they came during the Nor-Easter that was produced from Hurricane Ida. Sorry Dad. They had 5 days of rain and wind. Sunday was gorgeous but they left at 8am! We still had a great time though. Friday the boys had to go school (with a 2 hour delay for the 6 inches of rain we had) so Dad, Suzanne and I went to St. Mary's City. I think they had fun looking around - even if it was windy and cold. St. Mary's City was the first capital of Maryland back in the 1600s. They have done a great job of recreating the place using archeological digs combined with written history. It was fun to see it in more detail than last year when Max's class went. On Saturday we headed out to DC to visit the Museum of American History. We hadn't been and they just reopened it last Spring so it was fun to see! The boys did pretty well but they weren't as interested as we were. They may have enjoyed the Lincoln stuff - or maybe they will in a few years.

The boys sitting at the end of a section of the first railroad trestle bridge with a steam locomotive behing them. This particular locomotive was brought over from England and had to have a set of wheels added to the front to help it stay on the uneven tracks here in America.

In the first room, Max started reading the information below the display of a ship. He was so cute. He was reading every word and did an awesome job! I had to stop him though. Can you imagine if he tried to read every word in the Museum of American History???

The first room we went into was all about boats and ships. It was displayed in chronological order and detailed how ships have contributed to shaping and building America. It started with ships that the colonists came over on, tobacco trade ships, pirate ships, slave ships, merchant ships, goldrush ships, then moved on to steamships and ocean liners. We even saw the first gold nugget that was found in California that started the California gold rush!

Playing an interactive game with Grandpa. There were a few displays peppered throughout for kids....little games to quiz them or displays to further demonstrate a topic. They were cute and the boys liked them.

They also had a room set up about inventing. It wasn't that impressive but it was nice to have a place that was specifically for kids. I hope DC gets a kid's museum before my kids are too old for it!

Overall we had fun. The kids did a great job walking all over and of course they had fun riding the Metro (so did I). It was a good trip. And I can definitely recomment Priceline as a good place to make hotel reservations! We stayed at the Renaissance Hotel for $80 a night! Woo-hoo!

Leaves, Leaves, and More Leaves

The trees are almost bare (and probably are bare today after the 3 days of wind and rain we've had) but Monday night, the kids played in the leaves while I raked and bagged some more. I think filled 8 bags before it got too dark. There are still more but the giant piles are gone. Of course the kids "helped" and Ed "helped" with his blower. I like to do things the old fashioned way - with a rake. Plus its good exercise! I tried to get some good pictures of the kids but they aren't as good as last week's pictures. They were so funny because they kept hiding under the leaves. You really couldn't tell where they were and at one point I was afraid that Max was going to rake Nolen while he was buried!

This picture isn't very clear, but I love that you can see Max's feet sticking out.


A few times, Edward blew the leaves up all around them and they were completely surrounded. They looked like they were sitting in Big Bird's Nest!

Field Trip, Halloween Party and Halloween

As usual I'm a week behind on the blog. Sorry blog, but my new BFF, Facebook, is taking up a lot of my computer time these days. Anyway, let's play catch up!
Last Friday Nolen's class had a field trip to Bowle's Farm. The kids had a great time and it was very well organized. The kids walked through the shorter corn maze, visited the petting zoo, went for a hayride, and watched a little video about soybeans. I was a chaperone but I was only responsible for Nolen and his friend Jacob.

Here are the pigs eating a pumpkin that the farmer threw on the ground for them.


This is Nolen's friend Jacob. Its pretty funny that both of the boys were wearing camoflauge that day.

The kids got to feed corn to the goats!

Hugging the goats.

That same day was the Halloween Party at school. We all rushed back to the school and most of the chaperones stayed to watch the Safety Walk (costume parade) and help with the party. I got some pictures of the safety walk but I didn't take any of the party in the classroom. The kids made really cute monster hands out of plastic gloves filled with hot tamales for fingernails and popcorn!

Here is Hannah the flapper.

Our next door neighbor Sarah was dressed as a diva.

Hey look its one of the Smith Brothers...I mean, one of the Mario Brothers!

And there is Max, I mean, Luigi!

Getting ready to go trick-or-treating! The boys had to take turns being Mario. We alternated back and forth and they never got upset about it!

Mario and George!

Since I convinced the boys to be Mario and Luigi, I made myself a Princess Peach costume! I used a pattern for a Cinderella dress and I think it turned out pretty good. It took me the better part of a day and in the end it probably wasn't any cheaper than buying a costume would have been but I guess it was fun!