A Typical Scene

If you were to visit our house any morning just after the girls get downstairs from waking up, this is the scene you'd find. Like I mentioned in another post, the stereotype that little girls sit quietly and play, color, etc., definitely doesn't fit the profile here.

On another note, we found the cutest baby birds (there are four of them - the other three were hiding) tucked inside the overhang of our neighbor's garage. Once the mother and father bird flew back and saw us there, we started to get dive bombed by the birds, so we went back to our yard, but they were so cute I had to try to get a picture of them. Also, how cool is that nest!

Garden Girl

Our garden isn't very big, but our tomatoes and basil are producing quite a bit. Nina is Mark's garden assistant. She helps when he goes out to pick the tomatoes and strawberries, and yesterday she was a big help with the basil. After gathering two big basil boquets, she helped pick all the leaves off so they could dehydrate the basil. She was actually a big help!

A Rockin' Party

Today the girls got to attend the 2nd birthday party of Emilia, daughter of our friends Eric and Erin. Emilia's party took place on location of a Rocknoceros concert at Reston Town Center. After the concert, Eric and Erin had lunch for everyone followed by yummy cupcakes. Both Nina and Lyla seemed so tired in the car on the way home. I thought Lyla would take a long nap and that maybe I'd even get a nap out of Nina...no such luck. Lyla took a short little nap, and Nina didn't sleep at all. They both had a lot of fun at the party, and that's what matters.
Emilia got escorted around the concert area quite a bit by her "older" friends.

Resident Clown

Getting to know Lyla's personality has been interesting. Outside of our house, she is really quite shy, and when we have people over to our house, she is very shy. I thought she was going to be the quiet/sensitive one, but now I'm not sure that will be the case. When it's just our family hanging out at home, she is our resident clown. She'll do goofy things to make everyone laugh, she puts almost everything (including food still) on her head, and she's becoming a lot more entertainment for Nina now than she used to be. When Nina was this age, we really enjoyed watching her personality develop, and we're enjoying the same thing now with Lyla.

Interested?

On Friday, I had the opportunity to be part of a small group who met with Congressman Frank Wolf about the Child Protection Compact Act that is before Congress right now. It is a bill that is designed to help countries erradicate child trafficking who have the will to do so but lack the resources or knowledge on how to do so. If you, or anyone you know, is interested in this issue and want to learn more, feel free to email me, or there is a simple online letter of support you can send to your representative.

Coercion or Teamwork?

I've been noticing for the past week a little trend that I'm not sure is born out of coercion or teamwork. One of Nina's chores is helping to make her bed every day. Lately, I've noticed that the minute we mention making the bed, Nina goes to her stool to stand, and Lyla springs into action. She dutifully runs over to the foot of the bed and carries the pillows to Nina (who just stands on the stool, waiting), then once the pillows are on the bed, Lyla gathers the stuffed animals that Nina sleeps with and hands them to Nina (while Nina continues to stand on the stool, waiting...). So, this leaves me thinking what kind of "arrangement" the two of them have made. Is it something to do with teamwork or some older sister coercion trick that has already manifested itself at age three?

Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa

We love our new hats!!

A Weekend at Hartfield

This past weekend we enjoyed another chance to get away. DC United has had two weekends off in the past two months (such a rarity for the summer), so we decided to head down to Hartfield and enjoy the long weekend. Nina and Lyla had so much fun playing in the outdoor playhouse. We also visited a new animal farm close to the house. It was such a great experience for the girls. The man who ran the farm was so nice to them and really let them have some hands on experiences with the animals.

Nina loved holding the bunny! She said afterwards that she wanted to take it home.

Mark and I also got to enjoy a dinner out at a fun waterfront restaurant. My dad took a picture of us on the back deck before we left.

Sunday morning was fishing time for Nina. Although she really didn't spend much time fishing, she did hook and reel in a fish all by herself. After that conquest, she was done with fishing for the day.

We had a really great weekend, and to check out all the photos from our visit to Hartfield, view the slideshow here: http://picasaweb.google.com/amandabeth2/121?authkey=Gv1sRgCIH3_r7wttXBNA&feat=directlink

Playground Day

Since Mark is travelling this weekend and the day was a beautiful one, I decided that we would try to spend as much of the day outside as we could. In the morning, we went to the playground at the park up the street from our house, and in the afternoon we went to the playground behind the elementary school that is also close to our house. Nina is really into her bike again (after taking a little hiatus from it), so she rode her bike while Lyla alternated between her car and the wagon. Unfortunately, she can't be trusted in the wagon alone. Our trip home from the second playground took about three times as long as it should have because whenever I would look back at her, I would notice that she had chucked some item from wagon. We had to back track three different times to reclaim our cups, bags, and snack traps that she tossed from the wagon when I wasn't looking.

Princess in Training

Lyla really wanted to wear Nina's princess crown. These days she wants to be wearing the crowns, the necklaces, and especially the princess shoes (that she clearly doesn't fit in but insists on wearing anyway). Nina and I helped her get the crown on first... Then she decided she needed to wear it her own way. When it would fall off and she'd bring it to me to put back on, I would put it back on the "right" way, then she would take it off and put it on her way.

Needless to say, this princess is still in training!