My Friend Skyler's Birthday Party!

One of best friends had her birthday party recently at a nearby park that featured a little train you could take a ride on!

Mom and Dad joined me, too! They were really enjoying the tranquility of the ride...

...while I sat with my friend Jason and acted silly with him!

Here is Mom enjoying the ride on the train...look how pretty she is! She must really be having fun...

...but not as much fun as Jason and I are while we continue the attempt to be the silliest people on the train!

The train took us all through the woods...it was a nice long ride!

Once we were done with the train, we went inside and got to see a magic show by CupCake The Clown. She was a lot of fun! She did lots of cool magic tricks, and a mini puppet show with a dog. She also created some very cool balloon animals, swords, flowers and guitars!

Guess which one I had her make ME!?

Within about 68 seconds of this triumphant photo of me, my friends, and our swords, all three swords had popped independently of one another. It was later described by both of my parents as 'tragically hilarious' We loved them while we had them, though...and not only that, but Cupcake was nice enough to make us replacement swords. Apparently, this has happened before.

On the upside, this time I got to choose my own color. :-)

After the party wound down with pizza, cake, and candy, some of my friends and I (and a couple of the crazier parents) went out to the playground at the back of the park. It was lots of fun! I will rarely turn down a playground!

Finally, after so much running around, climbing, and getting dirty, it was time to head home, having celebrated yet another successful birthday party!

My new Room Decorations....Toy Story Style!!

When we were back in Connecticut recently, Gramma Debbie gave Mom and Dad some really cool stickers for me to decorate my room with!

And they were...TOYYYYYY STTOORRRYYYY!!!

She had already done up Nicholas' room with them, and they looked really cool! Mom, Dad and I got together on a recent family day to put them up all over my wall!

All three of us put up the stickers (some of which glow in the DARK! Isn't that AMAZING!?!)

I think we did a pretty good job! They looked really cool when they were done, and we balanced them out so nicely!

I insisted on taking a tough guy face picture, which Dad was kind enough to take for me...

But he also convinced me to show off just how excited I was by my new decorations!! TOO COOL!!!

Even Laura thought so! She keeps jumping up and swiping at them to get them down....silly cat!

Memorial Day in CT 2013!

Mom and I went up to Connecticut for Memorial Day weekend this year since her college reunion fell on the same weekend. Since Mom would be busy up at school with her friends, I got to spend the weekend with Gramma Mindy!

After a nice dinner at Gramma Debbie's we headed up to see Gramma Mindy...

The first few days were pretty cold, but luckily there were lots of indoor activities we were able to take part in! There were even a few leftover Christmas presents that I got to open, including this VERY COOL tool bench. It came with a whole lot of tools, and you could actually use them to pretend you were doing work!

Even though it was pretty cold and rainy for much of the weekend, do you know what it is NEVER too cold for? That's right....ice cream! And not just ANY ice cream...but chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles on it! Isn't that AMAZING!? Yum!

I got to spend a bit of time with Mom at her college visiting with her friends and generally being surly since there was a lot of people that were excited to see me, and I find that overwhelming...

Finally on the last day we were home, it was juuuuust warm enough to go visit the splash pad near Gramma Mindy's. Not only that, but Aunt Mallory and Uncle Mat made it over to spend some time with us before we headed out! mmm

Everyone was a bunch of good sports, and they joined me on the splash pad!

It took some bravery on my part, but I finally took my shirt off to face the chilly day and go nuts in the water!

Uncle Mat did a great job triggering the water from the pylon that held the magic button. I think he enjoyed messing with me and spraying water at me! Too fun!

I can never get enough of the splash pad! Even when everyone else was taking a break, Aunt Mallory and I just kept at it! I wasn't going back to DC until I made up for all the lost time that I had to for this cold weekend!

Once again, we had a pretty amazing visit, and we even had very little traffic on the way home, making it a pretty nice way to end the holiday weekend. I was so happy that Mom took some extra time to hang out with everyone. It was so much fun!

Dad Comes to School to read to my class!

During the last month or two, we celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday by inviting parents into the classroom to read some of their favorite Dr. Seuss stories. Since Dad has Fridays off, we made a special trip into school so he could join us as our guest in the reading series.

He brought two books with him...the Cat in the Hat Comes Back, and Green Eggs and Ham. We got to vote on which one we wanted him to read, and The Cat in the Hat Comes Back won. I was so excited and proud to stand up in front of the class with him while he read to us. He did a pretty good job, and held everyone's attention. Sometimes he'd forget to hold the book where everyone could see the pictures, but we were happy to gently remind him to move it a little.

Since we had extra time, he got to read Green Eggs and Ham, too! I was excited to sit with him and even helped tell a couple parts of the story to help him out. A couple of the teachers were really excited to hear this one, since they really liked it.

I thought it was really cool that they did this guest reader program (Mom's schedule prevented her from joining in, but hopefully if we do this again soon, she can participate next time!)

Gramma Mindy's First Spring Visit 2013

Why not follow up my winter flashback detailing Gramma Mindy's last winter visit with a post about her first Spring vist!

Once again we visited the tried and true National Building Museum. This time they had an exhibit that featured a bunch of really cool, uniquely-shaped blocks that you could build stuff with!

Mom and I sat down at a table that you could build small-scale stuff on...which was a lot of fun, until you realized what lay in wait for us around the corner...

That's right! Look at these enormous blocks! We were able to put together some massive creations! Not just by utilizing the floor, mind you, but we also hooked the pices into the walls around us in order to really create some unique structures...

...which I then happily smashed.

There was also a really cool motion detector that created blocks on a video screen based on where you were standing, and they crashed down around you when you moved the right way. Super cool! You can see the green outline on the wall that Mom created by standing on the blue square!

I was more enthralled with the physical blocks, both in building with them, and crawling around in the pile of them.

Mom put a lot of thought into the ones that she created, so while I tried to refrain from destroying hers...I promised nothing.

FLASHBACK: Gramma Mindy's final Winter 2013 Visit (aka The Air and Space Museum II!)



As the winter season was wrapping up, Gramma Mindy came down to visit us, and we ended up heading down into Virginia to see the Air and Space Museum's Annex out near Dulles. It has a silly name that I can neither pronounce, nor spell, so I will save myself the humiliation and just leave it at that.

We got to the museum and discovered that it was essentially a giant aircraft hangar where they store the larger full-scale planes that don't fit into the museum in DC. There were also lots of cool exhibits and stuff to see.

One of the first planes we saw was an old World War II plane that had a scary mouth with lots of teeth on the front of it. Dad tried his best to convince me that the plane was just painted that way in order to intimdate the enemy (it sure was working on me!) and it took a lot of prodding before I'd finally walk down the ramp to look at the rest of the museum, and walk under the plane. (I never felt fully comfortable walking by it, but I did my best to be brave. Just putting the picture up there gives me the heebie jeebies)

Luckily we got past that little speed bump because there was still so much to see! We got to walk along the upper catwalks and get a good look at a lot of different planes that were hanging from the ceiling. Gramma Mindy and I did a lot of hanging out, and she told me a lot about the planes we were seeing!

We got to look at a lot of different things that touched on a lot of interests....from actual planes, to missiles, to models of planes and space suits.

After getting to sit in a flight simulator for a little while, Mom, Dad and I waited in line for a chance to sit in an actual airplane and use the controls. I slid right in, and Dad crammed himself into the seat next to me. I did a very good job listening to instructions and used the controls very gently. I think I'd make a pretty good pilot, right?

At the very least I'd be a pretty adorable pilot, yeah?

Mom did a really good job going through the little information plaques that were posted around the hangar. They gave a lot of facts and history, and Mom went through them with me. I learned a lot of cool stuff!

Apparently some of the Tuskegee Airmen were there that day, and they were kind of a big deal. So that was pretty cool. :-)

Dad and I took a few minutes to check out some planes on our own (and goof around a little bit)_ while Mom and Gramma Mindy grabbed us a table and some food at the McDonald's in the museum.

And just in case you thought I couldn't goof around on my own...

And one of the coolest things that the museum has was tucked in the back in its own special hangar...that's right! It's the retired space shuttle Discovery! Dad was super excited about this one and took something like eight million pictures. You can tell that I was pretty much done for the day, an was certainly done taking pictures. :-)

I was excited to finally get out to Dulles in order to check out this very cool, and unique museum. I really enjoyed it, and can't wait to go back and see it again! Maybe this time, I'll go inside one of the crazier flight simulator rides that REALLY shakes you up!

Winter FLASHBACK: Visit To Gramma Debbie's in Connecticut

To celebrate the seemingly endless cold weather, I wanted to post a couple shots from the last visit I took to Gramma Debbie's for the winter time...It seems like it took forever for the weather to get warmer, and now that it has, it sometimes feels like we skipped Spring entirely and went straight to Summer!!

Unlike here in DC, Connecticut gets LOTS of snow. It's a good thing I got a new snowsuit for the year! The snow was SO deep! That is Gramma's pool behind me! Look how close I am to the upper railing! Yep...that's how deep the snow was!

The snow was also deep enough (and the perfect consistency) to lay down and make some perfect snow angels! It was pretty obvious that I was having a blast!

After all that playing in the snow, I got to spend time inside warming up with my cousin Nicholas...I SORT OF did a good job sharing the couch and blanket with him. He obvious had an easier time doing that than I did.