New Fall Pictures

If you fill your kids up on French fries and ice cream right before a photo shoot you will get amazing pictures. Oh, and hire a talented photographer who captures candid shots not even Mom can get.

Last year Ali Lanenga shot our family photos, which we loved. This year we participated in a fund raiser at a local nonprofit where Kirsten, from KQconcepts, took pictures of our kiddos. I'll let these beautiful pictures speak for themselves.

Washington, DC - Fall 2015

If you want to avoid the crowds in Washington, DC, go there the week after Labor Day. Most kids in the country have returned to school, summer vacations are over, and tourist season has slowed to almost nothing. You also get the added benefit of cheaper airfare and hotel costs.

The week before we ventured into DC, we spent a week with Ben's brother's family in Richmond, VA. My favorite part of that week was the day we spent at Virginia Beach. It wasn't overly crowded and the weather was absolutely perfect. Not too hot on the beach, but still warm in the water. The kids had a blast jumping into the waves and riding them to shore. They laughed and laughed as the water knocked them over and washed over their faces. They were both fearless. Lily was even a bit frightening with how fearless she was. Ben or I were right there to catch her as the waves overwhelmed her little body. We had a wonderful time there with the kids' cousins. Next time we visit we plan to spend 2 or 3 days at Virginia Beach.

The week we spent in Richmond was pretty low key. The kids jumped on the trampoline at home and played for hours on end with their cousins. We did visit the Science Museum of Richmond because we got in free with our OMSI membership. There we got to see a real beehive and rats that were trained to play basketball. That week we went swimming and bowling. We took the kids to Friendly's for any ice cream of their choice. We went to a Civil War Museum and learned about the end of the war when the Union took over Richmond and sent the Confederates running, burning everything as they fled. We learned a lot and we had a ton of fun.

We spent the next week in the DC area and had amazingly good luck avoiding crowds everywhere we went. DC residents told us it would take up to 7 hours to drive from DC to Virginia Beach the Friday night we flew in because of all the outbound traffic. It took us a grand total of about 3 hours, including stopping for dinner. There was absolutely no traffic on the way there or back. We got tickets to go to the top of the Washington Monument without camping out at 7:00 am. (We actually walked up around 11:00 and got tickets for less than 3 hours later.) We waited in no lines to see the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution at the National Archives. We only had to share the museums and monuments with a few other people.

We got to see everything we set out to see on this trip save the Library of Congress. We visited Harper's Ferry because Tommy wanted to see a real battleground. We walked along the Appalachian Trail and visited three different states in one afternoon. We toured all of the major monuments (Washington, Lincoln, World War II, Jefferson, FDR, and MLK). We spent time at both Air and Space Museums, the Natural History Museum, the American History Museum, and the International Spy Museum. We saw the Capitol Building, the White House, the Washington, DC, LDS temple, and Ford's Theater. I don't know how many miles we put onto our shoes, but it is definitely in the double digits.

Lily loved the dinosaurs, mummies, butterflies, and bones at the Natural History Museum. Tommy loved seeing Discovery and all the helicopters and airplanes at the Air and Space Museum. I loved seeing the Star Spangled Banner at the American History Museum. It brought me to tears to read about how Francis Scott Key wrote our National Anthem. I think Ben's favorite activities were seeing the original documents at the National Archives and visiting the FDR memorial. Our trip to DC has inspired me to read and learn more about Thomas Jefferson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Civil War.

I wouldn't say we became masters of DC public transit, but we definitely became adept. We rode the Metro all over the city, rode a commuter bus to get to the Metro from our friend's house in Ashburn, and rode the Circulator bus around the National Mall. Our kids became pros at scanning the SmartTrip cards through the turnstiles, hugging the right of the escalators, and walking miles and miles.

The weather could have been more pleasant a couple of the days we were walking all over the place. One of the days we were there it was 97 degrees and 90% humidity. Stifling, oppressive, in-your-face kind of weather. We endured it well by buying emergency popsicles on the National Mall and luckily it cooled down the last couple of days we spent in DC. The rain was a welcome repose from the heat and humidity.

My favorite activity was spending the evening on the National Mall. We arrived at the Jefferson Memorial shortly before sundown and walked around the entire Tidal Basin to see the other monuments there. By the time we made it around it was pitch-dark and we got to read the engravings on the FDR and MLK monuments by spotlight. All the monuments were lit up and gorgeous. We sat near the Washington Monument on the evening of 9/11 and looked out over to the Lincoln Memorial, all lit up and shining like a beacon to the world. We felt the wind in our faces and watched the American flags wave. It was poignant and beautiful. We talked as a family about the symbolism of each of the monuments. We felt grateful to live in this country and to have the opportunity to visit our nation's Capitol. I got to hear Ben express his feelings of comfort and security when he sees the American Flag and knows he is on American soil. He doesn't often share spiritual or patriotic feelings, so that was a real treat for me.

Overall, I dub this vacation a huge success. We were gone for 15 days. Our family got along the entire time in spite of a few frustrating events. We worked together and enjoyed our time together. We learned a ton of new things and gained valuable life experience. More than anything, this trip has inspired me to lead our family in more travel adventures, both at home and abroad. I'll talk about that more later, but just know for now that I have been infected big time by the travel bug. I see travelling as a family as more valuable than anything else we could do. I am grateful we were able to go on this trip together. It will be something I will remember forever, and I hope my kids cherish it, too.

Tommy on Two Wheels!

This August I decided I was done letting Tommy be mad at me for not teaching him how to ride a bike on two wheels. We took the training wheels off, went to the park, and had some riding lessons.

He started out understandably hesitant. It can be scary and difficult at first! Luckily, on his tiny bike he didn't have far to fall if it came to that.

Ben worked with Tommy for about 30-45 minutes. Little by little Tommy was able to balance more on his own. And then, like that, he was off and riding on his own! It was inspiring to watch him progress and learn. It brought a lump to my throat.
Within one month of learning to ride on his own he was riding on busy city streets alongside me on my cargo bike. He rocked SE Sunday Parkways and then started biking to his rock climbing camp the next day. Now he knows several routes to a handful of our favorite close-in hangouts and can bike with the pro's. He is cautious and safe and he has a blast riding on his own. I am loving hauling around 60 pounds less cargo, too!

Long Absence

You may have noticed that I haven't updated our blog for nearly one year. I intend to remedy this situation in the coming months. Through the magic of blogging and scheduling posts in the past I'll be able to update our lives over the past year without anyone ever knowing there was ever a gap. So stay tuned!

Life gets busy. I spent several months feeling very guilty that I wasn't updating the blog regularly. This is basically our family journal. To lose an entire year is heartbreaking. However, that guilt became apathy as I just kind of forgot about this blog and what it used to mean to me and my family.

The lack of posting on here is directly correlated to the amount of time I have spent on my other blog, The Science Kiddo. Last year I decided to get serious about making The Science Kiddo a real thing, and it has definitely paid off. I've had a couple of big breaks with huge blogs sharing my posts, guest posting on blogs that reach over 200K people each month, and, most recently, getting featured in a BuzzFeed article. Maintaining two blogs is difficult. It takes a lot of time. And while this blog is simple and unsophisticated compared to my professional blog, it is far more important to my family.

So there you go. There is my pledge. My goal is get entirely caught up on this year before we have our baby around Thanksgiving.

Oh yeah. I'm pregnant again. Little detail. The kids are out of their minds excited to have a baby sister, though Tommy does sometimes lie on the couch and lament, "I can't believe I'm going to have TWO little sisters. It's hard being the big brother." Poor kid :)

May - June Videos

On Memorial Day we ate breakfast at Jam and then biked to Ben's work. We left our bikes there and walked up to the Rose Garden in Washington Park. We had a wonderful time wandering around enjoying the thousands of roses there. Lily especially loved dancing around the little fountains and pools and striking a pose at the end. After the Rose Garden we went back to Ben's work to eat snacks, play foosball, and nap on the couch. :)
We spent a day in June at the Enchanted Forest, an amusement park south of Portland. Since I am pregnant I couldn't go on any of the rides with the kids. Luckily we went with our amazing friend, Jennifer, who is more like an aunt to the kids than anything.

Lily is usually our adventurous child. She loves going on fast roller coasters and swinging high. Tommy doesn't typically like the adrenaline rush and prefers instead to keep his feet safely on the ground.

One of my proudest moments as a mom comes when I see my kids conquer their fears. After declining several invitations to ride other roller coasters my terrified-of-roller-coasters son decided that he desperately wanted to go on the log ride. You can see in the video how happy he was at the end.

He smiled himself to sleep that night thinking about how much fun he had and how proud of himself he was.
Lily recently inherited Tommy's old Spider Man pajamas. Whenever she wears them she feels like she has super powers against bad guys. Below is a video of Tommy and Lily fighting bad guys together. My favorite line is when Lily yells, "Trash can you!"

Ultrasound Pictures of the Baby

The morning of Tommy's birthday party at Playdate PDX we got our first ultrasound of the baby! We found out two pieces of good news:

1. I am one week further along than I thought! My due date got moved from December 9 to December 2. Yay for that!
2. Because I was further along we got to find out the gender. This was a wonderful surprise! I cried when the ultasound tech told us. It makes this pregnancy and this baby feel so much more real.

We are having another girl!

The kids are so excited, though I think Tommy was hoping for a brother. Everything on the ultasound looks perfect :)

Tommy Turns 6!

This year Tommy got to celebrate his birthday on four different days. He had a party with his friends at Playdate PDX, we had a party at home, he got to open presents from us and from Grandma and Grandpa Chatterton on two different days, and then we went to Utah and he got to open more presents and celebrate with the Wards.

Tommy has had a very big year as a five-year-old! He has learned all those big kid things this year, like learning to read (he read 100 books before his birthday and was rewarded with a gigantic LEGO Police set), learning to tie his own shoes, and losing two teeth (the bottom ones in the center). He is making good strides to learn how to ride his bike without training wheels, too. He is one amazing kid!

Tommy loves to play with his sister and his friends. He loves to be active by swimming and playing soccer. He enjoys learning new things and building with LEGO. He says he wants to be an engineer when he grows up.

Lily was feeling a little bad that it wasn't her birthday so Tommy came up with some ideas all on his own to help her feel better. He said that she could help him open his presents and that she would get the first piece of cake. He even gave her the stuffed animal the Playdate PDX gave to him. Lily was completely satisfied with this arrangement. It warmed my Mama heart that he would give to her even on his birthday. He is the best big brother to his little sisters.

Happy Birthday, Tommy! We love you!

Hugh, Wyatt, Tommy, and Clara.

Asher, Lily, and Niamh

Lily with Pinky and Tommy with City Kitty.

Birthday dinner at Subway on the way home from Playdate PDX.

More LEGO sets!