Rachel's concert

A few weeks ago, my niece Rachel came to DC for a band trip. Her middle school band played near the Capitol during lunchtime and I got to go see her. She's the second French horn player from the right.

Baby Shower for Lisa

A few weeks ago our home fellowship group had a shower for one of our own - Lisa (on the right below). She's the 5th woman in our bible study to have a boy in last two years! Alison, another friend from church (below left) also had a boy recently.



Here's Lisa with her sister Ruthe and her niece.


Alison and Krista (our host) and a shy Henry.

Climbing into the laundry basket

Dylan was so proud of himself for this one...

I also forgot to mention yesterday that Dylan know two letters: A and H (atch).

Say the Word

Dylan's latest words

Lawnmower: it's mumbled but it's definitely in context, he has a book with a picture of a lawnmower that he frequently points to

Motorcycle: also mumbled but always said in context

Jack: his best friend's name :)

No: this one is not cute except when we sing "this little light of mine" ("hide it under a bushel - NO!")

Oink, Oink: sound of pig

Mahl, mahl: sound of cat

Dutch: we finally figure out this is his "don't touch"

[sign for] bear

Woodlawn Plantation and Pope Leighy House

A few weekends ago my parents were in town for a bridal shower for my cousin's fiance. The shower was on Sunday so on Saturday we did some touristy stuff. We went to the Woodlawn Plantation in Alexandria. The plantation was a wedding gift from George Washington to his nephew (who married his wife's grandaughter from her first marriage) - 2000 acres - nice wedding gift!

Here's the house that Washington's nephew built.
The Woodlawn Plantation is also now the home of the Pope Leighy House - a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (of Falling Water fame). The home was originally located in Falls Church but was moved in order to make room for I-66.

In loving memory

Albert (Red) Zackal

September 8, 1920 - May 1, 2008

My grandfather died last week. He was 87 years old. We were up in PA for the funeral this weekend. Grandpap will be missed by many people and remembered for his hardy and welcoming greetings ("Heeeyyy" - even after his stroke) and his persistence and thriftiness in collecting cans for recycling. He will also be remembered as a loving husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, uncle, and brother. We love you grandpap!

National Teach Children to Save Day

Today is National Teach Children to Save Day. As most of you know I'm big on financial education. So here's a reminder that it's never to early to start teaching kids about saving and the value of "mon-neigh" as Dylan likes to say.

Word up (updated as I remembered more)

Dylan's new words for this week: one (did I mention this one already, he can count to one), house, money (on his way to becoming a good economist), cat (but it sounds more like dats), stars, moon, and coat. It's hard to get this new ones in when he says car, bus, and truck so much.

I'm it.

Since I just won a Target gift card from Nancy who tagged me and because it's fun, here are my answers for the latest meme.

What was I doing 10 years ago....In April of 1998, I was finishing up senior year at W&J. I just starting dating someone who I did not marry. I was gearing up to work at Pine Springs Camp for a second consecutive summer where I got to be friends with Nancy.

5 things on my to-do list today...1. work for 2 hours 2. go to the doctors for a rash 3. wash diapers 4. go to the gym 5. try to convince Dylan that the picture of Mr. Salada on Nancy's blog, despite being a good looking guy with glasses and a goatee is not Daddy. :)

5 snacks I enjoy...1. peanut butter and Ritz crackers 2. just about anything chocolate3. nuts 4. ice cream5. cheese

5 things I would do if I were a billionaire...
1. give to our church and to missionaries and other causes that are furthering the gospel of Christ
2. pay off the mortgages and other debts of our family
3. feed starving people in this country as well as others
4. travel
5. give more away

5 bad habits...
1. tying knots in my hair
2. saying um too much
3. being online too much
4. completing everything no matter how silly or OBE it is (which goes really well with my last habit)
5. procrastination

5 places I've lived...
1. Perryopolis, PA
2.Washington, PA
3.Pine Springs Camp, Jennerstown, PA
4. State College, PA
5. Falls Church, VA
(I've never lived outside a commonwealth)

5 jobs I've had...
1. lifeguard
2. secretary/clerk
3. craft maker
4. TA
5. economist

Now, since I know they have TONS of time, I'll tag: Amy, Julie W., and Martin and anyone else who feels like joining in!

I'm a winner!

Okay, how cool is this. Blog contests! And I won!

Thomas and Teresa's Wedding

Martin and I have known Thomas for a while now, since before we were engaged. Thomas and I were on the social committee for the singles ministry at church together. It was such a joy to see him get married this past weekend and to such a wonderful gal. You know how men can have man crushes? Well, in the same way I have a woman crush on the new Mrs. TO. She is a delightful, fun, gentle, and caring woman.




We knew a ton of people at this wedding including the Uribes. Joshua is 3 months younger than Dylan and they are expecting another little one in September. Dylan stayed with Martin's cousins while we went to the wedding. His 2nd cousin lives 5 minutes from the church where the wedding was held. We stayed with them Saturday night.

H + M

We saw this when we were in PA last weekend. We just had to stop and take a picture.

April 9, 2008

The last day I nursed Dylan. I think that means he is completely weaned. I had gone down to once every other day for a few weeks and then only would nurse him if he needed help going to sleep which he hasn't since then. But now that he's gone this long I won't remind him of the option. So 17 months. I never thought I'd go that long but I'm glad I did. I'm a little sad (my little boy is growing up!) and I'll miss it some but I'm glad to be done too.

Hiking on Daddy's Birthday

Here we are in WVA (near Harpers Ferry). You may remember that last year for Martin's birthday I bought him a book of 60 hikes within 60 miles of DC. We went back to the book for the first time this year on Martin's brithday for this hike. It was about 6 miles and took us up to the AT and then to a lookout and then back down. It was great. Here's where we stopped for lunch and then the lookout. After the hike we continued celebrating by going to Ledo's Pizza for dinner.

I knew I was forgetting some...

Dylan also says "hot" and does the sign for it, "hat," "hi," and we think he just said "home." So this week was sponsored by the letter "H."

New words

I'm trying to keep up journaling on the blog about Dylan's ever expanding vocab. Here are the words we figured out he's been saying this week:

geese
juice
cheese
[sign for] airplane
socks

Here's the animal sounds that he can do on command:

sheep
dog
cow
dolphin

Yes, dolphin. He has a dolphin stuffed animal. The dolphin sound is kinda like the rolled r in spanish.

We've been working on animal sounds using this game on Fisher Price's website. It's really cool.

Look who I met at the cherry blossom festival?!

That's Beth Moore. For those of you who don't know who she is, she's a Christian author and speaker. Here's her website. I didn't know much about her until a few months ago when our church used her DVDs for our women's retreat - she was like the speaker only on DVD. So after listening to her talk for 5 hours on the DVD I felt like I knew her.

I actually spotted her from 100 yards away. I was at the FDR memorial with Martin and Dylan and we were looking down at the cherry blossoms by the water/tidal basin. I see this woman in a bright blue jacket but it was her mannerisms that caught my eye. She was filming the intros to her new bible study DVD on Ester so I guess the lights and the camera, although modest, probably drew my attention too. But still, I was pretty far away and I kept telling Martin, that looks like Beth Moore, that looks like Beth Moore, and the closer we got, my hunch got stronger. Martin encouraged me to go see if it was her. We go down right where they were filming and we were trying to hear what she was saying to figure out if it was her. Then we saw the Bible and then asked her manager if it was her and it was. There was one other gal who recognized her too and we stood around and waited until there was a break to talk her. Beth looks at me and says "oh you adorable thing, come here" and she gives me a hug. I told her about the retreat and as we were going away she says "thank you for giving me that joy!" She's a hoot. She's just like she was on the DVD. It was so fun to meet her and I kept thinking about it all that day...so much so that I took the wrong exit that day to go to the gym and ended up on the beltway with no good way to get around back to where I was going.

Cherry Blossoms with Daddy

Watching the planes come into National.

Child survival rates linked to state's view of role of government

I found this article on Baby Center. So apparently, a child in New England has a better chance of survival than a child in the deep south. Thoughts?

Trip downtown with Laura and kids

I think we hit the peak day of the cherry blossoms. The reason for venturing downtown with 3 kids was the cherry blossoms but I didn't get many pictures of them.



Not sure what was up with Dylan. He just wanted to lay on his belly everywhere for some reason.
Here's the lineup. Now picture us all on the metro coming home during rush hour when there was a backup of the trains. We planned to get out of there before rush hour but we went the wrong way on the train for about 5 stops. But we did get a seat going the right way. It was a long trip but the kids were good, thankfully.

Amen!

I figured out this week that Dylan knows the word Amen. It sounds a lot like "mine" right now but I think he's getting better at it. At meals, when we pray, Dylan puts his hands together and now as soon as I say "in Jesus' name we pray," Dylan says Amen! Sometimes I don't even get the "in Jesus' name we pray" part out.

One of the songs we sing with Dylan is "If you're happy and you know it." We do four verses: clap your hands, nod your head, shout AMEN, and do all three (at the same time). As soon as we say "if you're happy" Dylan is already clapping his hands or nodding his head. He even puts his fingers up to his face during the "then your face will really show it" part. And of course he says AMEN. It's super cute.

Potty Time

We decided that it was time for Dylan to become acquainted with the potty so my mom bought him the one I picked out. We have him sit on it when we change his diaper. Most of time, to get him to sit for more than 2 seconds, I hold a book in front of him and he flips the pages while he sits. I do the sign for potty while he sits there too. One day he actually peed while sitting on the potty - pure coincidence I'm sure. I tried to make a big deal out of it but Dylan didn't seem to think it was as cool as I thought it was. I'm not trying to potty train Dylan any time soon but I figure this gives him the opportunity to show me he is ready when that time comes whether that be 6 months, or Lord help us 2 years from now.

Easter Pictures

Uncle Justin and Dylan

Pap Pap, Dylan, and Gammy

My mom bought Dylan a bunch of balloons for Easter

Great Grandma S.

Swimming in the tissue paper from his gifts.

Easter egg hunt with Cheerios in the eggs.

The Blueprint

It's rare that anyone takes an interest in something that I do at work so this "coverage" by Colbert is unprecedented. The full report that he is holding is available online here. If you don't have time to watch the whole video, the part about the blueprint starts at 2:30 into the segment.

WaPo article on working part-time

I actually talked to this woman before she wrote the article. (Apparently I wasn't interesting enough for the story but I'm not offended...:)