Friday, April 30, 2010

Our gymnast

Mckenna is a natural born gymnastic. She can't go from point A to point B without doing a round off or flipping over some object. She recently was asked to move up to a more advanced class and on Wednesday she was asked to be evaluated for a preteam class.
Brad can't even touch his toes...so he is always amazed at his daughters flexibility!
One of her favorite activities is to see how fast she can climb the rope and touch the ceiling. I'm always a little nervous she is going to let go at the top in order to cheer for herself and make the long drop to the pit below...even if it's full of foam cubes it is still far!
Waiting her turn...gymnastics (sometimes) brings out an attention and focus in Mckenna that I don't see anywhere else...I wonder if this will be something she really excels at as she gets older.
Working on the bar...she wasn't able to do her back flip successfully for the evaluation despite having done it several times in the past. I don't know if it was nerves or if she was just tired at this point...regardless, she wouldn't move to preteam until July so she will be evaluated next month. She has to be able to do this flip in order to advance.
Gymnastics is a huge commitment, both financially and time. I have been dragging my feet on letting her get more involved but I hate to deny her any opportunities that come her way. Thankfully her sisters have both said they want to do something other then gymnastics...and thankfully these other activities are less expensive. That means Mckenna will continue on as the gymnast in the family while her sisters spread their wings in other arenas. That also means that mommy will be tripling my chauffeur duties and sitting on a lot of bleachers throughout the greater Northern Virgina area.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Master Bath Remodel

I recently posted some pictures of our master bath remodel on facebook but was informed that I neglected to post on my blog. So here are a few pictures of the project we started on MLK weekend in January and finished a few weeks ago.

The tub area before...
After...
Toilet area before (hopefully you can tell its before!)...
After....the walls are a very soft gray/green, but they look practically white in these photos.
Shower before....
And after...I LOVE This shower...it has 6 heads that shoot water horizontally, the rain shower head above and another hand held shower wand. All 4 girls can take a shower at the same time and no one complains they are cold because they can all stand under a spray of water. It's huge, too...we bumped it out two feet.
The vanity before...just one sink and offset (plus lights recessed in a bulkhead)...
After...double vessel sinks, sconces, travertine mirrors...
View from the door before...
After...opened up the wall into the shower a few feet, tiled the dividing wall for a decorative aspect, moved chandelier over tub, just to name a few...
Just a few more pictures at different angels...this one from the tub...
We added a linen closet to a previously empty corner...
The worse thing about this bathroom is that I LOVE IT! I'll forever be spoiled by this bathroom and we'll always have to remodel in future homes in order to find another bathroom that is as nice!
That concludes our last major home remodeling project in this house! We remodeled every bathroom, the kitchen, moved the laundry room upstairs, remodeled old laundry room into a mudroom with utility sink, and built a wall downstairs to add a fifth bedroom. Those were the major projects...we've also painted every room, carpeted, removed wallpaper etc. Not bad for living here less then two years and having a baby during that time frame! Especially considering Brad works 14 hour days and has done most of this work moonlighting!
Now...the landscaping.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Art Festival

Baileigh was one of a handful of students whose art work was selected from her school to be on display at the Prince William County Art Festival. This was a huge festival since it is a large county and the majority of public schools were represented.

She was very excited to go and see her artwork on display. We enjoyed walking around and looking at all the other school's displays. Baileigh is a budding artist and if you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up she will tell you an author, an artist and a mom!

Monday, April 19, 2010

Clemyjontri Park

The girls didn't have school today thanks to a teacher work day so I decided to take them to this neat playground I have heard about up in McLean. This park is over 2 acres and has so much to do. We had 10 kids ages 1 to 10 and all of them had fun and all of them wanted to stay when it was time to leave!

There is also a carousel in the middle but it is only open on the weekends until the summer. It took about 35 minutes to get up there but it was totally worth the drive! Here is an aeriel view of the playground from the website.
It was a beautiful day with temperatures in the mid 60's...perfect!
Baileigh and her friend, Annie.
My monkey...
Brooke and Morgan in the swings...
Ms. Blue Eyes...

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Me and My Shadow...


Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Big Sister, Little Sister

White House Egg Roll

On April 5 we were fortunate enough to have won tickets in the White House Egg Roll lottery which allowed us to attend the annual event. This is one thing that I wanted to be able to say we did while living in the DC area!

I'm going to try and focus on the positives since this was such a neat opportunity...so I won't elaborate on how long the hour in a half line was and how hot the 85 degree afternoon temperatures felt as we stood out on the lawn in the hour in a half line! Enough said.
Once through security and inside we had the privilege of standing in more lines for the various activities. While we waited I tried to distract the girls by visiting some of the various characters on the lawn...Dora and other well known people were quite busy and had long lines, so we went to visit...the egg lady?
Finally...the egg roll! So much anticipation for 15 seconds of fun!
Morgan had no clue but was having fun regardless.
There were a bunch of activities and stations...the girls enjoyed the hula hoops and the dance crew that was performing. This is also where Yo-Gaba-Gaba performed...I'm such a name dropper!
The White House Garden....not looking very impressive.
The White House Bees...homemade honey!
An adorable baby who was a trooper despite being hot, sweaty, hungry and tired!
Just moments after this picture I walked away to take a few more photos and Michelle Obama and one of their girls came out of the White House and walked by...missed photo op!
It was a long day...but fun. The girls were a little disappointed that they didn't have time to participate in the all the events. We didn't get in to the lawn until 12:45 and technically we were supposed to leave at 1:45...they let our group stay til 2:15 since we got in so late. Apparently it was backing up from the two morning groups. I think we'll try for tickets again next year and this time we'll have a better idea of what to expect.

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Girl's Weekend

Last week I hit the road with the girls and we drove the 8.5 hours to MI for some quick fun with friends! Brad wasn't able to get the time off of work so it literally became a girl's weekend! Here are a few pictures from our busy 4 days...we got to spend a night with my 'sister', Tricia and her family...here is Joe and Elizabeth with my girls.
It was a cool weekend but we played outside anyway.
Joe and Mckenna...hula hoop races.
I love the big hair in this picture...
All the outside play wore the kids out and they were all very cooperative when it was movie time!
On Sunday I went to my 'old' church...surreal to see a lot of familiar faces, especially in the facebook era. Afterwards we all went to my girlfriend Shelly's house for lunch and some playtime. Our group has gotten pretty big over the years! Elizabeth is the only girl when Trish and Shelly get together...then my 4 make the girl outnumber the boys!
The girls...
Visiting with Nana...
It was an extremely busy 4 days and a long drive home for me...but the girls did great, making only 1 stop for lunch on each trip! We missed Daddy (especially during the drive!) and were anxious to get home, but it was awesome to spend some time with my friends. I'm so blessed to have girlfriends who have been in my life since I was 5! I'm glad my girls have each other because they may not have the same luxury of growing up with life long friends considering we're in the military...but they will always have each other.

Sunday Best

I really only intentionally coordinate the girl's outfits at Christmas and Easter. This year I debated continuing the tradition but I had the thought that my years are very limited in which I will be able to do this...not just for the fact that it will be difficult to find coordinating outfits in their sizes...but primarily because I'm sure that very soon I will have one of them rolling their eyes at me and refusing to want to wear anything that looks like her sisters.
So...at least for this year...we look like a page out of a Children's Place catalog.
My girls...

Happy Easter