The rest of May--catchup

This summer has been flying by! I think it feels shorter than past summers because Chris had a summer term class that lasted from May 20-June 11. It sure is nice to have him home for dinner and bedtime...until the end of August when school starts up again. My sister Katie received her mission call and opened it on Mother's Day. She will be serving in the Washington Kennewick Mission, Spanish speaking! Katie will report to the Mexico City MTC on September 25.

We spent the week in Jersey after Katie opened her call. It was before all the shoobies came down, so the island was pretty peaceful. (Scary thought--I am now considered a shoobie...I don't live in NJ anymore ;D) We saw Julia play some softball; we were able to say goodbye to Becca Walker, who is currently Hermana Walker serving in Paraguay; we ladies went to Ashley Perez's baby shower; we had tons of fun all around!

Lizzie finished her spring soccer camp. Soccer Saturdays were so much fun and we loved them! Thank you to Coach Dave and Coach Meg for making it happen!

The Jensen family came to DC to see their sister's graduation, so we met up for the day after four long years apart. We had a great time catching up and seeing our sweet daughters interact with each other. Can't beat the National Zoo and Potbelly's :)

Cate fell asleep so she missed out on the final picture ;)

Uncle Bill and Sarah came to visit us for a few days. We love visitors :) They even treated us to an evening of Chuck E. Cheese!

We also went downtown to check out some places on the National Mall.

Pop-pop and Mimi came down to see us too. We spent some time in Fredericksburg checking out the Civil War sites.

To cap off the end of the month, my friend Katie and I threw Lois a baby shower! Katie graciously opened up her home to friends and family (and children!) for a fun luncheon to celebrate the new boy coming to the Heit family. We loved the idea of throwing mustaches on everything blue, green, and orange.

Here is Lois and me, post-shower. Thank you Lois for letting us celebrate on your behalf ;)

And there is our month of May. Here's to getting our summary of June up and running shortly!

Bring on May!

During the last full week of April, we had lots of fun with a birthday party and a baby shower. The girls were invited to their friend Corbin's birthday party at Adventure Park. They had a wonderful time! Thanks Katie and Jon for hosting a awesome party. Happy Birthday, Corbin! Later that week, I went to a baby shower for my dear friend Shelley. The theme was "Bring on the Pink!" because Ella is the first girl in the Cleaves family! It was a beautiful night, filled with amazing food and lots of pink. The whole shower was simply beautiful--good job to Heather, Kathleen, Allison, and everyone who helped! And congratulations to the Cleaves family on the newest addition to their family, sweet baby Ella! Some of the ladies got together to make crib bedding for Ella and it is seriously the cutest thing ever! They did a fantastic job. This past weekend, my siblings came for a visit. At first, it was just supposed to be Bill and Julia, but Katie came too and surprised us :) (We missed you, Joe!) Katie stayed in Maryland with us for the weekend while Bill and Julia drove down to Virginia to camp out at Shenandoah National Park. They had a good time camping and we had a good time indoors ;) On Saturday we drove downtown to go to the zoo, but it was so busy and there was nowhere to park. So we continued driving through the city until we reached GWU--we parked the car there and walked over three blocks to the sights. Always a delight to see the monuments and memorials. Katie and Lizzie in front of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Building Cate, Katie, Lizzie Back and front of the White House Soccer is big in our house right now, so we had to bring the soccer balls with us. We walked through the World War II Memorial. We then walked over to the Vietnam Memorial, which Chris had never been to before. What a solemn tribute it is. What an awesome weekend we had with family. We'll see you soon! ;)

Hello there April

My last post is entitled Snow Day. Over the course of this month of April, we have seen much warmer weather. We've had 75* days with plenty of sunshine, but there are still those days of 50* and cloudy skies. It's April after all! But I have gone through the winter clothes and packed some away. When I brought out the summer gear, the girls were ecstatic. Cate is pretty particular about clothing in general, so I think she likes the fact that she is wearing less clothing now than she was a month or two ago. This picture sums up their attitude about springtime. Happy, happy, happy! We've been to parks quite a bit this month. Nothing makes Lizzie and Cate happier than running to park to play with friends. Hey, it makes me happy too, I must say! I love talking to my friends and watching our kids play together. I hope you've had a great month! We'll see you in May...when I try to be more consistent with my posts :)

Snow day

I'm so mad--I had a bunch of pictures on my camera that should've been added last month but they were in a weird folder on the SD card. I could not get those pictures into another folder! Nothing worked. So I sent it to the desktop, thinking that would solve my problem and then deleted them from the camera. Well now they're all gone. There were some cute Valetine pictures of the girls, too! Argh. Moving on... Today is a snow day, although it's now turned to rain and slush. We have not gone outside...I have no desire to go outside :) So we made some snowmen inside! They've been in underwear or dress-up clothes all day--such is the nature of a snow day! Cate did not want to take a picture with her snowman, but Lizzie did. we went to NJ during the last week of February. Julia was competing with the MMS Falcons in the Island Tournament and Joe was performing in "The 25th Annual utnam County Spelling Bee" at Wildwood Catholic. (We had to come back home to MD right away because Chris was scheduled to give a talk on the 24th.) Before the day's festivities, we headed over to Clary's for some breakfast. It never disappoints! Sitting in the bleachers at the Crest Pier always brings back memories. From Crest Pier dances to Island Tournaments I participated in, the Crest Pier will never age ;) And best of all, Margaret Mace won the Skills Competition. Go Falcons! We then headed straight over to WC for the play. "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" was interactive with the audience. It was SO funny! We thoroughly enjoyed it, and the girls loved seeing their Uncle Joe onstage. We've been doing our normal routine, going to the mall and playgroups: Dickey's BBQ pit opened just around the corner from us, in the Clopper Mill shopping center. We went there when we lived in Texas and we liked it this time around in Maryland. One afternoon when Cate had fallen asleep in the car on our way home from running errands, I asked Lizzie what she wanted to do. "Let's go shopping, Mom!" (She is truly my daughter.) We stopped by Bed, Bath and Beyond. Lizzie wanted me to take a picture of her by her favorite bed on display :) She said it reminds her of newspaper!