Herways of the East

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Soccer, Zoo, DC

Tommy sure loves soccer. He was determined to score a goal this season...but he needs to work on being a little bit quicker. It never got him down though and he loved having his dad as his coach! My dad was on the east coast for work training so we got to see him on the two weekends surrounding his training, so we got to pack in some fun and some good photos.

Cute fan

Bored fans (I sure love her curls)

Two cute!

Last year we took the kids to the Boo at the Zoo. It was one of Rachel's birthday requests. We got an annual pass (since it was maybe $10 more, if that) and had every intention of making the most of it. I thought for sure we'd go in the summer, and then never did. But at least we used it once on the very day it expired :)

There are two brand new baby lion cubs so we thought it appropriate for Lily to wear Tommy's old costume.

The kids sure love this trick-or-treating tradition

Another new thing at the Philly zoo is the "cat walk" I think they call it. Pretty crazy to see these animals walking right above your head.

We ran into some good friends while we were there.

And then hit Shake Shack for dinner. Kate said, "Mommy can I have some of those yummy yellow things?" Have I really deprived her of french fries?

Jake had some work in DC and we had an extra Amtrak ticket so we decided to arrange a babysitter and make a business trip date out of it. And of course this is the way we like to do things...on the bike. These rental bikes are new for DC and really great. Although we found ourselves a few times racing to find another location to switch them up and save our money. What we do sometimes for a few dollars!

We ate super good on this trip. We went off of some recommendations and this Farm to Table restaurant was top notch!

The following day Jake had all of his meetings and that's when I spent a few hours at the museum. LOVED it! Those quiet moments...taking my own time...doesn't happen very often.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Nine and feeling fine

Rachel wanted a Halloween party this year for her birthday. It was a lot of fun to plan. Of the ten girls she invited, 8 of them had names ending in an A...Thara, Sophia, Gianna, Nitika, Kira, Ana...I can't remember the others.

They began the party decorating their own masks

Spider web obstacle course

Monster potato sack races. It was cute to see them all fight to be on Rachel's team.

And cute to see Tommy and Kate in on all the action

Twister

Mummy wrap...this one did not work like I thought it would.

These girls had a lot of fun together and got really loud and chaotic at one point when we tried to have a little dance party. We had to put on a movie for a few minutes to calm them down.

One of the funnest parts for me was the food :)

And of course the cake!

After party guests departed she opened her gifts. This girl loves books

I got her this shirt and the first day she wore it managed to get paint (not washable) all over it, and she was really sad. Since it was on clearance...Happy Birthday!

Pogo Stick. She mastered it pretty quickly and can bounce up into the hundreds

We were amazed how many gifts she got. Most of the girls gave her multiple things!

And I finished her desk. She loves it and really appreciated the hard work I put into it.

Last year of single digits, I can't believe it!

I sure love this cute, talented, curious, helpful, tender-hearted, hard-working, book-devouring, creative-thinking, adventure-taking girl of mine!

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Fall Family Fun

Family bike rides are becoming a favorite with this family. Jake signed us up to do this family friendly Tour de Farm ride. It started with a delicious farm sourced breakfast. It was really good, but what stand out in my mind was the milk. It was incredible. Fresh from Jersey cows, wow!

I couldn't get enough of how cute this girl looked in a bike helmet

We rode to four or five different farms and sampled some of their foods

It was a big hit with this girl. Oh my she sure does LOVE food

One of the farms had a flower garden and they gave us some posies

Pocket full of posies :)

I love this picture of Kate hugging her water bottle. You can almost never find her without one.

And I hope you can see it, Lily is giving a cute little wave

Early morning exercise with Daddy

Crazy hat day

Cute

Trouble makers!

Rachel asked for a desk for her birthday and after doing a lot of browsing and learning how expensive desks can be I looked to craigslist and found this for $30. Now I can handle that.

Monday, February 2, 2015

Children's Book Festival

This was one of my favorite days of the whole year last year!!! Seriously, a BIG highlight. SO SO fun. How we have managed to live here for 3+ years and never been to this is beyond me. Every year in Princeton they have this Children's Book Festival where more than 80 authors and illustrators of children's books come to read and sign their books. I looked up all the participating authors and brought a large stack of books from home to be signed...and I bought a few too ;) I loved meeting these authors and seeing all their different personalities.

Ame Dyckman. She wrote one of my favorite books Boy + Bot. She was extremely happy, energetic, and loud.

Helen Perelman wrote the Candy Fairies. Rachel read a good number of them a couple of years ago.

David Soman and Jacky Davis, authors of Lady Bug Girl

Edward Hemingway. There were a lot of authors that had fun little crafts for the kids to make. And most of them had little freebies for the kids...bookmarks, stickers, buttons, pencils, candy. So the kids really enjoyed it too.

Sophie Blackall illustrated the Ivy + Bean books. It was fun to watch her whip up a Bean real quick in Rachel's book. Rachel devoured these books a few years ago.

Pseudonymous Bosch. Rachel and I are starting his Secret Series at the moment

Jon Scieszka. Tommy used to LOVE his truck town books and Rachel's a big fan of the True Story of the Three Little Pigs. This guy was really nice and super funny!