dinner and a movie

Last weekend, we had a little Tangled party. Maren and Chris hadn't seen the movie so I decided to make a "big deal" of it. Now, I like to make Maren laugh by singing in my best drunk voice, "I got a dream, I got a dream...knife!"

Glen Echo Park

Today, I took Maren to Glen Echo Park in Maryland where we saw "Animal Crackers," a puppet show. I just had to take a little picture of Maren before we left because she looked so cute in her new spring top and I knew her hair wouldn't last (and I was right...she pulled the flower out of her hair the moment we got into the car.)

The puppeteer let all the kids meet Carmen the Bear. (Sadly, I didn't have my flash on. Arg!)
After the show and the park, we started to wander. We ended up taking a little gravel road to this studio and met Paul. He let us stay and watch some demonstrations.

Bull Run

GEORGE: Wow, Keith Hernandez. He's such a great player.

JERRY: Yeah, he's a real smart guy too. He's a Civil War buff.

GEORGE: I'd love to be a Civil War buff. ... What do you have to do to be a buff

JERRY: So Biff wants to be a buff? ... Well sleeping less than 18 hours a day
would be a start.

Living in Virginia has provided me many opportunities to visit Washington DC and other historical sites. In fact, whenever I feel a little blue about living far from family and I'm missing my husband, I pull myself out of my funk by planning a short excursion. Still, I never expected to become so fascinated with Civil War history, but living conveniently close to many major battlefields (like-under-a-mile close) has really ignited some interest. Last week, Maren and I visited Manassas, the site of both battles of Bull Run.


Henry House

Maren walking through the "big grass."
When Maren first saw this statue of Thomas Jackson, she asked, "Mama, who's that?" I told her it was Stonewall Jackson. Later in the bookstore, she spotted a little statue of a man riding a horse and pointed out "Stonewall Jackson!" (It was actually Robert E. Lee.) Here she is trying to climb onto Stonewall Jackson's horse.
Stone House

garden box

Even though our "backyard" basically consists of a large balcony, we are making plans for our own garden this year. Chris has taken the past two weekends to build a big garden box and we will also add some large pots for tomatoes. Now we just need to decide and plan which veggies to plant. Yesterday, I asked Maren if she wanted to visit the nursery with me. I obviously hadn't thought through that question. Maren is familiar with one kind of nursery - the one on Sunday with a room full of bawling two-year-olds - and she doesn't much care for it. She replied with a terse, "No, mama."

Anyway, with any luck I will be posting additional photos in the coming months of healthy, green foliage spilling over the tops of our box.

spring

Thanks to some delightful spring weather, we have had a weekend spend out-of-doors. We broke out the bubble supplies and dusted off the bike and trailer (and found a huge, icky spider in the garage). Chris spent most of Saturday building a garden box for our balcony. I'm excited to share more on that later.


Happy Spring!

darn chicken

Maren and I were playing Memory today (our version of Memory). She kept turning over the chicken card and could never find its pair. After about five turns, I said, "Where is that other darn chicken?" Maren finally found the match and exclaimed, "I found the darn chicken!"

It's a wonderful bed

Since the time change, Maren has had some difficulty falling asleep during nap time. Yesterday, I was having an especially frustrating time (I needed a nap, too) so I finally offered, "Do you want to take a nap in mom's bed?"
"Yes."
I carry her into my room and plopped her down on the pillow. Maren says, "It's so wonderful."
"My bed?"
"It's so pretty. It's wonderful."
"Thank you, Maren."

She never took that nap.