Team i6 Takes on Week 120

Wowsa, I think we needed a weekend to recuperate from our weekend!  Team i6 was on the move with non-stop excitement Saturday/Sunday.  Monday gave us a chance to catch our breath and the rest of the week was fairly low key which was nice.

Wednesday was Administrative Professionals Day and I was treated very well at my work.  I know my coworkers appreciate all that I do for the office team...I don't need a special day to tell me that (but it's super nice that I get one anyway).  So now my desk is all decked out with flowers and cards and a fancy new name plate courtesy of my work besties, and looking at all of it makes me smile.  I am lucky to have my job and work for such a great company.

I got a call Thursday morning at work from daycare letting me know that Linc had fallen and bumped his head (he was ok) and they told me he would likely be getting a bruise and there was a knot already.  The poor guy does have quite the goose egg on the side of his head above his right eye, and a bruise eventually show up too.  Good thing our family pictures are in two weeks.  I am thinking of wrapping him in bubble wrap the week before just to be on the safe side.

And well, that's pretty much been our week...nothing too crazy.

Just for grins and because I basically have no pictures for this weeks post I will throw in a video from our latest trip to Chuck E Cheese with The G's and little miss J.  Linc & J found a "ride" that was a simulated roller coaster thing that would tilt and move.  They must have rode it like 10 times for reals.

Also now if we drive anywhere even remotely close to where our local Chuck E Cheese is located Linc knows the landmarks and starts yelling "Chucky Chucky, I want to go to Chucky".  So yeah I guess he kinda likes it there, in the land of video games and rides, shocker...wonder where he gets that from?

Team i6 Takes on Gardening at The White House

OK, so maybe it was more like walking around The White House yard in the rain admiring the gardens, but still a pretty neat experience. 

Family Picture on The White House Lawn

Our friends, The N's, gave us tickets for this past weekend's Spring Garden Tour at The White House.  The tickets are normally handed out at 8am the day of the tours and are first come first serve, so you have no idea what time slot you will end up with.  Since we got ours from The N's on Friday when they came over for dinner, we didn't have to brave the crowds and we knew exactly when our time was.  It worked out wonderfully because we didn't have to wait around on what turned out to be a rainy day.  The rain however did not keep us away!





I wish I had a Vegetable Garden this beautiful!

Lincoln's favorite part was President Obama's tractors

We had a great time, it was fun to see all the lovely gardens & flowers.  And afterwards we hit up our favorite Falafel place in Adams Morgan, that we pretty much only get to enjoy once a year, and picked up lunch before we headed home.  Once again, Linc fell asleep in the car but transfered easily to bed and slept until 3pm.  Busy busy weekend for Team i6! 

Team i6 Takes on Purple Mountains Majesty

We had the opportunity to join our friends, The G's, Saturday up at their place in the mountains.  We had never been south to the Shenandoah Valley so we thought it would be a fabulous day trip!  So we hopped in the car at 8:30am Saturday morning and headed down to Basye VA.  It was such a beautiful drive!

We made it there and met up with our friends and the first thing we saw was that the ski resort next to their house was having a race event that day.  There were all sorts of obstacles set up for the runners to go through as they ran the course.  I don't know that it looked Tough Mudder intense, but still pretty challenging I am sure.  They had turned the snow makers on and used them as giant sprinklers and they had to run through them up the slope and climb over giant hay bales and continue up the mountain to the next obstacle. 



Last Minute Entries
(in the 2 and under category)

The kids (who are we kidding here, and the husbands) had fun playing in the water and running all around.  Then it was time to head back to the house for lunch and nap.  Well naptime for Linc was non-existent since he was in a new place and could not quite settle down even though you could definitely tell he was so so tired, but he kept sneaking out of his room.  After Miss J woke up we decided to head out to a small farm near by, but halfway there it started to rain so we had a change in plans and decided to head to the Shenandoah Caverns.  At this point Linc's little eyes were rolling back and he was passed out in his carseat so it was kinda nice that the museum was a little further away and he got to at least catch a 30min nap.  We made it to the caverns in time to make the 4pm tour and it was super cool.  Linc loved heading down the elevator 150ft to the caverns.  We did have to keep a very close eye on our little explorer because it is a Virginia Law that you cannot touch the formations and if you break them you bought em' for the hefty price of $500 big ones, so yeah we were on him like glue.

We learned about stalactites and stalagmites and all the different formations in these particular caverns. 

They had some formations that they called bacon formations, those were Lincoln's favorite.  He would call out "bacon" every time he saw one.

They told us we might feel a drop on the top of our heads and they called those "cave kisses" and they were considered good luck...it happened to me three times, so I must be super lucky right now (or just damp).  We also got to see a wishing well inside the cavern where we stopped to throw in some pennies and make a few wishes.

Then we saw a few more special formations and they would shine different colored lights on them to make them look even more awesome.  Todd said some of them reminded him of the cartoon Fragle Rock.



This one was called "Capital Dome"though Linc shouted 'cake'



After our brave expedition we were all pretty hungry and ready for dinner.  So back to the Lodge we went for a tasty dinner before we headed back home.  After dinner we got Linc changed into his pjs and we said our goodbyes and hit the road back to Northern VA.  As we were pulling out of the resort we looked up and saw a beautiful rainbow, it was a perfect end to such a great trip!  Oh and Linc was fast asleep before we even hit main roads...and slept until at least 7:30am.

Team i6 Takes on Week 119

Interesting week here in The Wonderful World of i6.  Started out exciting (good)...as you can see in the posts below, particularly the Truck one, and the excitement (nnnnot so good) just kept on coming. 

Sunday morning (good) Linc spent some time honing his art skills at a paint your own pottery place near us & then we had lunch & ice cream (which Lincoln practically demanded, whoa there kiddo eat your sandwich first)!  Now, Sunday night that's a whole other story...there was an incident (not good) involving a corner and a Lincoln head, the short story is the corner won.  After some initial crying he seemed ok minus the slight scratch and knot above his left eye.  Come the morning his eye looked a little red/blood shot so we decided to take him to the Dr.  He is fine, a little eye salve to be applied for a few days.  So that was the first trip to the peditrician for the week...more on that later.

Then came Tuesday (good), and with it quite the historic event around the DC area.  I wish very much that Lincoln would have gotten to have the same experience as Mommy & Daddy because he would have eaten it up.  The Space Shuttle Discovery flew in to town and landed at the Dulles International Airport.  They made a pretty big show of it and had the specially modified 747 carrying the Shuttle do several passes around the city of DC and several around the Dulles Airport.  Todd and I both are lucky enough to work very close by and so we were able to see this historic flight.  It was awesome.

If you look in the lower left corner of that picture you can see the row of townhouses that we live in...yeah I work that close to home. :)  So we might have actually gotten to see the Shuttle from our bedroom window!  It looks much further away in the picture I was able to snap with my iPhone than it actually was, but I promise it was very impressive.  And I'll also throw in two pictures that one of my talented coworkers took from the roof of our office building.  

And then there was Wednesday.  (not good) Got a call from daycare & they told me that Linc's hand was swollen and bruised.  They hadn't see anything happen to it and he never cried at any point alerting them to an accident but they were concerned.  So I picked him up took him to the Dr. (oh yeah we ended up seeing the same one from Monday even though we have like 7 or 8 Drs in our practice, awesome) and she sent us for Xrays.  Poor Linc did not do well at all there, he was a very unhappy camper and we did NOT get the mission accomplished.  So Daddy had to take him back the next day to try again, this time with success!  The results: no fractures, thank goodness!  But little man had to wear a ace bandage and we had to ice it and give him Advil for a few days.

(good) As a little treat for being such a brave boy at the Xray place Daddy took Linc to the Reston Zoo for a little bit after so he could see the animals.  He is still loving the new bird exhibit.  And then we all met up at Reston Town Center for a lovely dinner out.  

Look for a few more posts this week of all the fun we have coming up this weekend!  We are super excited and I promise there will be lots of pictures.

Ummm, I am NOT Ready for This...

Scene:  Daycare

Time:  Wednesday morning.

Enter Mommy & Lincoln.  Two little girls run straight over to Linc who is tightly grasping his toy train.

Girl 1: My boyfriend

Girl 2: My boyfriend

Girl 1: NO my boyfriend

Girl 2: no MY boyfriend

Lincoln:  (still clutching train) NO, my train (now pushing girls away as they follow him closely around the room, sorry ladies)

Daycare Ladies:  Typical boy

Mommy:  Dies laughing

End scene.

It really was very cute, but man, I am so not ready for girls to be interested in my baby.  LOL, it is a good thing he is oblivious and clearly more interested in trucks, trains, & helicopters!

Team i6 Takes on Planes, Trains, & Automobiles

Well...sort of.  There were definitely trucks, one very small train car (a maintenance one), and a helicopter!


WOW! And That's Only 1/4 of the Vehicles
 

We met up with some friends and hit up a fun little event that I heard about through a Mommy Email group I am a part of, it was a Touch-a-Truck show.  So basically they had a bunch of really cool big trucks in one big ol' parking lot and then kiddos could climb up in them and crawl around them.  Lincoln thought it was SO cool! 

And if all the big ol' trucks weren't awesome enough, they also had a police helicopter circling the event.  We thought that was a pretty neat show, but then they landed the helicopter right there and let the kids sit inside of it too!  Now that really was COOL!  It was a long line, probably the longest we dared to brave with an impatient Lincoln but we made it and he got to play "Maverick".

Team i6 Takes on Week 118

This weeks recap will be on the shorter side since we really didn't do much over the weekend for a change.  We spent the Fri, Sat, Sun focusing on potty training Sir Lincoln and there will be a blog post forthcoming on the progress there.  We celebrated Passover which I posted about earlier...so that does not leave much weekend content for this week.  


We did have one very notable event this week...Todd and I had our Anniversary.  7 years.  Whew, the time has just flown by!  7 absolutely fantastic years and we have so many more to look forward to.  To celebrate we both took the day off from work and spent the whole day together.  We got up and took Linc to daycare, headed to massage appointments, then lunch (and cocktails!) at Passion Fish, and then a movie (my first in 2yrs 4mos)!  It was a perfect day.

I'd now like to take this time to regale you with one of the cutie things that chatterbox Lincoln has said recently (and continues to pull out every so often).

One evening at dinner Todd was trying to get Lincoln to drink his milk...this exchange ensued:

Daddy: Lincoln, drink your milk.
Lincoln: No milk. Juice!
Daddy: How about milk?
Lincoln: How about juice. 
(this went on for a few minutes)

Smart kid, that one.  And now whenever we offer him something that is not what he wants, he counters with "How about X".  It is adorable and irritating all at the same time.  He continues to crack us up on a nightly bases. 

Even more so now than ever the little one is repeating EVERYTHING we say.  We are trying to be so so careful! 

So that's about all I've got...next week should be quite a bit more exciting given all that we have lined up for this next week:  Tot Shabbat, Touch-a-Truck & lunch w/ The N's, breaking Passover at dinner (and all of that's just Saturday), Gymboree, Color Me Mine, and a trip to Chuck E. Cheese with Linc's fav little lady...AND shant we forget surmounting Operation: No More Diapers.

Team i6 Takes on Passover 2012

First off Happy Passover and/or Happy Easter!  We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and was able to spend time with family and friends.  

We had a family Seder on Friday night, it was short and sweet given we had a toddler at the table.  We actually used a children's Haggadah that we got from the fam back in Cleveland, I believe it used to be Uncle Nedu's.  It was just the right amount of content for our little Seder.  We had our adult Seder plate but a very child-friendly plastic version, thank you Target, (we'll break the nice one back out in a few years) and Linc had his own wooden puzzle version from Grandpa & Grandma.

Someone was very excited about his roast chicken dinner & did very well wearing his yarmulke (well at least for the first 10mins)

The second night we had Seder over at The Alderson's where we enjoyed another abbreviated service.  We learned very quickly that with three small children there was not much time to be able to read all the passages that we used to be able to make it through.  But it was a good time none the less, I think it just made us drink our cups of wine faster...
Linc found the Afikoman that Uncle Matt hid, though it took Daddy's help to reach that high so we'll call it a joint effort.


We are all getting our fill of matzah right now, and the good news is Lincoln seems to like it pretty well.  He will gladly nosh on a small piece with each meal.  And it is a good thing matzah doesn't really get stale because we realized today (Sunday) we didn't find the Afikoman we hid Friday night...when Linc found it when he went to play with his Tickle Monster book.  He was super excited and that makes two he found this year, someone might be a pro.  I think he'll give the cousins a run for their money if we make it back to Cleveland for Passover next year.

Yes, he's in his undies...we were potty training this weekend remember? :-)
So it was pants off dance off all weekend long.

Team i6 Takes on Week 117

This week was the best of times & the worst of times, come along as I tell the tale of Team i6...

The best of times:

We had a wonderful Shabbat dinner Friday night with Matt & Cyndi's respective parents, Nana & Saba who were in town watching the boys while they were on vacation.  We lit candles, enjoyed some very tasty fresh Challah, roasted chicken and some fixin's. 

Saturday we had Birthday brunch with Uncle Gil.  And as previously blogged about we had a super fun Firetruck Birthday Party on Saturday.  There were lots of shots of Fireman Lincoln in action.  After the party we hit up the carousel at Frying Pan Park and Linc picked out a gray horse to ride and named him Bob.  Bob was a good horse.

Our Sunday included our first trip of the year to the Reston Zoo!  We met up with Miss J & her Mommy & Daddy and had so much fun exploring.  Lincoln had fun being fearless and feeding all the animals right from his hand, apparently he thinks feeding them from the cup provided is for babies.  He got to pet a big ol' tortoise, a baby chicken, & got to feed some Budgerigars (parakeet) that are in a brand new avian exhibit. 



Good Sharing of the Birdie



Daddy Double Fisting

We love getting there in the morning because that is feeding time and the animals are more active.  We even got a good look at the monkeys this time.

Monday after work/daycare Daddy & Lincoln spent time putting together the new train expansion set that Grammy sent for the Geotrax railroad.  They had lots of fun designing new track configurations and incorporating all the new fun peices.  And it came with another train...yet one more thing that Lincoln has to sleep with at night.  There is barely any room left in his bed for him, what with two trains, one plane, one stuffed giraffe, and three blankets...oh and one sippy of water.

Now the worst of times:

I will preface this with the good of this week has definitely out weighed the bad but still...

Thursday morning I got a flat tire.  Thank goodness it was after I had already dropped Linc at daycare, but unfortunately I was still a good 10min away from work/home.  Even still it was a crappy way to start the day.

Luckily my knight in shinning khakis showed up save the day...and change my tire.

We found this to be the culprit.

Hopefully it is all up hill from here and the start of a new week is just around the corner!

We are looking forward to the start of Passover tonight & enjoying a quiet little kiddo friendly (read short) Seder for the first night and a second night Seder with the Alderson's Saturday night. 

We are also, call us crazy, giving potty training a go this weekend.  Wish us luck, and you can look forward to a Operation: No More Diapers post(s) in the future.

Team i6 Takes on Firetruck Fun

As I mentioned in the weekly post Lincoln had a super fun Birthday of one of his little friends to attend this weekend...and as Birthday parties go it did not disappoint!  Linc had a ball hanging out with The Birthday Boy and throughly enjoyed the theme of the party which happend to be Firetrucks.  There was a balloon artist there making all sorts of fun things out of balloons - Linc's fave were the balloon swords, there was pizza & cake, and there was a real live Firetruck & Firemen!  Hold.the.phone. did I say there was a Firetruck? Why yes, yes I did.  Lincoln was SO excited and spent, I'd say a good 30/45min out climbing around and exploring said Firetruck.  He was so cute he even thanked the Fire Captian for letting him see "his" Firetruck.

OH AND he got his very own Fireman's hat!  The kid was in heaven.



Linc & The Birthday Boy!