Team i6 Takes on November

Then came November, which brought...

Mommy’s Birthday.

We started swimming lessons with both kids.

We walked at the AHA Heart Walk in downtown DC on the National Mall.

Attended numerous birthday parties, with some of Lincoln’s best friends.

We started our house hunting adventure!

Our little lady turned 10 months old!

THANKSGIVIKKAH

Team i6 Takes on October

I was doing so well this year with blogging, but I guess I just needed a bit of a break. I will try to finish out the year here with a few posts to sum up the last few months of this fine year for the i6.

So that leads me to October. Oh October, you were over before we knew what happened, but you were definitely full of fun!

We had fun at a local farm with slides and pumpkins.

**Note Delilah was slightly over 8mo old but I wanted a comparison pic between L & D at around the same age.

We went to a pumpkin patch and carved our pumpkins into works of art.

Trick or Treating happened…on several occasions.

And Delilah turned 9 months old!

Team i6 Takes on No Fear in this Dojo

I could make about dozen or so more Karate Kid references, and well, really I can't promise I won't in the future.  But at this point I will just show you some cute pictures of Lincoln at his Tae Kwon Do lessons that he started a few weeks ago.  

I mean, he has a little gi, how cute is that?  Daddy was the sucker on that one for the record.  I was just gonna order a plain one from Amazon, but this one is pretty darn cute.

Team i6 Takes on a Trip to Cleveland Full of Surprises

It had been a good long while since we’d made the trek to Cleveland so mid-September seemed like the perfect time to go.  We took an extra few days off of work and headed west.

  

Grammy Sparks even made the trip to Cleveland too so she could join in the fun!  The first day we hit up a fall festival at one of the local orchards and rode a wagon and played on all sorts of fun playground stuff & tractors.  We also got some of the BEST doughnuts & treats I’ve ever had. 

  

And then Mommy had a trick up her sleeve…I had arranged for the grandparents to watch Linc and Delilah Friday night so I could surprise Todd with a trip to downtown Cleveland for dinner and an overnight stay at a nice hotel.  It all went off without a hitch and Todd had no clue what was planned.  Our dinner at XO Prime was fabulous and the hotel was perfectly located.  And the BEST part was the 10+ hours of uninterrupted sleep in a cozy, fluffy bed with gentle rain outside & room service snuggled in said bed in the morning.

Saturday we checked out and headed back to see how the kids and Grandparents faired.  All was well & we headed into a day full of family time.

...And what turned out to be another fun surprise but this one was not of our doing.  During a planned family picture Andy and Taryn surprised the whole family…maybe a little too well hahaha!  Ready, set, “Say we’re pregnant”!  What?!? Who?!?  Yay!!!!!!  We are so SO excited for them and cannot wait to have another sweet niece to spoil and love.  Mazel Tov to them!

All too soon it was Sunday and time to hit the road back to home.  It’s always hard to say goodbye to everyone even when we know we’ll be back for a visit in a few months.  Lincoln just adores his cousins, aunts & uncles, and grandparents and is becoming more aware of the distance.  On the drive home he said to Todd and I…”Mommy, Daddy I think when we get a new home we should get one closer to our family”….awwwww, sorry fella that would be one heck of a commute. 

Team i6 Takes on the Maryland Renaissance & Daddy’s Birthday

The beginning of September brings some really fun things!   This means it was our yearly trip to the Maryland RenFest & Daddy’s Birthday, two of our very favorite things to do and celebrate in the fall.

The weekend we decided to head to RenFest just so happened to also be Pirate Weekend.  Man oh man was Lincoln happy.  Knights and dragons and Pirates and scallywags, that loud booming sound you just heard was Linc’s mind being blown.  Hahaha!  Per always we had a great adventure there.  We filled our time with giant wooden slides, pony rides, ELEPHANT rides, sword fights, and eating turkey legs the size of Delilah’s head.  Huzzah!

And after that big ol’ fun day we got home and after family naptime it was on to celebrating Daddy’s bday.  And present numero uno was a fun new toy that the boys could not wait to play with.  I’d say the remote control helicopter was pretty fly. 

Team i6 Takes on High Holidays 2013

Then there was Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Jewish High Holidays.  L'shanah tovah!  Happy New Year to our Jewish friends & family, well you know, a few weeks late but still.  We celebrated the New Year with dinner at Matt & Cyndi’s place.  Todd blew the shofar and we ate SO much food!  The boys were fascinated by the shofar.  And we had a good discussion about Shabbat candles and how they are different from Birthday candles and how you do not blow them out, lol.

We went to family Rosh Hashanah services again this year and they were great.  We just love our Rabbi, and of course Mrs Nell is just the best!  Lincoln did pretty well for Lincoln.  He was especially attentive to the shofar time, but listened well to the story/teaching. 

Later that same day our congregation meets at a local park for Tashlich & a picnic.  The first part was great and we had fun tossing our bread in to the water and seeing temple friends.  The dinner part didn’t really go as planned when everywhere we seemed to try to eat we were swarmed by bees!   So we called it early and went home to eat in peace. 

The next weekend was Yom Kippur and our normal plan of observance got thrown out the window with a very sick Delilah.  Croup with a side of ear infection does not tend to make a happy girl. So we laid low and all tried to get a little rest and reflection that weekend.