Our 5 Year Old and other VA Adventures!

I was going to post about the brand new 5-year-old we have in our house, as of yesterday, but when I went to grab the pictures off both cameras, I realized there are several things I haven't posted about in the last few days.  I'm going to try to catch up here... (SORRY if the formatting goes crazy. I've been fighting with it)

Portsmouth Children's Museum
Last Saturday Smithsonian Magazine was offering 2 free museum passes to many participating museums. So we took advantage of the offer to check out the local Children's Museum (which normally runs $10-11 per person). We're interested in getting a membership there (only $80 for the year, which is 2 visits for our family...) and this was a great way to see if it was worth it. What I SHOULD have gotten a picture of was the line outside to get in! We arrived about an hour after the museum opened, and on that gray, rainy day, there was a 20 minute wait just to get INto the museum. (And about another 10 minutes inside, with 3 tellers admitting people). I guess a lot of people had heard about the special, because it was a bit of a madhouse. When we left, 2 hours or so later, the line was still just as long!  I couldn't have taken a picture very well though, because Katy had fallen asleep on the way there, and actually stayed asleep when I got her out of her carseat. So I was holding her during that entire wait until she woke up about as we got into the exhibits. I was so glad she had slept, but my arms were SORE the next day. She's almost 25 lbs now! They had a children's museum in the Quad Cities in Iowa that we really liked, but this one was much larger! It had all sorts of informative and interesting exhibits, with most of it being hands-on learning and lots of pretend play stations. I'm excited to take the kids back on a quieter day (or quite a few days, hopefully!) and let them really check out some of the stations. Here are some pictures we took:

At the model trains exhibit. Katy still trying to wak up.

Really, Jaina? For some reason she didn't WANT to wear that...

Looking through at Katy & Jeremy from the bubble room.
Reilly and I had just been in a giant bubble!

Checking out the controls on a big tugboat model.

We kind of hurried through some of the last exhibits because
we were all tired and hungry. I look forward to checking
this one out more later!

Have to love the touchable art. Half of the top floor was
devoted to different kinds of art, and there were lots
of hands-on areas.

Including this huge theater room where they could
dress in all sorts of costumes and check out
different backgrounds, lighting effects, and sound
effects.

A little damper and worn out than when we started, but a pretty good
adventure for a mid-Saturday!

Reilly's 5th Birthday!

Reilly - about 6 weeks old

Yesterday our "baby" turned 5.
Just a little crazy. Technically, here in Virginia, he made the kindergarten cut-off, but we decided to wait a year. He may be ahead of the curve academically, but emotionally and vertically, he's not quite ready for such a big step. ;-) He sure is excited to be 5 though, and loved every minute of his birthday! We had shaped birthday pancakes for breakfast and opened some presents, picked up Daddy at lunch time to pick out a balloon and get more presents, and in the evening we went to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner and fun! After that we did his birthday cake, which was possibly the most anticipated event of the day! He is such a sweetheart, and we're constantly amazed with what he picks up and understands. (When we're not totally worn out from all his questions)

Our big 5-year-old with the Cars cake I attempted.

She always thinks she's pretty hot stuff, and as big as everyone else!

Very excited about the Nerds she picked at Chuck E. Cheese.

With his balance bike and new helmet. Don't mind the clothes. I try
to let him dress himself however he wants if we're not going out... :)

Other Happenings

Things are going well. Nothing too new to report. Today we took the kids to a park in Virginia Beach for Reilly to test out his balance bike, and the tricycle and push-car for Jaina, as well as R's new soccer ball. The ball was by far the favorite, as it took the least amount of coordination. :) Our kids, sadly, seem to take after us. ;-) It was also in the low 90's, which is a much hotter day than we've been having lately. This toasty day ended with a huge thunderstorm that even sparked 7-inches-per-hour amounts of rainfall in VB and tornado warnings there as well. I don't think we were ever under a warning, but I did take the kids in to have a bath at that point. It's not like they even HAVE basements most places here, and being on the second story, the safest place is the kitchen or the bathroom anyway. (On an inner wall, no windows)  The thunder and lightning was pretty impressive though.  Here are a roundup of pictures from the last several weeks that show the sorts of things we've been up to. :)

Jaina's taking a creative dance class and really enjoying it!

Jeremy works hard all day, but his job is going well. (The kids are
sort of rubbing his feet here)

There is much dress-up time to fill, and Katy definitely
wants to be involved when that's going on! (She's
sporting a pillowcase cape and a Halloween skirt
shawl here...)

Capes are popular in general. I may have to attempt making some
before Christmas come around.

Katy loves to sit on the couch, especially if everyone else is, and she's started
actually enjoying watching little shows for 5-10 minutes at a time.

The weather's been nicer, and we've been making an effort to make it
to parks a few times a week to get some energy out. This is the sand
pit (filled with beach sand) at one of our favorite, closest parks.

The top of Katy's head just as she disappears feet-first down a twisty slide.
She is getting so big and can do the stairs and slide (over and over)
all by herself!

She's into cuddling a little more than she used to be, and will give us hugs.
A nice change, believe me!

The ice cream cake I made for Jeremy's birthday, WAY back in August. :)

Our little climber. Not sure what to do with a
climber after the cautiousness of R & J!

To celebrate fall, Jaina helped me make some delcious
pumpkin muffins on Sunday. She LOVES helping
in the kitchen!

That's all for now, folks!

Freedom Festival

As you all know, last weekend was the 10-year anniverary of 9-11. Which also means that it's 10 years since Jeremy and I first met each other, considering that all happened early in my sophomore (his freshman) year at EAC. A little crazy. We watched some of the documentaries on tv, and I realized how much I didn't know about what was going on when it actually happened. I was at an early morning Institute Council meeting that Tuesday morning when I found out about it, and listened to more radio coverage during the day (I was at school all day, and I don't remember the live feed being up anywhere that I was) than saw tv coverage. I caught some of the (constant) replays during the next few days, but a lot of what we watched in the documentaries was new to me. A little crazy.
Anyway, I saw signs up around town for Chesapeake's "Freedom Festival," and since it was held at the city park (think about half the size of the Graham County fairgrounds, Gila Valley people, but covered with grass and trees and stuff) that's about a mile from our house, we figured we might like to check it out. Satruday (the 10th) was a nice evening, even almost cool when the sun went behind the clouds, and the breeze kicked up. The Navy was there with all kinds of cool things to check out: A helicopter, a boat, lots of big trucks, some artillery demonstrations. Reilly was his usual self, and ended up leading a soldier or two around by the hand, getting them to let him climb up in their regular trucks, (that they had used to haul some of this stuff in) too. He surprised more than one person by managing to hug them during the evening... He was charming the firefighters a bit too, and got to climb up onto BOTH sides of the pink fire engine (for breast cancer awareness). Jaina thought the pink fire engine was pretty awesome. There was a 9-11 memorial there, with pieces of concrete and steel from the Twin Towers, as well as a banner with all of the names of the victims of that day. There were lots of vendors, a stage with bands performing (apparently, Phil Vassar was going on at 7:30, but that's about when we needed to leave to get home at a decent time), and a carnival. We were slightly mean parents, walking the kids all the way through all the rides without actually springing the $3-4 a piece it would have been to actually ride any of them. We told them we're saving our ride money for Disneyland in a year or two...  They got balloons and paraphernalia from some different vendors, then we decided to go somewhere and get ice cream somewhere we could sit down, since ice cream was all that Jaina's heart desired, according to her constant (cheerful, mostly-non-whiny) requests. It was a fun night, and I'm really glad we took the time and effort to check it out. I was able to see some of the fireworks colors (through some trees) from the front stairwell at our apartment about 9 that night. :)

Raleigh, NC

For the long weekend we decided to take a temple trip, but figured that the Washington, D.C. temple (which we're assigned to) might be a little crazy traffic-wise, and also more expensive, hotel-wise. We decided to go down to Raleigh, NC instead. The temple there isn't any further away, and it's a little calmer and cheaper to get there and stay there.  Jeremy found a nice 1-bedroom suite for the same price that we would have paid for a single room in most of D.C.  It was so beautiful down there! It's pretty here, but there are tall trees all over in Cary, and Apex, NC (where the temple is). We were on the 3rd floor, and most of the trees outside were taller than our windows. Everything was nestled into trees and bushes, and you could hardly tell you were in a city sometimes until a gas station or a bank popped up out of nowhere. 
The kids had a good time, and we enjoyed just relaxing. Sadly, Jeremy forgot his swimming suit, so we decided that I would take the kids swimming Saturday afternoon (We attended two different morning sessions at the temple Saturday) while Katy took a nap. Reilly and Jaina really enjoyed that.  We also enjoyed checking out a Whole Foods store, and a fun little recently remodeled area with lots of fountains and areas to run around.  It was rather hot and humid, but not too bad once the sun went down.
We went to church in the chapel next to the temple (a HUGE ward) and then drove home after the second hour of church. Reilly was pretty upset that he didn't get to go to the rest of primary, but Katy was tired, and I wasn't feeling well. The whole weekend was a nice little get-away, but it was good that we had Monday to recuperate and get our house back together before the week started. :)

We stayed up late one night watching "Megamind" and eating popcorn.
The kids thought it was awesome...