Enjoying the New House

We love our new house and how open it is. 

 The kids have a bathroom of their own now that Mommy and Daddy have one in their room. It has a nice big bathtub for playing.

We can spy the kids from the couches in the living room and make sure they are playing nicely. Sometimes Parker likes to spy into Riley's room to see if he wants to go play with her. He says his favorite part of the new house is that everyone's rooms are all together. 

We even have some friends close by who we can have over for fun afternoons of NASCAR. Our friends the Andersons came over one of our first weekends and brought Richie and Brady. Riley was excited to have someone else around to read to her. 

The downstairs living room is mostly the playroom - Lots of train tracks, race tracks, and lego creations are sure to be built here. 

Mommy is so excited to have a nice big kitchen were the boys can help out with the dishes. They crank their music up and get washing! 

A regular activity at the new house is running circles though the family room and kitchen. They would run forever if we let them, but it gets a little noisy (and dangerous when they start to elbow eachother out of the way!)

Moving Adventures - Oh My! And Did I Mention Uncle Jim?

Life in DC continues to be quite an adventure for the Culver family. In January we were notified that our landlords were intending to put our house up for sale. Although we loved our neighborhood and had made some great memories in Silver Spring, we took the opportunity to look for a place down in Virginia to spend the rest of our time here. Ben was finishing up a course at Ft. Belvoir south of DC and then would be spending time at both the Pentagon and Capitol Hill. It made sense to get him a little closer to those places. The added bonus for us is that we have some other friends in the VA area who we would be closer to!

After looking for a couple of months we finally found a place that we think will fit us very well for the next couple of years. And so the moving began! 

 Many days while Parker was at school Riley and I would spend time packing up some boxes. She wasn't always the most helpful, but she had fun doing it! Since we would be moving ourselves this time we tried to do as much as possible early on. I do hate packing and moving, but we used the opportunity to unload a LOT of stuff!

Mrs. Karen Halverson was one of the ladies I was lucky enough to spend time with at Ft. Sill. One opportunity I had was to serve with her on the Patriot Spouses Club Board. She gave all the board members tiaras to wear during meetings. Her philosophy was that if you were ever doing something that might seem boring or not so exciting, wear a crown. Riley agreed. Helping Mommy unpack boxes in the new kitchen while wearing a crown.

 We had a full weekend starting March 15th of moving. We went back and forth to the new house at least twice a day for 3 days. On Saturday night we took the kids out to our favorite Mexican restaurant in Silver Spring. That much moving is apparently hard on a little girl - we tried to give her ice cream for dessert, she was not having it.

For his 4th birthday Parker was able to get a booster seat to ride in the backseat of Daddy's truck. It was his chosen seat whenever we made trips back and forth to Alexandria. Riley got lots of time with Mommy and spent some time on the phone - probably talking to Ma Pat, because that is what Mommy usually does in the car.

When we finally figured out when we would be moving we made a call to the best moving helper we know - Uncle Jim! He flew out to DC from Medford to help us get stuff done. He flew in on Tuesday night. We were able to get some loads done on  Wednesday and then decided that we would pick up the U-Haul trailer a day early - on Thursday since we really just needed to do furniture. Well, after rallying with Mommy, Uncle Jim and Daddy we moved enough stuff to the new house on Thursday to sleep there Thursday night and only have to go back to the old house on Friday to get some leftover stuff. It was awesome! A project that could have taken 4 days took 2! Yay for Uncle Jim!

Riley and Parker were spoiled with lots of extra love from Uncle Jim - he kept them occupied while Mommy tried to organize chaos!

Cheese!

We found a great restaurant on the waterfront - Chadwicks, where we went to celebrate our completed move. Good food, good view, and great for kids. Will definitely be back in the future!

Parker wanted to be sure to show Uncle Jim the "new" Air and Space - where the space Shuttle Discovery is! It is an awesome place and we love going there.

It is always hard to get everyone looking at the camera at the same time...

Parker and Uncle Jim checking out the awesome helicopter with the blades that fold up.

Uncle Jim even went exploring with us while Daddy was at work one day and we found a new park close to the house!

It took some convincing to get Riley down the slide, but Uncle Jim was happy to help.

On Uncle Jim's last night we decided to embark on a new adventure - BOWLING! They had a ramp for Parker and Riley to use to roll their balls, and bumpers of course. The kids had their own lane and just kept going over and over and over. Parker loved it - which is great because Mommy and Daddy do enjoy a good afternoon of bowling and beer.

Speaking of beer...we might need to find one of these for the house.

Riley was hit-and-miss with bowling. But when she wasn't into it Uncle Jim had plenty of snuggles for her instead.

Daddy is a pro.

Uncle Jim is pretty awesome too.

Riley getting some help from her coach.

"Yay!"

We wrapped up the night by going out to dinner. Mommy doesn't usually allow pacis or a "B" out of the house, but anticipated a very tired baby so we made an exception. Lots of Uncle Jim snuggles at dinner.

Thanks for visiting Uncle Jim! We love you and we will see you soon!

Holiday Wrap-Up Part 2: Holiday Adventures

Our December is always full of plenty of crazy adventures. And this year was equally crazy - especially because Daddy was done working for Congress on December 16th and then we had him all to ourselves until after the New Year.

Parker knows that it is not really Christmas time until we open our first Advent Treat Box from Ma Pat. Everyone loves the special treats she puts inside - candy, ornaments, or sometimes someone lucky gets some money! About Day 15 Parker discovered $5 in his treat box so the next day we trekked down to Target and he picked out a new tow truck. Lucky kid.

 Mommy has always wanted a Christmas tree train, and of course it wasn't hard to convince Parker that we needed one also. So, when hunting for Christmas lights at Home Depot we scored with a big tree train on sale! $30 for endless enjoyment! Since we didn't have a tree yet Parker used Riley as his centerpiece. She didn't mind, they both loved the train. In fact, when we had to pack it up after Christmas Parker got a little teary-eyed. But we promised him it would be back next year and still as much fun!

Christmas shopping with Mommy has its perks! Happy baby with a blueberry muffin from Starbucks - and happy Mommy with a coffee!

With some help from Ma Pat I was able to complete one of my Pinterest projects this year. We don't really have a mantle and we needed somewhere to hang our stockings. Ma Pat was nice enough to use her Cricut to cut out the letters and snowflakes for me and the project was a success! Since Ma Pat and Pa Lar were coming to spend Christmas with us, their stockings arrived early with the Advent Treat Box.

On one of his last days of school Parker made reindeer ears and learned the Rudolph song. He also got to get a red nose just like Rudolph. He wanted to use my phone to take a picture of himself...

Then Mommy did one in front of the fireplace with Bernard in the stockings.

Daddy thought the ears were pretty cool too...silly Daddy.

Bernard doesn't often get into mischief at our  house, but when he does he knows how to party. He stole a bag of M&Ms from the treats in the cupboard, but he was nice enough to leave some for Parker.

One of my favorite traditions for Christmas is to take Parker to Hallmark to pick out a Christmas ornament. He of course has picked a train for the last two years. But, I will also usually let him get the newest singing snowman for our collection. The kids love the Snowmen and get to play with them and push their buttons all December long!

You can't have Christmas without a visit to Santa. Parker sat and chatted with Santa for a few minutes and told him all about the kind of things he would like for Christmas. Riley checked out the jolly man from afar. When we were ready for a photo we plopped Riley down on his lap, this picture was about 1 second before she lost it, something about babies and Santa...no thanks Santa, maybe next year.

With school out for Christmas break Parker was home to spend a lot more time with Riley. And what a good big brother, reading to her all about Thomas...

Holiday Wrap-Up Part 1: Thanksgiving

Yes, I will be going all the way back to Thanksgiving. I am a slacker and I have not been keeping up with the blog. Busy life and all. But, alas I will try to do better. That is the good thing about the New Year right? Fresh start. Except for when you have to look backwards to blog...
For Thanksgiving this year we were blessed with some awesome visitors. Helen and Joselyn Klatzko came down from West Point to spend a week with us!

First order of business? Head upstairs to Parker's room for some playtime - after 6+ hours in the car Joselyn needed to get the crazies out!

Mr. Josh is off doing the most important job of all - defending our freedom, so he couldn't make it this year for Thanksgiving. But he was here in "plush" form instead - and Parker wanted to get him a beer. Luckily thanks to modern technology we were also able to chat with him via Facetime from Iraq a few times, so he still got to be part of some of the fun!

The second day they were here we headed out to Parker's favorite place to take guests - BounceU! Riley is getting big enough now that she thinks she should be able to join in the fun!

Bouncing in the big bouncy house - Riley got to join in with this and some "knee bouncing".

Showing Joselyn how to climb the BounceU ladders.

Riley hanging with Miss Helen while the big kids play. She loves pretty ladies.

Time at the Navy Exchange. The kids wanted their picture taken with the big Christmas tree.

The lucky big kids got a trip to the movies while Joselyn was visiting. The move Frozen came out and we were there the day it opened!  Red Solo cups are good for more than beer - who knew? Mommy stashed some in her purse so we could all have our own mini popcorn!

Parker wanted to sit by Miss Helen.

 Which worked out well because Joselyn wanted to sit between me and Parker!

Parker's favorite character from the movie was Olaf the Snowman. And the theater had a big Olaf dancing that the kids wanted to check out.

Happy Thanksgiving! Good food (and Ben's spray cheese celery on the end there) and good company.

 Happy girl loves everything except the turkey. But the adults thought the turkey was awesome.

Post dinner resting...

The day after Thanksgiving we avoided the crazy stores and instead stayed home and got out the Christmas decorations! The kids wanted to model the Christmas hats from the box.

On Friday night the kids got to watch the new movie An Elf's Story which is about the Elf on the Shelf. Our own elf Bernard visits each year around Christmas and Joselyn's elf Cindy visits her house. Well, this year was extra special because the elves flew down together and surprised the kids at Parker's house after the movie with some little surprises to remind them that if they are good they may be rewarded with an awesome present or two from Santa! 

It was such a great visit and we are so lucky to have such great friends. Next time we home Mr. Josh will be around to make the trip! Stay safe Josh!

Parker's Christmas Program

Today was Parker's Christmas Program at school. It was presented by the two 3-year-old classes. It was adorable to see all these kids sing their Christmas songs. Parker loved it! Sorry the video jumps a bit - I need practice!