Nana and Pop Pop Birthday Visit

We had to withhold these pictures until sending the printed versions to Nana for her birthday - but we had a wonderful time visiting with Nana and Pop Pop in mid-November, to celebrate Teresa & Betty's birthdays which are just about a week apart. Emmett, Mommy and Nana had a blast on this beautiful weekend, walking to the park and the playground, etc. Daddy and Pop Pop hopefully had blast also, while working on their latest masterpiece!

Kitchen wall before:

During the tiling:

After tiling:

A close up!

N&PP were nice enough to stay with Emmett for a night so that we could go out and do some more birthday celebrating. Yes, it was a solid month of birthday celebrations, which ended with an evening at the Richmond Symphony. The kitchen tiling project very nearly precluded our ability to get out for the night, but we pulled it together with minutes to spare! Thank you Nana and Pop Pop for another great weekend.

pouty babies

Well, pouty little tykes are a lot easier to get pictures of than squirmy, giddy ones. Here are some pictures from our lovely evening at our friends' house last weekend - thank you Cindy, Jason and Claire for a great time. Thank you, Claire and Emmett, for giving me Blue Steel.

You'd never know how much fun these two have together. Unless of course, you were to secretly snap a cell phone picture while they were chasing each other around the house.

National Zoo visit

Day 2 of our DC visit - National Zoo, and an afternoon in Old Town Alexandria visiting our good friend Joe Poccia.

Lion cubs come out to play:

The best part was that when their ball fell in the water, and they didn't feel like jumping in after it, they reacted just like any other animal... disappointed, reluctant, then juts walked away.

Tortoises:

Poison frogs:

Great Apes... aren't they just too intelligent to keep in captivity? Slightly heartbreaking.

Golden Tamarins, too much fun:

More planking

Watching the elephants

Just enough fun.... the beginning of a 3 hour nap in the stroller!

Birthday Weekend in DC!

Happy 30th Birthday to Mommy!

To celebrate, we had vaguely planned a weekend away, but didn't have any real plans until our friend Emmett booked an evening away at a bed & breakfast in Washington, DC, using the Living Social iPhone App on one of our phones. Living Social could not have been nicer about the mix-up, saying this happens more than we can imagine, and they were willing to give us our money back - but we ended up deciding to use the inexpensive overnight to celebrate Mommy's birthday.

Walking to the Metro from the B&B-

Walking on the National Mall-

Emmett and the Washington Monument, closed due to a crack in it from the earthquake-

Emmett "planking", which we can't seem to get him to stop doing-

Vietnam Vetrans' Memorial-

Mommy and Emmett at the Museum of Natural History-

Welcome, Pink and Bonefish

Our friend Matthew has moved to Miami and left (Emmett) with his two beautifully finned friends. Meet Pink and Bonefish (named by Emmett.)

Pink is the orange and white fish with the brain on the outside. Bone is the one with the black streaks. It turns out these fancy goldfish are going to be a lot of work, but we actually like them a lot so far, for such passive pets. They have a ton of personality and behave about as dynamically as you can expect fish to behave. Naturally, Cleo and Otis are beside themselves with worry about what this new acquisition means for them. We'll keep you posted.

Sarah & Kiddos visit!

So -- a super special treat this fall was that, when Andrew traveled to Qatar for the Islamic Art Symposium, Sarah, Siena and Joey came to visit Emmett and I in Richmond. This was pretty much the best 30th birthday gift ever!

The kids got along as well as a 1, 2, and 3 year old ever have gotten along. We went to the Children's Museum, the Children's Symphony, the park, and a sweet children's Halloween party. Sarah took more pictures than I did, but here are just a few to share from the weekend:

Emmett's Halloween Parade at School

A few photos from Emmett's preschool's halloween parade!

They 'trick or treat' around an outdoor courtyard and just love it. Sometimes, a student steals your child right from under your nose and takes pictures of herself hugging him, and those pictures end up on Facebook within 30 min or so, and people start recognizing him around campus. You never can tell what will happen in these public university settings!

Emm and his buddy River, who was a Wild Thing (from Where the Wild Things Are) -- amazing costume.