Spring is Here!

We think spring is finally here!  We’ve been having such fun taking advantage of the longer days and warmer weather.  It seems just as hard for me to “give up” on the day as it is for the kids – hence the fact that they’ve been getting to bed crazy late recently.  We’ve found many new fun places to go biking and scooting.  Charlie has taken to riding down stairs and Diego does kamikaze scooting.  In the afternoons on weekdays Yards Park is nearly empty so Sofia and I stand on the bridge and let Charlie and Diego do a big circuit around the park.   Hains Point is also a fun ride with the Cherry Blossoms in full bloom.

Sofia loves to be part of the action.  She LOVES playgrounds – and slides in particular.  I wonder if the person who invented slides knew that kids would like to climb them just as much, or more, than going down them.  Sofia likes to just sit at the base of the slides and/or climb up.  Going down seems to be very passé to her.  She also loves Diego’s scooter and tries her best to figure out how to use it.  Mostly she just walks next to it.  Although she can walk, she doesn’t have a lot of confidence and ends up crawling mostly.

We celebrated her birthday with some SAIS friends who also have little babies. As you can probably tell from the angle, Charlie took the pictures of us singing Happy Birthday with cupcakes in hand.  Here is Sofia on her birthday interacting with a littler person.  

This past weekend cousins Wallis and Eli came for a visit.  Within 24 hours the house looked like a bomb went off, but it was totally worth it given how much fun they had.  They worked so hard out back digging up my planters and spreading the dirt over the whole patio.  They each had different tools and carefully spread the dirt to every corner .  Good thing our backyard is so small!  While Charlie went to his Little League game (where he got all 3 outs as first basemen and was VERY proud of himself), the rest of us went to see the Cherry Blossom parade and then walk down to the Tidal Basin.  It always amazes me how many people come out for the Cherry Blossom festival.  The Tidal Basin was packed.  In the 36 weekend hours remaining, the kids dyed Easter Eggs, went biking, established secret hiding places through-out the house, turned the third floor into a playroom and found anything else dangerous in the house to occupy themselves.   Finally Eli said to me: "It feels like we've played with EVERYTHING in this house!"  By the time Sunday evening rolled around, I passed out while putting the kids to bed.  That was a first for me! 

I took a field trip with Diego to see Step Afrika at the Hill center.  He was super into stepping. We've been having playdates with his favorite friend, Bruce - who Diego fondly calls "Brucey".  They are hysterical together.

We've been enjoying Happy Hour at 7th Hill Pizza - $5 individual pizzas!  Charlie ate 9 pieces the other day. 

 In other news, we finally turned out basement apartment into a short term rental through VRBO and airbnb.  Having dealt with both now for the past two weeks, VRBO feels so old-economy compared to airbnb.  It is so much more cumbersome and bureaucratic. I put up the apartment online about two weeks ago and it is booked through most of July.  Perhaps my pricing is bad!  I'm hoping that during the winter months when things are slower in DC, the kids can use it as a fun play space.  We'll see how the whole experiment goes...Here are a few pictures of the place: