All View... No Room

We hit the pavement hard our first full day in Washington D.C. ...maybe a little too hard, which left the kids begging for less time "viewing" D.C. and more time "rooming" in D.C. But since I am the keeper of the Toad family history, and the kids are too young to have a lasting memory of the trip, they will have to believe what they read on the blog, which is they had a FANTASTIC time. No distance was too far, no line was too long, no oppressive heat could keep them down. They simply just couldn't get enough. So here is what we packed in on day 2.

First up: White house tour, scored by Pops through Senator Scott Brown's office.
We could have stayed all day in the gorgeous mansion, admiring the vibrant green, blue and red rooms, twirling in the East Room, imagining our fancy feast at a State dinner, sucking in the revitalizing AC. But we had stuff to see so we majestically promenaded out the front door,
back into the sauna!
And can you believe it? We waltzed straight into Uncle Brian and Aunt Jenny. It was a serendipitous meeting, we weren't planning on seeing them until later!
It really rallied our spirits.
But we soon parted, they to Ford's Theatre and us to the Air and Space Museum.
Our kind of heaven.

Even Little Chief got untethered to enjoy the moment.
Next stop, the Botanical Garden. A little something for the girls.
I'm not going to lie. At this point we were all had melted into little sticky puddles on the Mall. Pops procured some Gatorade that revitalized us. Abz was restored to her dancing nymph self.
You can only drudge past the carousel so many times before it is imperative to take a spin.
And since the youngest Toads were so well rested, we took the opportunity to join Uncle Brian and Aunt Jenny to pay a visit to the National Archives. No photography is allowed, but the image of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and the Bill of Rights is burned into our memory, right kids?

A Room With a View

We made it! Beautiful Washington D.C.!
Pops scored us this most excellent room with a view of the Washington Monument, and a bay window to sit and bask in its glory.
But first we had to get there. That was an experience in itself.
There were good times (...ahhh sweet succulent blankie)
There were bad times...
And there was even a stop-over at our with our Favorite New Jersey-ians!
This was a banner event.
Some of us have been talking about Mathew's cars for the last 10 months since they relocated to the Garden State.
And we found that New Jersey REALLY is the Garden State! I was eating my heart out dreaming of being a farmer. That's right, lush gardens and goats to boot.
There was even a little time to contemplate the dirt.
We could have stayed MUCH MUCH longer (oh how we miss our Zellers!)... but we had a dinner date to keep. Actually, it was more like a dinner date to crash. Uncle Brian and Aunt Jenny were spending a quiet weekend without kids in the Nation's Capitol. That is until our kids arrived on the scene.
We topped off the night by strolling through the Washington and World War II monuments. It was the perfect night.

Tippy Toes

Miss Abizella's ballet debut was last Saturday. She was spectacular!
Such grace.
Such beauty.
It was fun to watch her prance, twirl, run and giggle with other little ballerinas.

But when it was showtime, she was all business. She followed her teacher's lead with precision.
Here she is with her partner in tutus. Miss Jordan was sensational. Abizella has been telling us all year how Jordan is the best ballet dancer in the class.
It is obvious that both of these little ladies have a flair of their own.

Bush Child

Tadpole spends his days roaming the back yard barefoot. He is absolutely filthy every night when I get home. I have resigned myself to the fact that no matter how hard I scrub his feet each night, I will not see peachy flesh again until next winter. So it came as no surprise that Pops found a blood sucking tick adhered to his arm Sunday morning. We had spent the previous evening at the neighbor's birthday party. While Tad did get a bath *before* the party, the *after* party bath was nixed when he came home and collapsed.

Good thing Pops found the tick because I would have *freaked* out. We calmly consulted Dr. Google, plucked the offending blood-sucker intact from his arm, and put it in a ziploc just in case we need to go to the doctor down the road.

Tadpole asked for the bag and said, "Oh good. Can I keep it? He can be my pet! I will name him Pet-ah!" Superkid got Tadpole a magnifying glass to examine his new pet.
Tadpole next asked, "Can we feed Pet-ah lunch?" Pops responded, "YOU were Peter's lunch. He was eating your blood." Instead of freaking out, Tadpole said, "Can we feed Pet-ah some blood water?"
Acknowledging Tadpole's love for all things wild, we've instituted MANDATORY tick checks and baths from here on out.

The Energizer Toddler

This is one busy little guy. He just keeps going and going and going...

One of his new favorite activities is Truckin' in his new sweet ride...
Every once and awhile he stops in at his favorite feeding spot.
There is always promise of something to delight.
Nothing makes a kid happier than double-fisting delicious dumpster discards.

But even the most energetic amongst us needs an occasional moment to re-charge...

Music to My Ears...

Determined, Abizella pushed a chair up to the sink and said,
"I'm doing the dishes tonight and I'm doing it myself."

...and she did.
I am not about to mess with a girl on a mission.

Teacher Appreciation

We've been looking forward to this day all year long. The kids love hosting their teachers. Abz and Pops went to go pick up some flowers for the event. Pops said that when Abizella entered the flower shop, she took over. It was like she owned the shop. She had the ladies jumping at her every command. Turns out that whatever was on display simply would not do, so she asked what they had in the back. The answer came, "How about some purple roses?" Bingo! Yellow roses were selected for Superkid's teacher.

The big moment of the night is when the children pay tribute to their teachers. As we drove to the church, I went over a several acceptable scenarios. I asked the kids to rehearse what I came up with. They would oblige, then I would change my mind and come up with something else. After a few rounds Superkid said, "Don't worry Mom. I know what I am going to say. Leave it up to me." He was right. He confidently stood up, introduced his teacher and himself. Then he told her he really liked getting stars for good behavior and that he really likes the animal art class she teaches. He then told her thank-you and shook her hand. Perfection.

Of course nothing but the finest party dress would do for the occasion. Abizella was the belle of the ball. She was also the littlest child at the event. She also confidently held onto the microphone and introduced herself as, "Abi-belle" (she was a little nervous) and introduced her lovely teacher. Then she told her that she enjoys doing centers and changing jobs every Monday. She got a little stuck here, so the primary president helped her read the card that she brought up. She told her teacher that she was awesome. The primary president then went to take the microphone away when Abizella grabbed it back and with her little voice said, "I love you Mrs. Poisson!" and gave her a squeeze. There was a collective,"ahhhhh" in the auditorium.

I am so proud of my little Toads. This is a night where the kids are the hosts. I got to be a fly on the wall under the guise of helping with refreshments. The kids were polite, they were great conversationalists, they asked to take their teacher's plates when they were finished, and for the most part they were well behaved during the boring-grown-up-talk portion of the event... with the exception of Abizella collecting all of the star confetti on her spoon and launching it onto her teacher during a talk. She is who she is!

Love them both, I am one proud mom!

Toad Time Update

We kicked off the weekend at a birthday party with our favorite 5 year old.

Oh how we love our Jordan.

Superkid has elected to take some after school activities. A "Plug and Play" computer class and an "Animal Art" class. We love having new exotic masterpieces to display.

We also had some kiddos from my primary class over for some outdoor activities. When one of the kids tripped and smashed his face on the front steps and knocked loose some teeth, we decided to move the party inside (I know, I throw the best parties). I have never seen this particular group of kids sit still for more than 1 minute. Now I know the secret, dump a box of Legos at their feet. They didn't budge for 30 minutes. Just enough time to get the injured child's dentist father on the scene. By then the spewing blood had clotted and our little casualty had assembled a line up Star Wars action figures.

We take lots of baths around here. For some, it is mostly for distraction.

For others it is out of complete necessity...

3 out of 4 Toad's prefer "porridge" for breakfast. Superkid abstains.

Some of us LOVE to get fancy for church (Pops warned me about the yellow flower socks. I dug my heels in about breaking the "socks with dresses" rule. But when Abz came around the corner I had to agree they were strangely cute, in a Punky-Brewster sort of way).

Okay, we ALL love getting fancy for church.

Lovin'the Warmth

After a long cold winter, it sure feels great to be OUT again. Maybe it is good to have winter so that we will take full advantage of any warm days available to us! One of our favorites is to go to a nearby estuary with paved roads and rip it up!
While we did manage to pack 4 riding implements, and 4 kids into the minivan, we only managed to bring 3 sets of shoes for the children. Abz got away with scooting along in her new butterfly socks. Why not? She also go away with pouring herself into the middle of a nice big mud pie to play with her ponies after ballet. Yes, she actually was in her regulation new pink tights. Thank heavens for oxy clean.
Superkid challenged his abilities by coasting down some hills. Go Superkid!
He also learned that you aren't REALLY pushing your limits unless you have blood rolling into your socks!
Why not top off all summer activities with our favorite treat
(well one of our favorites, we absolutely adore you too ice cream!)!