if you are wondering what things look like around here when we are not off on grand adventures, a few shots from breakfast chez nous:
Wool gloves are all the rage right now. Rain boots are a perennial sartorial choice around here:
Watch out!
Ah, that’s better.
And all of this before breakfast.
Since 2 is a very big birthday, Milo had 3 separate celebrations. A joint birthday party with Rebecca complete with coordinating smash cakes, a family celebration, and of course a big birthday bash two weeks later. On his birthday, possibly slightly jet-lagged and in shock from the change in temperature from Hawaii the day before:
And with party hats!
The distinctly home-made character of our cakes has become a point of pride. Let no one ever look back at these photos many years from now and mistakenly think that we purchased Milo’s birthday cake at the grocery store. This cakes were made at home, let me assure you:
And our open house/2nd birthday party with party hats! And toddlers!
… and water beads all over the porch …
and cake!
And despite all of that if you ask Milo his age he will tell you with full confidence that he is 4.
We celebrated with a true excess of powdered sugar, sprinkles and food coloring with Talia and Milo’s good friends Paloma and Jules. This was a scant two weeks after our move and this was quite possibly the first day we had the kitchen counter clean enough to use for kid projects:
If you happen to plan a lovely late afternoon at the Arboretum but arrive at 4:50 only to discover that they lock the gates at 5 pm, you might well land up at Union Market. It is a rather pretentious but also very pleasant “urban farmer’s market.” The type of place where you can buy local milk, bread, flowers and vegetables, but also have a glass of wine at the Oyster Bar or enjoy vegetarian Korean barbecue. It is also the highest concentration of toddlers in the city at around 5:00 pm on a weekend afternoon. And while most people seem to love the bright, airy part of Union Market, we rather like the fact that it is in fact situated smack dab in the middle of the wholesale restaurant supply district for DC. Rotting lettuce and all. Goes well with a Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit.
I insisted on this photo, and I love it:
And then off to get local ice cream inside:
The Building Museum in DC is in a gorgeous building with a huge lobby which is often filled with special events. The museum itself is rather small, but each of the 4 or so exhibits are quite fun. A few photos from our day at the Building Museum with Ian (and Lukas, but we didn’t manage to take any photos of him, lucky baby).
Light box!
My poor technology-deprived children (you know, the ones who will fight over a chance to play with the GPS because they get so little screen time) loved the big screen with blocks that picks up an image of them dancing:
And of course, ice cream afterwards:
Yes, Milo wore a faux leather bomber jacket with his vintage overalls. We only get so many months to pick his outfits for him …
And a few from our visit to the Building Museum the following weekend. It is possible that some visitors did not realize that there was a cafeteria and instead had our mid-afternoon snack on the hall stairs …
Proving that we don’t need any museum exhibits to keep us entertained …
We’ll let our readers write their own captions for this photo, but obviously I packed an excellent afternoon snack:
the good news is that we have been doing lots of things in DC. Museums! Parks! Even succeeding at getting into the ever-so-exclusive Arboretum (it closes at 5 pm. A fact which we forgot. Twice). We were prepared to be a bit underwhelmed, but it turned out to be a very relaxing afternoon complete with a little splashing in the pond and a “hike” down to the Anacostia river.
These “ruins” are the leftover columns from a restoration of the Capitol. They feel delightfully artificial, like the planned ruins in Potsdam:
Not pictured: the horrified look of random tourists as both children waded barefoot into the aqueduct moments after this shot.
And whose idea do you think it was to perch both children on top of a rather hard rock pillar?
Both kids are obsessed with blowing dandelion seeds. We may single handedly be responsible for reseeding the fields around Talia’s school …
And down by the river:
but these are some photos that I noticed on our brand new desktop (it has turbo drive! really!) and thought I should post. With no further ado Ikea and a Wellesley wedding from August. Barefoot child at the New Haven Ikea …
And wrecking havoc inside …
Not that our awesome babysitter was helping or anything (here she lifts Milo up so he can better swing the lamp…):
Of course we stopped to see the aunties:
And then it was off to shoot a commercial. Correction: attend a wedding, but these photos have a distinctly ad look:
I truly have no idea why someone would choose to dump a cup of grapefruit juice on someone else’s head … poor Milo was rather sticky for the rest of the afternoon.
But everyone still had fun.
Lots of fun …
But they woke up for dessert:
And a family photo!
And after the reception was over we changed our hot, sticky children into new clothes and took some photos nearby:
Incredibly after a full day of eating we still stopped at our favorite stall at the Porter Mall Japanese food court for sushi:
And the next day made it back to Porter to visit the famous and truly excellent Cafe Rustica where the 2 owners not only recognized us but made our favorite breakfast orders from memory 3 years after we moved away:
And 2 family favorites from the Boston Science Museum (anyone have recommendations on spotlights/lightbulbs to build our own version of the measurement and scale display below?)
Next up: Durham in September and then we’ll return to DC and the great Hawaii adventure (aka the trip on which I took almost no photos).
and we spent most of it like this, waiting for the moving truck to arrive:
But we also drove out to Virginia to collect Henry’s suitcase and made a last minute decision to drop by Target. Between the 2 am arrival the night before (we couldn’t miss Lila’s birthday dinner), the long day of unpacking, and a very dramatic visit to the pediatrician to yet again confirm that Talia did indeed have the dreaded waterpokken as a baby and thus cannot be vaccinated (chicken pox for the Americans, and yes she really did have it twice), I’d say we were a tad tired by the time we arrived at Target at 9 pm. And truly astounded by local prices. We may live in the city but we drive to Virginia for Target.
On our second to last weekend in NYC we took the kids to the MOMA after Talia’s dance class. This photo should have an appropriately pretentious label about teaching our children about color theory 3 feet away from a Rothko painting …
In fact, this is the conversation that took place as soon as we got them settled:
“Mama, I am planning a talent show. What is your talent going to be?” And yes, she sat in front of the Rothko and planned a talent show.
More from MOMA:
And of course, as his #1 groupies we had to sneak in a visit to listen to the great Oliver Jeffers read from his new book. The sketch he did during the read (and seen on the table in this picture) now hangs in our playroom:
We’ve been busy. First this happened:
Because of this:
Which resulted in all of the expected chaos:
And children left entirely to their own devices …
But it wasn’t all bad:
And then rather unexpectedly this happened:
… all because out little guy was turning TWO and that suddenly means 4 plane tickets for a family trip. So we handed over our carefully hoarded free flight passes and boarded 3 planes on a 22-hour journey. I am perpetually surprised at the collective horror at such a trip with 1 adult and 2 children, one of whom was a so-called “lap child.” As far as we are concerned it was well worth it:
And anyway, we did not even need our passports to visit this time (maybe this will be a good excuse to finally post the photos from our trip to India 2 years ago):
Milo still seemed pretty happy about his birthday the day after we returned:
And of course there was a party:
And the very day we returned mama got a “new shoe.” Shockingly there is not a single photo of my air cast, but let me assure you that it slowed down the unpacking process. So many photos to come. Plus, we’ve been getting to know our new neighborhood and of course the new neighbors:
