Woznation

It is a big event when daddy gets home. Wil use to just run to the door and wait – but now Evie can crawl after him.  Wil has caught on and now waits for Evie and shows her the way, via crawling.

Around the Island.

Down the home stretch.

Barney always gets first dibs at hugs and kisses.  I have been trying to get a few good pictures of when Phil is actually home – but usually by that time I am immersed in making dinner and/or cleaning up from dinner and lighting isnt that great.  Its a hard moment to catch – but one we treasure every day.

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So I was on a wait list for a garden in like early 2011 well before we even officially moved here.  They said the wait list was 5 years – and I almost didnt even put my name down, but did just in case. Welp – in 2014 – I got the call!! And Phil and I have a garden for the summer.  We inherited a very overgrown lot, but I guess most of them were overgrown considering it was April.

The first day I went to check it out, I thought Id get right to work and pull up all the weeds….in a dress…without gloves…and 2 awake children.  I made a small dent in the weeds before I pulled up a SNAKE.  I immediately packed up the kids and thought my gardening days were over for the rest of my life.  But luckily, I had a big strong man come back with me later that weekend.  After the proper attire, proper tools, proper naps times, and proper snake wrangling personnel, we made progress on the plot:

We found another one! We named him Frank:

The plot is 14′ by 8′ – Along the left side we decided to plant a few tomatoes, a few peppers, and a few beans. Then some herbs and flowers along the back, followed by a squash on the right side and a mystery plant that Phil wont tell me about. Then we have a few rows of carrots and some flowers along the front. We added a brick pathway to help teach Wil where it was okay to walk and dig.  We also have a cool laminated pamphlet that shows all the bugs he can find in the garden.

We’ve spent a few hours at the garden every weekend, usually plan around Evie’s morning nap.  She snoozes by the shed, while I weed and Phil plants.  Wil loves to find bugs and help roll the wheel barrow.  We’ve met a few people (there are 81 plots in the city garden!).  One of the families we recognized from our saturday soccer shots!

At the end of our gardening session, Wil waters all the plants and we head home.  Its SUCH a great hobby!!!!  Who knows if we’ll grow anything, but we’re really enjoying the process.

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Spring is finally here!!!  This winter was especially long, right?!  Its so nice to be out of the house and into the sun shine.  On Saturday mornings Wil and Phil go to ‘soccer shots’ – which is a coach-led, kid-friend soccer activity, which involves no actual soccer. They do kick things, occasionally, but it’s mostly chaos.  Its more like a 30 minutes of soccer-themed activities for 2-year olds and they get stickers at the end of each session.

My mom’s group has expanded into happy hours on the occasional weekend.  Its so nice to have a kid-friendly social event on the calendar.  Phil and I used to try to go out to dinner with the kids – but would be totally stressed out about Wil spilling water on the table, or Evie having a melt down. When we’re in a kid-friendly environment, the kids entertain themselves and the houses are pretty much kid-proofed, so you dont feel mortified if your kid spills something. And we can enjoy a beer and adult conversation for a few hours.

Phil and I have also tried to have a few more date nights on the calendar.  Its so awesome having a nanny who can also babysit on the weekend.  She already knows their routine.  They are comfortable with her. And Phil and I can completely enjoy our night knowing they are in good hands.  We can have a nice meal without worrying about spilling anything!  We actually have a date night tonight!  We are planning to go to the Os game as long as it doesnt rain.  This will be my first Os game without a baby on my lap!

We’ve also been enjoying going to our new garden every weekend! But that deserves its own post.  Stay tuned…

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We had a beautiful Easter in Baltimore this year.  The annual egg hunt in the park was rescheduled to much further away, so some friends and I organized our own egg hunt the Thursday before Easter.  Everyone pitched in some eggs, and we met at a local park. Afterwards we went to a friends house to do a craft and eat some candy.  Wil is catching on to holidays and totally loved shaking the plastic eggs to figure out if something was inside.

Evie enjoyed the scenery from her stroller, but I’m sure she will participate next year.  She did like to observe coloring the eggs at home though:

On Easter morning we walked up to a local church.  I wanted to walk around before Mass to show Wil some of the things in a church, but it was still locked at 9:30 before a 10am mass!  The kids were getting very restless, so we headed home to open easter baskets and put stickers on the colored eggs.

I tried to get a few pictures of the kids in their nice outfits – but they didnt quite cooperate

Afterwards, Wil helped me make egg salad, we had a nice meal,  and Evie helped me clean up the dishes:

Happy Easter Everyone!

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So they are replacing the 100 year old water pipes on our street. Which is a good thing.  But obviously creates a bit of turmoil in the process.  We were unable to park on our street from 9-5 from March 31 to May 1st.  Which is a huge pain when you are toting around 2 children (and groceries, and strollers, and diaper bags…). But Wil was  fan of the construction equipment:

We walk by it almost every day! Its still parked south of our street.

We had above ground water pipes for over a month:

Then they failed and leaked into our basement:

Which was followed by a huge rain storm, which leaked more water into our basement.  But the silver lining was that the carpet was already pulled up! (Polish that turd!)

At least with everything pulled up from the basement, Wil and Evie had plenty of pillows and blankets to play with:

As on 5/9/14 – the construction still isnt done, but our basement is put back together.  Hoping for no more disasters.

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