Wide Open Spaces

This past weekend we met up with some of our favorite buddies down at the Mall.  We visited the National Museum of America History - we love that place.  Especially the transportation section!  Jonah & his buddy getting ready to blast off to age 4, Vera who is speedily cruising into age 2 and our little buddy at a super cute altitude of 8 mos!  The other mom and I were there as well.

We had a fun enough time in the museum.  After a successful potty break, Jonah's buddy busted out his toy cars and Jonah, Vera and their buddy proceeded to play with the cars by driving them and crashing them all over the floor outside the bathroom and near the big train... after numerous warnings from multiple security guards (we have kids and your kids are cute, but really they can't be crashing their cars into people... ok m'am) - we skedaddled off to the cafe.  We bought the kids all kinds of things to eat.  They ate the french fries only and then the boys were sprinting around the cafe and carrying on like super heroes on steroids... sort of... I might be exaggerating a little bit, but not much.

Finally, we figured it out (sometimes moms are late to the mental party), and brought them outside to the Mall to run!  Bingo!  There was a fleet of construction trucks and WIDE OPEN SPACES!!!!

All I could think of when I saw the boys (and Vera) running was that song by the Dixie Chicks "Wide Open Spaces" and I told my buddy what I was thinking... her response, "clearly that is the title of the blog about this one!?!?"  And you know what buddy - you were spot on!  This one is for you!  You have been a great buddy and we love hanging out with you and your crew!  Wide open spaces or not!

One side note, it is super sweet watching the kids play.  Especially Vera going from the big boys to the baby... she loves playing with her brother and his friend but then also loves hanging with the moms and the baby in stroller - she also loved wide open spaces... but because she is still my little Vera, she is also still super glued to her binky (pacifier) and going through this "mom, pick me up all the time" phase... funny how that it is.  Sometimes I am cursing both of these predicaments, but then I stop (try to take a breath) and take a moment and realize... they will be gone way too soon and then she too will be running off into wide open spaces... and I will miss it all!

Another side note that is actually a big deal:  Yesterday my Grandmother passed away.  There will be more on that later. She was 95 and had an awesome life.  She was my best friend.  We are taking the next few days to come together as a family and celebrate her life and remember her.  We'll see you next week.  Take care of yourselves and kiss the ones you love!

I leave you with the words from the song I kept singing in my head as I watched our kids on the Mall:

[They] need wide open spaces
Room to make [their] big mistakes
[They] need new faces
[They] know the high stakes
PS:  I only have a few photos because I left the memory card in my computer and all the memory on the camera was what we ended up with... go MOM!

the money shot!

Zoo @ Night?

Yep!  That would be ZOOLIGHTS!

Before we left recently for sunny Jamaica (it feels like years ago...) we met up with our Germantown buddies for an evening at the National Zoo.  Each year they hold an event called ZOOLIGHTS during the holiday season.  They light up the zoo with twinkling lights and it is super fun!

Jonah & Vera loved being at the zoo at night.  The loved the lights.  (OK Vera may have been a bit cranky that night but she liked her glow stick wand that I bought her - all the kids did).  We got there early and hung out running around before our buddies arrived.

Once we were all there, and we all had our light up wands - we were off to have fun.  Looking at the lights, getting yummy kettle corn to munch on, riding the train, and just having fun.  It turned out to be a nice night out and good fun was had by all.

I think ZOOLIGHTS is going to end up on our list of things we try to do every year - like Boo @ the Zoo.  And the best thing about ZOOLIGHTS - it is totally free (except for the food and the train tickets and parking...)

We had a really good time especially since we got to hang out with our fun buddies.  Yeah, for being at the zoo, for being at the zoo at night, for being at the zoo at night with cool lights, and finally, for being at the zoo at night with super cool lights with our super fun friends!

Our Tu B'Shevat Shabbat

This past Friday night and all day Saturday was Shabbat and as a added special treat it was also Tu B'Shevat!

Tu B'Shevat is the Jewish holiday that celebrates TREES!  Often termed the birthday of the trees - it is like a Jewish Arbor Day of sort.  It also happened to be one of our bestest buddy's birthday.  So we had a few buddies over and celebrated Shabbat, the trees' birthday and our buddy's birthday!  Not a bad way to end the week.

On Saturday morning, we did our traditional Tu B'shevat ceremonial planting of the parsley!  We plant the parsley on Tu B'shevat and then hopefully enough grows in our little "garden" so that we can eat it on Passover!  The kids loved this! And then loved cleaning up too!  That is always a good project - when the cleaning up is as much fun as the project.

On Saturday afternoon, we started a new tradition this year (Mama's excellent idea!!) - I was really excited about it. We attempted to create "family trees" with drawings and pictures on Saturday afternoon.  We didn't really finish that project - as Jonah and Vera sort had some minor meltdowns... maybe because we were slumbering in the house all day and I hadn't really thought the project out very well - as in much of it wasn't "prepared" so there was way to much time spent by me running around trying to find stuff to use for the project and trying to figure out how to print pictures on the new printer... we are going to return to that one - it is still spread out on our dining room table - we will report back and post when we figure it out.

Overall we had a really nice Shabbat Tu B'shevat.   The kids liked turning the white grape juice into red n our clear plastic cups on Friday night by adding a drop of red juice into the white grape juice in four cups of wine at our little seder.  It was fun trying all the different nuts and fruits required for the seder as well.  And the whole dinner with all our good fiends, good food and special treats was a wonderful way too end the week. 

For Saturday snacks we only ate food from the seven species of Israel - Jonah & Vera especially loved eating the pomegranate seeds!

Everyone loved the little birthday cake for the trees and our buddy!

We watched the Lorax (my personal favorite tree show!) and we read lots of books about the holiday and about growing things and trees!

The fact that there was snow on the ground, just made the whole thing more fun.  Thinking of green leaves and growing seeds - it keeps you a little bit warmer!

Happy Sort of Snowy Monday Everyone.