babies, sand and stuff.

Nurses nurse

And teachers teach

And tailors mend

And preachers preach

And barbers trim

And chauffeurs haul

And parents get to do it all.

-- Babs Bell Hajdusiewicz

I definitely feel like a parent:)

We've been playing like it's the last day of summer. I guess it is.

This last week we've been to Butler's Orchard to pick berries twice, visited multiple various playgrounds and parks, spent the afternoon at a awesome water park in VA, made play dough at a friends, had friends over here to play, and spent today at the bay at Sandy Point. It's been lovely.

Zach starts school tomorrow but I've not lost all hope yet, we will still have fun. Mostly on weekends and days off now. I love having Zach home.

I've been taking pictures of James with his buddies... like they even know what's going on at 6 months. But I like to take pictures of my kids with their little friends.

James and Drew- having some guy time.

Hazel and James. She gives him a run for his money on the sweet baby chubs!

James is tipping the scales at about 20 lbs now, that's just 2 shy of outgrowing his infant car seat. And it's probably a good thing. I lug him around in that thing, to and from the car, often into church because he fell asleep on the way (that's one of the really nice things about the infant seat, you can let them sleep....) and all this hefting my big boy is killing my back! But he wears me out holding him in my arms too. I just love how cute his chubs are though. Naomi didn't hit 20 lbs until she was a year old.


Siblings, so sweet. Those girls love their babies!

Abby and Naomi in their matching swimsuits down by the bay...


Naomi, Abby and Sam in the sand.

And Naomi, she's become the specimen collector. She *must* have a berry or rock or cone from that tree/bush/whatever every time we go outside. She has a little box where she keeps her treasures. Since she visited the dentist a few weeks ago, her new Dora toothbrush has made "special box" status.

something old, something new...

Nope, no one is getting married. I just have a few thoughts I had running around my brain I wanted to let loose here:)

First, something Old. I don't think I ever announced our decision for where we will be spending next summer. After a very busy and crazy process of interviews for Zach during the first few months of school this year we had narrowed down our choices to three places that he had offers. Sorry, to clarify- offers to work as a summer intern for a law firm. One of the three we were deciding between was here in DC, one was in Phoenix and the third was in Charlotte. After much weighing of the options and trying our best to decide which firm and place was best we came to the conclusion that all three were really good choices! We prayed about it and thought about where we really want to be living the first few years or more our of law school. That's important because generally after your summer internship you get an offer to work at the firm as an associate once you finish your third and final year of school. Well, unless you did a horrible job :P So after considering all that again, and then again, Charlotte was the winner, I mean answer. Now that the decision has long since been made, I've been feeling really good about it.
We will spend 7 weeks there this summer and then the remaining half of the summer we will be going to Logan! Zach was just very recently offered a position to clerk for a law firm in Logan for the second half of the summer. We are really excited because we will get to spend the summer with family again. Plus I will be welcoming the helping hands of family members this summer with our new baby:) Thank goodness for Grandmas.

And for something New.
Today I took Naomi to have some blood drawn to test her lead levels. Her pediatrician wanted me to get it done sometime before she turned two. I had her hematocrit (iron levels) tested a while ago, it was just a toe prick and Naomi didn't even cry. So I wasn't' too worried about this today.
When the nurse came in I asked if she would be drawing blood from her finger or foot. Silly me. The answer was "her arm."
Oh.
I realized then that they needed a little more blood than I had anticipated. Naomi sat on my lap and I held her arm. They took the blood just like they would for an adult, using a rubber band thing to stop blood flow and then slid a little needle-type thing into her little inner arm, and collected the blood into two little vials. She screamed and cried and told us it was "owie, owie, owie!" I felt sooo horrible, but it was over pretty quickly. Once she was done the nurse taped the guaze pad on and we were out of there. Naomi was over it instantly, because if you've ever had your blood drawn you know that it stops hurting as soon as the needle is out, usually before that even. She was pretty brave afterward:) Once we got home I put a cute sesame street band aid on it.
I'll get the results at Naomi's 2 year well child appt next month. Hopefully it's all good.

Congrats!

I'm taking the liberty of congratulating my own husband for a job well done! Since he would never brag himself I get to do it all:)
He found out the results of the G-town law journal write-on competition today. He got an email telling him the results were in, from there he needed to log into the school website to see them.
Well, he was so funny, all nervous and he made it after all! He was "invited" to be on the Georgetown Journal of International Law. There are several journals and he is very excited about this one.
So, Congratulations Zach!