Spring holidays

We are so lucky to get to celebrate everything!

don and bennett playing slaves for the seder in tis pic if you cant tell. pharoah is lurking just out of the frame and is ordering the to build! (julie you rocked it!)

of course the burning bush. you shoulda seen the locusts and the baby heads

seder plate. madelines’s new favorite song is the one who’s refrain is ‘and lotsa lotsa matzah’

then there was easter

madeline left lots of eggs for bennett to find

 

we locked ourselves out of the house and the kids tore into their baskets while we waited in our pajamas for rebecca to rescue us with our spare!

mlk day for my kids

don's xmas came early

A.R. Drone

quick halloween pics

had to post a few quick pics so you could see their costumes...



Great day at Madeline's school for a costume parade and even the little ones got involved!

then...

The Wongs came over this year for our second annual movie night on halloween. We had dinner together (jack o lantern pot pies), and don set up a movie in our carport for trick or treaters.
The kids loved it and I wasnt sure they even wanted to leave to go trick or treating!






and don and i got our friends in on a little theme costume party too.
check it out:




and of course, the obligatory pumpkin carving- with a twist this year.
We carved a sweet pumpkin. roasted the seeds, ate the pumpkin and took one of the other ones and gave it the ol' mr potato head treatment.

easter fun continued

We are lucky to know so many great families in the area.
On Easter sunday we were lucky to spend the morning with Madeline's friend Megan and her family (older brother Ryan) and his buddies Isaac and Gus. Lucky for us Isaac and Madeline are good pals too. The kids got along great and Georgina, Megan's mom had all sorts of fun activites planned. What a blast.

easter 2010

Madeline and Bennett had a wonderful time hunting easter eggs this year with friends around the corner.
Don and I have been biking anywhere and everywhere we can in the new Chariot- the kids come along behind us, madeline singing and bennett devouring crackers LOL

We got to have a fabulous ham dinner with aunt peggy, rosie and D on sat night and color eggs and then last night we had peep cake with the sukiniks! oh and a sweet ginger glazed ham too with the best collard greens ever.
the kids were fabulous. we are so lucky to have great friends here in the dc area.

pics of baskets of course, and madeline modeling her new easter jammies. kids playing in the yard or gardening while we spring clean and shots of the cherry blossoms as they begin to bloom on our block.





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early easter

we have had lots of springtime fun decorating eggs, having egg hunts in the yard, making cookies of course, painting rabbits and ducks, playing with little chickies the works

madeline hosted a pre-easter hunt at our house this week and just loved hunting the eggs and playing with her friends!

too bad she was too quick to stay still for a picture!

I ♥ Madeline

it may appear as if we had no son on valentine's day... but we just neglected to take any pics. sorry bean- a totally bennett post will be available in a few days ;)

Valentine's day breakfast- heart pancakes for us and madeline's special request, snowman pancakes with chocolate chip eyes and whipped cream... mmm








Valentine's day at school- junk food!


Valentine's day dinner- she chose homemade pizzas

Here's don braving the cold to grill up some sweet t bones for us


and my favorite, our friends, the wongs Eliana: 4, Benjamin: 2, came over and we exchanged valentines's last week. Can you guess which child is which?


Hint: Benjamin and Madeline have matching tights! LOL love this little guy's fashions sense. He adores his big sister... can you tell?

Christmas- on Auburn Ave!!

we are back on track since our christmas illness so here goes:



With friends Eliana and Benjamin after the Christmas Eve service-


Prepped for the big morning... stockings stuffed and train track assembled. Cookies nibbled, carrots eaten, milk slurped, tree trimmed. Mom nowhere in sight as Don and Maury wrap feverishly... she is off playing the big guy around the neighborhood!



bundled- a white christmas for sure!



first christmas!





Maury was here to share our first Christmas at our new Home!! Thanks Mom. It would have been so lonely without you here but you made the holiday for us.





After all was said and done, it took until 6pm for Madeline to get through all the gifts. She was methodical and wanted to play with each one as she opened it. As Ashia was still sick from the bug the night before, we skipped monkey bread and prime rib and saved it for the next day. When we finally feasted, it was a treat. We had monkey bread, sausage, juice and coffee for breakfast and for dinner roasted potatoes, standing rib roast and steamed veggies. With stuffed bellies, we were still able to have our neighbors over the third morning of Christmas (the 26th) for pancake puffs in chocolate chip or blueberry varieties. Whew- chrismtas was saved!

And finally... a little Chrismtas tale.
After adopting the tradition of playing santa for the kids on xmas eve and delivering a small gift, Ashia went out and shared the love with some neighbors' kids. It was an amazing thing to be able to do that for other families and it really went over well. Even the couple on our block with college-aged kids got in on it bc their house was the dressing station. This email just came in to thank us for the treat and i thought i'd share it here:

Ashia,

Thank you thank you thank you! Jack was so so excited. He kept yelling, "It's a Christmas Miracle!" When Santa told him to go right to bed, he really did. We didn't hear a peep from him until 7:30 the next day! What a wonderful tradition. Hopefully it was worth all the hard work you did, I know it made our Christmas absolutely perfect.

Thanks,

Heather

It was a great holiday for this Mann family. We cant wait to build on these traditions next year!

Christmas Bug

We are not prepared to furnish Christmas photos because the Mann house has taken ill.
As of last night this horrible stomach bug has claimed two victims and we are seriously hoping it stops there. Needless to say, Christmas was cumbersome today. But still, the children were delighted and generous, taking time to open one gift each and enjoying the feeling of watching others open theirs. Okay, well... Bennett really just liked ripping wrapping paper and trying to eat it.

Hoping that i crawl out of this funk tomorrow and am able to make a Christmas morning then, instead. Complete with Monkey bread for breakfast, christmas music and a standing roast prepared by the man of the house in the latter part of the day.
that is, if tonight doesnt reveal new victims.

So all in all, we were so happy to have the kids wake up here this morining, and i thoroughly enjoyed playing The Big Guy last night for friends and neighbors and aside from this bug (and its a big aside) it was a perfect morning. I know i had several moments of nostalgia for Christmases past and wished our house were full of family and friends, but we will slowly begin to take on the task of creating our own traditions. Hoping that in years to come more of our family can be here with us because today they were sorely missed. We were happy to have been able to see the NY side for Thanksgiving and to have also had a mini christmas a couple of weeks ago with a small faction of the midwest fam. Add to that, the church christmas play, making cookies, and meals for the shelter in town, donating some toys and the traditional christmas decorating, we have done a great job of beginning some rituals for next year and years to come.

anyway, its off to bed for me in the hopes that we begin anew tomorrow.
Merry Christmas! Here is hoping that you all had an easy and rewarding day.

xoxo

thanksgiving in ny

More pics from our last days in NY for the holiday.
With the exception of a surprise potty accident the whole week was peaceful, fun and just about the best holiday trip we could have had- even traffic cooperated!

Still... thinking that Christmas is going to be in Rockville for us this year.
Everyone is invited- Who's coming?!!





Ryan was awesome with the kids and spent so much time crafting and being silly with them. We were really happy to see Chris and Shawn entertaining Madeline as well- she was thrilled to have all that attention and is in withdrawel now- especially for someone to cut and paste with her!