March for Life

8 years ago, Mario wooed me at the March for Life. I remember that time fondly...it was such an exciting time since it was my first time attending the MFL and I was able to participate in something I cared about, but also, to meet this guy who just after meeting for a short time, I felt was something special.

The last time I went to the MFL was 2 years ago with my dad, and my mom stayed at our house to watch MJ (it was a very cold day and I think he was sick). This year I was so lucky to have my good friends here who also have young kids take a limo bus to DC. It is the BEST way to go the March for Life if you have young kids. We were quite the crew... 4 moms, 9 kids (four years old and under), and 4 double strollers (add 1 more mom, kid, and stoller since another mom joined later). We were stopped several times and asked if we were a daycare... nope, they are all ours!

I know other people have some great pictures of the limo bus that I'll share later. Overall, it was great. Joey slept on the way there, while MJ watched the movie. It was a very cold day and slightly rainy, so I attached the cover from our bike trailer over the jogging stroller.

Joey fell asleep again once we got walking... I gave MJ this lolipop to keep him from bothering Joey. But about halfway into our walk, I noticed he had fallen asleep with the sucker in his hand (I moved it for the picture). This is not the best picture to see it, but Mario's arm is resting on Joey's head.

And here is where we waited for our limo to get us. Joey had woken up so I had to carry him a bit to keep him from waking up MJ. I plopped him back in the stroller for the picture (which is why his boots are hanging out).

Overall, it was a great time. If I were to make this trip again with kids, I would definitely go with a group of moms with kids and get a bus. I might also consider tying balloons to our strollers so we wouldn't lose each other (which happened) and maybe grab an extra friend or even a dad to push another stroller so big kids who were tired could hop in.

More party pictures

Here's another of the group.

MJ sang the birthday song for himself with everyone else and also clapped for himself. I guess he was excited. Well, I know he was very excited because for several days before and after his party he kept talking about all of his friends who were coming.

After the party we convinced our neighbors to leave their son with us so they could go out. The boys had fun playing with MJ's new toys and kept each other happy through nap time. At around 3 they seemed a bit tired, so we went upstairs so they could rest and read books. It was really cute how MJ was reading to LP.

Mario's Birthday Party

We had a small party for MJ's 3rd birthday last weekend. I had thought it would be fun if for one of my winter kids' birthdays there would be snow and we could have a sledding party. Thanks to last Thursday's snow, this was possible. I feel bad b/c I didn't inform the Kazas of this plan early enough. Still the kids were troopers and they went out without all their snow gear.

This is not Joey's first time sledding (as noted from earlier posts I took him out before). Unfortunately, I am only able to watch 2 young kids sledding and keep them safe... I cannot also take pictures of myself doing it.

Here is the race car cake for MJ which Mario saved. I had a little trouble with the top layer and getting the frosting to apply smoothly. For some reason, I guessed with Mario's engineering sense and love of cake he might be good at this. Now that he has proved he can successfully decorate a cake, I think I shall assign him this duty for all our kids' birthdays. Can you see the license plate with MJ on it? I have more pictures that show off this feature.

Here's one picture of the whole group. It didn't turn out well b/c of the bright sunny window behind them. There's another one we took with a flash, but Joey isn't in it.

Other photos

Here is our Frosty the Snowman inspiration... he even sings one verse from the song.

This is the snow man MJ made mostly by himself while I was first dressing Joey and then later putting him down for a nap. MJ also really likes to eat snow.

Joey sure loves his car seat (though as I've mentioned before, we don't use it in the car anymore...just for naps outside of our house).

I wish I had a better picture of this. MJ was dressing up to be like King George from the Veggie Tales movie "King George and the Rubber Ducky" Note the rubber ducky to his right and the small brush behind him that you cannot see. The underwear on his head I assume is his royal crown. He went around that evening saying how he was King George and he was naughty b/c he wanted to take the ducky (if you've seen the movie, you'll know what I mean).

SNOW day!

Okay, this post is now officially 1 week overdue. Last Thursday, we had a wonderful snow. Joey got to try out his new sled (which actually didn't work well b/c the snow was too thick and fluffy the first day. Thankfully, the hill is right in our backyard. So I un-layered Joey, laid him in his crib, put a monitor in a ziplock bag and headed out to play some more with MJ.

MJ has been really into Frosty the Snowman this year, so he was so excited to go out and build one.