A few weekends ago, we made the trip to Notre Dame for my sister Kathy's graduation. Mario and I were able to make it to some of the events sponsored by ND Response. There was a mass followed by a rally on South Quad which had some great speakers. Mario and I met through ND RTL, so it brought back memories to share an experience like that again, this time with 3 little children between us.
Me and Kathy (as taken by MJ)
Memorial Day weekend started with a dessert party at our friend's place in Georgetown on Friday night. They are expecting a boy in August. We've decided Sheila and AJ can date sometime in the future - but we won't tell them about that just yet. We didn't plan to stay out very late so we could get up early and start adding insulation to the attic, but the kids were so well behaved we didn't leave until 11pm.
Saturday morning we started the insluation, more on that later, and then in the afternoon/evening we had a great time at our first Summer Kick Off in Ashburn Farm. We loaded up both double strollers with kids, food, drinks, and chairs. They had some rides, and we foolishly tried to get MJ and Joey to ride the kiddie ferris wheel on their own first. Joey was excited, but MJ was screaming. We made them go on anyway, which soon led to 2 screaming kids. Fortunately the music was loud, so you couldn't hear the screaming too much.
Later I was able to ride the scrambler with Joey alone. Then MJ decided he was brave enough - here is my "Look at how big you are MJ, see you can try new things!"
Another one of MJs crazy poses.
At 9:00ish there was a really cool fireworks show set off on the field on the opposite end of this pond. All the kids liked it! Woo-hoo!
Finally our attic insulation story: It was a dusty and dirty job, which probably would have gone faster without our kids around, but they were pretty well-behaved for most of it. It got too hot to finish it all in the morning, so we finished the rest after the Summer Kick Off. Here's a picture of us finally finished around 2am! There was a lot of clean up, however, we are still happy we did it on our own (probably b/c we saved $1400 by not paying someone else). Our house seems a lot cooler, especially the upstairs. So we are no longer baking in the middle of the day - it's amazing what R-60 can do. If you plan to do a project such as this on your own, we have some tips.
Sunday morning came too quickly after our short night of sleep, but we were very happy to be able to celebrate Elisabeth's First Holy Communion in Manassas. I'm sure this is the first of many parties at the Kaza farm -it was SO much fun! I'm not sure how many kids were there, but I'd say about 40. Little groups of children would bound off together to explore the many fun areas all over the Kaza's 11 acres. Okay - so Kolbe nipped at Joey and ripped his shirt, probably only adding to all of our dog phobias, but we really had a great time. The boys even fell asleep there (something that for some reason was hard for them to do in the past) and Tabitha and Babu graciously offered their guest bedroom for Mario and I to crash there as well.
Mary and I attempted to get a picture of the babies, but smiley Joey couldn't help but step in as well. I have a cute cropped version of this on Picasa, but couldn't crop it properly here, sorry. Mary may even have a better picture of this as we were using 2 cameras.
Oh - and the Marshmallows! The bonfire was a big hit.
The guys stepped out for a "man-date" to see the Star Trek movie (I was jealous). Here they are with smirks just before leaving. It seems they didn't realize they would be leaving us with sugared-up kids and a huge after-party mess. The SO owe us!
I have a feeling this is only the beginning of the fun for these boys.
Monday we really just relaxed, and it was so nice. We had plans to put up the chandelier in our foyer, but it will wait until this weekend. We picked up some water guns and had our first blast in the afternoon. Even Joey got in on the action. I have half a dozen other cute shots of MJ and Sheila playing together - it was so hard to pick just one!
Sheila has entered a new phase in baby self-entertainment. It's always nice to be able to plop a baby in the middle of the floor with some toys and let them play. Besides sitting, she is rolling and scooting and moving a lot. I'd prefer if she waits a long time before crawling - she can take her time.
Two of our four Mario's
Then we stopped by Michael and Sarah's who generously hosted our very tired crew. As an added bonus, Luke was also visiting them at the same time. The kids had a great time scooting around inside the house and running in the front yard. I especially enjoyed watching Sheila and Michael Jr. play together. It was hard to pick only a few pictures of them. Michael really knows how to smile for a camera. This was definitely Sheila's favorite toy at their house.
Michael and Sheila shared so well, she even let him suck her hand. Of course, since Sheila likes eating her feet it wasn't a big deal for her.
It was so wonderful to see sweet Maria. She is growing so quickly! Maria was a very generous cousin and shared her toys so well. I am looking forward to returning the favor very soon!
