A Year in Review

One year later- and we're finally catching up on our blog...

Now, for the past year in review-

winter 2009-2010: we spent this past winter playing inside (Baltimore got 2 huge snowstorms), going to the local libraries, and going to museums.

This picture was taken at the B&O Railroad Museum- the boys love this one- too bad we can only go once a year (on their free admission day)...

We celebrated Adam's 5th birthday in December, and Aaron's 1st in February.

This past spring, we spent many days at the zoo and hiking on the nicer days.

This picture was taken at the zoo- in the spinning turtle shell section.

Adam popping wheelies - in the Barbie car at the playground.

This summer was very busy for our family: spending many days outside, spending especially warm days at the splash park, visiting with our family, and moving at the end of the summer.

Here are Adam and Jacob at the Orioles game this past summer. Every summer, our stake has an activity they call 'Mormon Night at Oriole Park,' where we get discounted tickets:

We had John's brother and family visit from Indiana at the end of May, then my sister and family from Idaho the following week. We spent those days seeing sights and museums in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.

At the Maryland Science Center- in the Kids' Room.

the kids playing dress-up at our old house.

We love our cute girl cousins, on both sides of the family! Visit anytime. We need a little more on the female side in our house!

In June, we spent a week in Texas for the Swensen family reunion. The boys had a great time with cousins, aunts, uncles and Grandma Swensen. We first went to visit John's brother- and the boys ran crazy with their 5-year old twin cousins for a couple of days. They swam and played nonstop...

Here's Adam in their pool. He's not yet learned to swim, but enjoyed the security of the inflatable pelican.

For the reunion, we stayed at a ranch just outside of Boerne, Texas. While there, we were able to go to SeaWorld, hiked the Enchanted Rock (quite a hike- especially with a 3 year old who was not especially thrilled to have to walk UP a rock that big), visited the Alamo, had a family talent show, swam, fished, canoed, played games, and just caught up with each other.

at SeaWorld

These are pictures of our boys' very first fishing experience.

The two pictures above are of the pinata (Aaron can smell the candy I think- he's reaching for it)- and the other picture is of Adam and Jacob with a couple of prizes from the spoils of the pinata.

Needless to say, after our stay in Texas, they were not thrilled to come back to Baltimore.

John was gone much of July, between school conferences and scout camp. But, we did take a family trip to the beach for the first time since moving to Baltimore. Going to the ocean's shore is about a 3-hour excursion, so we decided instead to visit the bay shore. We went to a nice town called North Beach. The boys loved the water, the sand and could probably have stayed all day, but we decided to make our exit when we found ourselves within feet of a jellyfish.

Aaron on the boardwalk - without the shoes- typical of Aaron.

The boys- after the ice cream treat- with Jacob and his frowny face- typical of Jacob.

The end of the summer was consumed with getting ready to move, moving, unpacking and getting Adam registered and ready for kindergarten.

Now to present, I just celebrated the big 3-0. John made me a ring, after I accidentally lost my diamond ring down the garbage disposal about a year ago. The diamond was lost in the disposal, and the gold was scratched badly enough that I could not wear it. We obviously can't afford a new ring on our current budget, so John decided to try to make a wooden ring. Here is a picture of the finished product:

Other than his new hobby of making jewelry (just kidding), John doesn't have much spare time (not kidding). As Scoutmaster, he spends many hours with the scouts- on campouts, at activities, meetings, etc. He is working hard to finish his PhD program by December 2011 (date is flexible, but hopefully not too much :)).

I am busy keeping up with three crazy boys. It's been quite an adjustment into the school-age child world- but Adam is loving going to school, and it's nice to have some more focused time for Jacob. For the first week or two, I think I heard "When is Adam coming home" about 500 times a day, but now that is a lot less frequent. Jacob and Aaron are learning to play better together.

Here is a small sampling of things that happen several times a day, and when I look around at the end of the day and wonder to myself what I've done all day, I need to remember that just keeping the house even reasonably clean is a small miracle.

As you can see in the picture, Aaron's favorite hobby has got to be making messes. The bigger the better, I think. But when he smiles like that, who can be mad? His other hobbies of late include: eating, dart guns (he doesn't have an especially large vocabulary, but I'm proud (:)) to say that he can say both 'dart' and 'gun.'), cars, throwing balls, playing in the sandbox, drawing with markers - on himself and on furniture, mostly. He talks constantly, and much to my relief, has slowed down on saying 'mommy.' Up until recently, he would say 'mommy' whenever he wanted ANYTHING. I am surprised that some days I wasn't committed to a mental hospital. How many times can I say 'what?' And he wouldn't talk to me unless I said 'what?' I tried to break up the monotony a little by answering differently, but he would just repeat 'mommy' until I said 'what.' He could spend most of the day just walking around in everyone else's shoes. He loves shoes- which he calls 'socks.'

Adam spends much of his time now at school- he enjoys kindergarten and has made new friends there. He loves computers and playing games (any game- especially playing chess with dad). He also loves to be outside. Adam has really picked up on reading, and tries to read everything. He likes doing math- he is a John-in-training.

Jacob is in a preschool program a few hours a week, and likes it very much. The only thing that motivated him to go at the beginning was their giant bin of dinosaurs. But the last few sessions, he says he has 'forgotten to play with the dinosaurs.' His teachers have commented on how he knows the names of every dinosaur. Jacob is creative and imaginative. His hobbies are: bugs, worms (he keeps the dried up worms as pets), dinosaurs, and spooky things. He loves this time of year- with all of the stores filled with Halloween decorations and displays.

That's our year- in a nutshell. Sorry it's so long! We'll try to keep up better this year.