Visits

This past week has been so wonderful! My two older sisters, Carissa and Dawn, came to spend several days and my parents were able to come for a quick one day visit to see everyone. I love having family come! They all took such great care of our family. Cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, babysitting, letting me take naps, doing laundry, taking the kids on walks and outtings! I really appreciate all that they did.

Yesterday, Bart was able to take a half day off and he went with Carissa, Dawn and the kids on the metro into the city to see some monuments and museums. It ended up being quite a warm day and with all the walking, they were ready to sit down and have some cold water by the time they got home. I think they all had a great time. The kids especially loved having their aunts and grandparents come. Some life long memories were made.

Cole's Photography

Cole has been asking to take pictures for a long time. The past few weeks we have let him try his hand at photography and we thought we would post some of his work! He is getting better every day.

Family Fun

We were able to have my parents come by on their way back to Pittsburgh after some meetings in Virginia. They both loved holding Jayda and playing with Cole and Sadie. We always enjoy the treat of having them stop in. We are spoiled!

Cole started soccer last week and is loving it. His favorite thing about this weeks practice was that he didn't touch the ball with his hands once!

Jayda is proving to be a great baby...loves to eat and sleep.

New Arrival!

We would like to announced the arrival of Jayda Jolie to our family! I had my first labor pain around midnight Monday. We headed to the hospital and arrived around 5am Tuesday morning. Jayda made her appearance just after 10am, weighing in at 6lbs. 14oz and 19 1/2 inches long with dark hair. Everything went pretty smoothly, except for the epidural wearing off about 15 minutes before she was born. Very painful, I must say, but we are super excited she is here! So far, she is a fabulous baby...natural nurser, great sleeper, patient with her siblings wanting to be super close... Cole is loving having Jayda in our family. He loves to hold her and kiss her on the head. Sadie is pretty indifferent to everything going on. Bart was the champion coach for me during labor and delivery and is, as always, being a super great Dad! I'm grateful for his love and support. We'll post some more pictures on our other site, if you want to see them.

http://community.webshots.com/user/bstratton001

Rocket Ship!

We got a couple of empty boxes at Costco for Cole to play with and he decided he wanted Daddy to make him a rocket ship. So, Bart took on the challenge and Cole helped Dad make a really cool rocket ship. What a great dad!!

Spring in D.C.

This is the famous time of year highlighting the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C. On Monday, we took the kids for a drive to see the blossoms and took a couple pictures. It was raining, so we didn't really get out and walk around, but just seeing the blossoms made me happy. Today I went with my friend, Jana, and her kids to the Jefferson Memorial and the Tidal Basin to see a popular area with lots of trees lining the Basin. There are actually 3,700 trees, 3,000 of them given to the U.S. by Japan. Anyway, I'm not a great photographer, but I thought I would do a slide show so you could see some of the pictures I took (I'm still trying to figure out how to make all the pictures go the right way). Obviously, the pictures don't do the views justice...you'll just have to take my word for how absolutely gorgeous it looked!

Gorgeous Cherry Blossoms!