Do We Really Miss the Snow?

The Washington DC area averages 37 90+ degree days a year. It's July 22 and we have had 39. And it's supposed to hit triple digits again this weekend. With the daily heat advisories we have been spending most of our days inside. So what have we been doing?

We usually start the day by taking out every toy we own....
We have been to the play area at the mall...

We play inside with Bubbe & Zaide...

But the most fun has been our music class each week!(trying to figure out the bells...this was Hannah's second choice for her musical instrument this week. Her first choice? ONE cymbal.)

(singing along)

(her favorite part of each class - the parachute!)

4th of July

We had a wonderful time celebrating Hannah's first 4th of July. We started the weekend with Hannah's first trip to the "big" pool (you know, the pool that has more than 4 inches of water in it). She LOVED it. Watch out Northern Virginia - Hannah will be beating your swim team in a few years (and your head lifeguard in 2028!). Of course, playing in the wading pool in our backyard is no longer as impressive, but that's ok. As soon as the heat breaks (got to love reading the weather forecast for the week in today's paper...100...100...100...100...going to be a week with lots of time inside!) we'll be back for more fun!

For the actual holiday we went to Mara's parents' house for their annual court picnic. We've been having picnics in the court since we moved to Virginia, and it was a lot of fun to celebrate with the next generation of court kids. Hannah loved playing with Nathaniel and Dylan (hard to believe that Mara babysat for Dylan's dad and aunts when they were little!)...so much so that she had to get back in the pool with them after she ate her dinner! She stayed up way past her bedtime, but not quite late enough to see fireworks - she fell asleep on the way home and slept through all of the fireworks that went off in our neighborhood last night. It's ok - we watched the Boston Pops celebration on the DVR this afternoon.

They Say It's Your Birthday...

What a week it has been! Hannah turned one on Wednesday and we have been celebrating all week. Mara even made a Sesame Street cake (hard to believe that it's been 4 years since Bridget and I took the cake decorating class so we could make birthday cakes for our girls!!). We had all four grandparents in town to celebrate, along with a few friends. It was total munchkin mayhem and totally wonderful. She got lots of cool new toys (and had plenty of friends to help her open them) - we are having so much fun playing with them this week.Hannah liked her first taste of cake, but she really liked playing with the icing. :)

In true party girl fashion, Hannah kept the party going with an "after-party" - Henry and Emily stayed to go for a swim in the pool. Even with the 100 degree temps, it was blissful to sit outside and watch the kids play.We've had a busy week as well. Monday we went to a retirement luncheon for Bubbe, and on Tuesday, Hannah and Emily had their first music class. Hannah wasn't really sure what to make of the class, but she really like clapping along with the songs and checking out all of the other kids. Grandmother & Grandfather Surridge came over to play on Wednesday (and Hannah got to have another piece of birthday cake since it was her actual birthday!). And we had dinner with both sets of grandparents on Thursday! No wonder Hannah hasn't slept through the night all week - way too much excitement!