Tuesdays With PapaOn Tuesday mornings, Todd takes the kids and they go do something fun together. Last Tuesday they went to Wheaton Regional Park which has lots of playgrounds, a carousel, and a (sometimes working) little

choo-choo train. Here's Henry enjoying one of his favorite pastimes...climbing. (his other favorite pastime is looting)
Up we go into the wild blue yonder.Papa even packed a nice pik-a-nik lunch.
"This is the best jelly samich I ever eated!"
(that Little Rascals quote is for you, Ron Price)


Swingin' siblins'

A self-portait.

(Loretta took it)

A Foodie is Born! I can report that Miss Loretta Lou Who tried her first solid food the other day! Here she is enjoying her inaugural meal -- some tasty rice cereal.

...and that would be her grabbing the spoon and trying to shovel in some more. Yum!

Mama's Day Mother's Day in Washington, DC turned out to be a spectacular weather day, so we hightailed it to Haines Point, a beautiful city park that overlooks the Potomac.
"Here, fishie fishie fishie!"
That's Henry admiring a statue called The Awakening. It's a big giant seemingly coming to life after a deep slumber in the ground. It's quite a sight to behold. Kids climb all over it and people come to gape. It's being moved soon, though. So we went to pay our respects to it.

Imagine our surprise when Todd came upon this baby in a tree.

Dynamic Diaper Duo

Two little babies playing on the bed. One fell off and broke his head. Actually, for once that DIDN'T happen. Raise your hand if seeing Loretta instantly made you think of the Michelin Man.

(my hand is raised) "No, no, Loretta. You take the toy first, I insist."
"Oh no, dear brother. I couldn't possibly. You first."

Insert your best "Henry coming out of the closet" joke here.

Cuddling Calamari "Now that I'm four months old, I got this

octupus wrangling thing DOWN."
hee hee

Bathing Beauties She's soaking in it!

Bubble goatee.

Springtime Silliness The three amigos Henry, Miles and Porter

yukking it up at the playground.

Baseball Diamonds Are

A Boy's Best Friend Henry enjoys a hot dog at the Nationals versus Mets

game with Ben and Jerome.

Highlights of the game? Finding this unsupervised vehicle in the stadium and making the horn work, and...

....climbing this swell ladder!"Woo hoo! I love baseball games! I could run and run and run and run all day and all night, and never run out of energy!"
Oops.

The Redheaded Streamroller

Rob Candia: "Oh no! Take it easy, Henry! I didn't mean to take your cookie!"

Oof!
Pin!

And Loretta enjoys a relaxing, nonviolent swing.

The Winsome Twosome

You go, grrls!

Miss Loretta and Cousin Cora cheek (by hefty cheek) by jowl at Easter in Philly

Itchy Richie Comes To Town

And brings his uplifting friends Mashner and G.

Richie came to town to groom the bocce courts he and his friends built when they founded the DC Bocce League. Here's Richie and G doing some grunt work.

Matt flattens the way.

And Gabriella pulls her weight.

Wanna' know a surefire way to draw a crowd at the playground?

Bring a baby!

Henry's Latest Con

So Henry has a new bit that he's been perfecting. The last couple of days when we go for a walk in the neighborhood, he walks up to a stranger who is chewing gum. He looks up at them, screws up his face, points at their mouth and asks like some pushy toddler detective, "You. You have gum?"

The person is always a little taken aback, but then pulls it together and says, "Yes. Yes I do." Then Henry lowers the boom. "You give me gum." Almost every person begins to reach into their pocket to offer him gum until I step in.

At first, I really could not believe he was doing this.

And then I could.

Pure unadulterated moxie.