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So much to Love!

This is going to be a whole lot of photos, but what better way to celebrate our baby girl turning two!

We went from here….

To here….

To year two SO QUICKLY. There are so many things i love about Miral. In honor of her second birthday, I’m want to share 20 things I love about her and share about a hundred pictures of her year.

My dearest Miral,

I love you and love watching the wonderful little human you are becoming. Here are a few of the things I love most about you!

1. You LOVE the boys and refuses to say their names and instead calls them – the guys. (side-note, she just THIS week started saying Malcolm and Adam super clear!)

2. You love to eat multiple breakfasts, like a hobbit!

3. You love Paw Patrol and sings the song and names all of the pups.

4. You are so independent and insists on doing most things on her own, keep at it my baby girl. This will only serve you amazingly.

5. You love to pick your own clothes already.

6. You call ducks- quack quack and monkeys- nee nee.

7. You of course crawled out of your bed early and are already in a big girl bed, that you secretly love.

8. You love books and can read books together forever.

9. You LOVE bey-blades and ‘Choo’ (Peekachoo) just like your brothers.

10. You play with your hair when you’re tired.

11. You love baths and especially love them with your brothers, when they don’t get right in the bath you go and find them and say- Guys, bath!

12. You love to color and put your little pointer finger right where you are coloring.

13. You love to laugh and have fun like your daddy. You are so funny and make the funniest faces and already have such a sense of humor!

14. You LOVE treats and when I ask you if you want a snack you always reply- Treat? Treat?

15. You weren’t sure about the pool or the beach but now you love both!

16. When you walk by something and knock it over, you stop and put it right back.

17. You hate when your hands are dirty and ask me to wipe them right away.

18. You love to color and if left to your own devices, love to color you hands and feet and face.

19. You are so expressive and love your family so much!

20. You are a fun loving happy amazing beautiful girl who is going to grow into the most special woman and I can’t wait to see who you become!

For your viewing pleasure, here is a year of Miral

Staycation in Rosslyn

We usually go away for Spring Break, but this year I had to study Ukrainian so we had a staycation in Rosslyn and a quick trip to New York.

We had a long walk in Rosslyn the first weekend, full of sketching, buying flowers for a friend and blowing some dandelions for the first time complete with making wishes.

Next up on staycation Rosslyn 2019, a visit to the Easter bunny and bow ties, complete with bunny ears and all.

It was a mighty creepy Easter bunny…

But we all made it through!

Highlight for Adam was mechanical pencils!

And a diner trip!

Highlight for me- letting my third baby eat cereal on my lap for dinner. I consider it a success that we made it to child three before that happened.

Walks with ‘nene’ aka monkey

Then me and the boys headed to New York for Grandma’s retirement party. She has been working with special needs children at P.S. 30 for the last 25 years. Going to this retirement party was so special and i was so happy that we went. Every single person there came up to me to tell me one- that they had heard so much about me and my family and felt like they knew me and two- that working with my mom was such a special experience and that she was a very special person. Sometimes when you are so close to a person you forget to appreciate how special they are how much of an impact they have on so many people. It reminded me how lucky I am to have this special person as my mom.

Added bonus I got to see this little cutie- my newest nephew, Beckham.

Look at these two month smiles!

And these cousin cuddles!!

Malcolm was made for Brooklyn!

And this

We also got to see all our second cousins and had a great day!

Added bonus, we got to hang out with Fran’s kids! I love that me and Fran have known each other for 33 years and when we get together it’s like no time has passed and our kids love hanging out.

Then it was back to DC for our last night of spring break.

Frozen Cherry Blossoms

I think what having kids has taught me is that best laid plans mean nothing. When Adam was just a few months old we were living in DC and we were able to go and enjoy the warm spring weather and take this super cute photo.

So I decided that we should try to go see the Cherry Blossoms again and take super cute pictures of the kids. We were busy on the weekend so we decided to try to go on Tuesday morning before work and school. It was the day the cherry blossoms were at full peak so made total sense to go in the morning. We piled all the kid into the car and picked up my friend Grace who wanted to join us. We had an hour, more than enough time. Well one missed turn later and no parking spots meant we all got out to start seeing the cherry blossoms and Randy went to look for parking.

What we didn’t plan for was that it was FREEZING! How the Cherry blossoms survived is beyond me! My tropical babies were freezing!

We did manage to get a few frozen snaps in.

And Randy took some cute snaps a half mile away where he had to park before he had to drive all the way back to come get me, Grace and three cold tantrumy children. But, we made it to work on time, no child fell in the tidal basin and no one got frost bite. So I’m going to call this a success.

February in DC/Alternate title- Last month of winter!

Studying for Ukrainian every day has left me behind on our lives. February was a busy month for us, We had lots to do and it was also the month that Randy finally came back from Pakistan!

Music class with this little music lover

Malcolm’s new school friend- Maddie

‘New’ benches from Goodwill to hide under

School Pictures

Cardis to keep warm

Safeway supermarket shops

Piles of kids

Tae Kwon Do’s newest disciple

Tae Kwon Do’s returning yellow belt

Baths

Magna tiles

Haircuts number one

Haircut number two

tears post haircut because second lollipop was denied

Playdou

Play dough stacking

Valentine card making

Early morning smiles

Valentine Day treats

More Valentine Day Treats

Even more Valentine treats/Alternate caption- Target sucked me in again

Slinky desctrucion

Outgrowing carseats/alternate caption- mommy cries

Circus fun with Uncle Ari

Mommy cuddles to keep warm/Alternate caption- Mommy thought spring comes in February

Cotton Candy lover

Posing with the stars

Uncle Ari cuddles

Getting ready for Daddy’s return!

Swinging in the cold

Room for two

What’s for dinner?

Morning tickles

Met’s Fan

Noodle soup eating

Daddy cuddles!

More daddy cuddles

Even more daddy cuddles!

Teddy Roosevelt

One of the things I love the most about the US are all the amazing parks and activities there are for us to do together. A favorite for me and the kids has definitely been Teddy Roosevelt park. It’s so fun to explore!

After our long was we decided to get some pizza and ice-cream to celebrate it being one of the last Sundays we would have before daddy got home from Pakistan.

Almost 40

My 39th birthday (yes, I’m that far behind) was bittersweet. I spent it with friends and family, but it was my second birthday without Randy. He was supposed to be back already, but because of unforeseeable circumstances he had to stay in Pakistan an extra month and missed it. But I was pretty lucky that for the first time in years I was able to celebrate with Grandma Gertch and not only did she come, but she cooked me dinner and made me a two tiered cake.

Look past my tired eyes and instead focus on how Miral’s eyes never leave the cake.

On my actual birthday the kids and Maria decorated for me, made me cards and my friends and Randy sent me lots of beautiful flowers.

Thanks to the furlough I had the day off, so I went shopping and treated myself to a yummy Italian lunch of chicken parm, my absolute favorite.

We got all dressed up and went to Acqua Al 2 for dinner. This restaurant is in Capitol Hill and we used to go there 8 years ago when we first moved to DC when I was pregnant with Adam. It was a yummy dinner and nice to go back to our old neighborhood.

A few days later my friends from work took my out to a delicious Georgian restaurant, Supra. It was delicious and the perfect end to a special birthday week.

Getting used to 20 degrees

Now that temperatures have finally risen over 50 it seems like the perfect time to finally share some pictures of how we entertained ourselves over the winter. It’s good we had some practice before the “холодно зима” of Ukraine (of course we learn cold winter the first few weeks of Ukrainian language class 🙂

Here are some of my favorite winter moments.

Coloring

Ninja moves

Doctor checkups, important to stay healthy in the winter

“Happy” face

Cuddling in bed

Potty (just for FUN!)

Ikea trips and lunches

Library

Park exploring

Legos, of course

New school

Barnes and Nobles

Snowbunnies

One of the things the kids were most looking forward to was a snowstorm, so when we woke up to this everyone was very excited.

It only took us about 45 minutes to get all suited up and we were ready to go! Worth every minute of prep time!

Let's start from the End

Back in January, this special little boy turned five. In honor of his birthday I’m going to list five of the many things I love about Malcolm.

1. He feels with such intensity and loves things with all his little heart.

2. He loves books so much, he could read all day long, current favorites are Pomelo’s Opposites and Neck to Neck.

3. He recently told me he wanted to try Tae Kwon Do out of nowhere and has been doing amazingly!

4. He loves fluffy stuff, he calls sweatpants his fluffy pants, he loves earlobes and calls them fluffy and appreciates a comfy blanket almost as much as his mommy.

5. He asks the most amazing questions and says the greatest things- a few recent snippets

“What are you easy talking about” (easy is his word for even)

“When I grow up I want to be everything!”

“Someone came in the night and took my bones”

“Why do I never ride in cars with TVs?”

“Let’s start from the end” (aka- the beginning)

We woke up on the morning of Malcolm’s birthday and started right off with some special presents for a special boy.

First up a cozy crocodile blanket. Perfect for a fluffy loving five year old.

Followed by a T-Rex fingerling from Miral.

Adam’s present was a lego he picked out specially for Malcolm.

And from mommy and daddy a Ninjago lego he’s wanted for a while.

I was off for the furlough (thanks President Trump) and Adam was still on winter break so we all headed out to the building museum.

Then I took the boys to Pump it Up during Miral’s nap.

We closed a beautiful day with a cake and the same wish this boy always makes, for a cat.

That weekend we had a party for Malcolm and invited all of his friends. We are lucky to already have such amazing friends here in DC. Some are old friends from Manila, some are old friends from DC, some are new friends from DC and some are even from NY.

Happy birthday Malcolm, we love you so much!!

Elves in New York

I am soooo behind, we are going back to Christmas. We spent 10 days there but in the interest of catching everyone up I am going to post a whole lot of photos from the ten days all at once 🙂 So sit back and make yourselves comfy.

For Christmas this year we all loaded up in our rental car and headed to New York. We were very excited to spend the holiday with our family. An added bonus, two of our good friends from Manila were in New York at the same time. It was amazing to connect with them and for the kids to see their old friends.

First up, we had brunch with Ed, Phyllis, Maeve, Edward and Agnes at Sarabeth’s.

We also went to the Children’s Museum with Jackie, Marco, Devon and Tali. Added bonus, we went to Shake Shack after that, then the kids went to their apartment for a play date and the adults went to Gramercy Park Hotel for some wine, a pretty fantastic day!

For Christmas, we put on our Christmas pjs and got ready for Santa. We read some Christmas books and put everyone to bed so we could wrap all our presents, build kitchens and find some cookies to put out.

The kids were so excited to wake up and see all their presents.

Santa brought everything everyone wanted. Adam had asked for a skateboard but changed his mind two days before Christmas and asked for an elf on the shelf. Thankfully Santa was able to find the last elf on a shelf in New York. Adam was very excited!

Funny story, we watched the elf on a shelf movie the night before Christmas. The next day Adam accidentally touched the elf and he was super worried all day that the elf would lose its magic and not move (apparently if you touch the elf it loses its magic..eye roll here). He even wrote a sweet note to the elf saying he believed. Then of course, yup you guessed it, I totally forgot to move the elf (insert eye roll here at my stupidity). Thankfully I whipper up a note from the elf saying all was ok and his magic was not lost. Let’s all just be thankful that Adam got the elf after Christmas so my forgetfulness didn’t ruin Adam’s Christmas spirit. Also. thank you classmates at Adam’s elementary school who told Adam all about this elf that moves by itself (one last eye roll here and I’m done).

Malcolm wanted this dinosaur, which was also only available in one store in all of Virginia but Santa was able to get it and Malcolm was so happy.

Miral got a new play kitchen and loved it, but wasn’t happy when she wasn’t allowed on Adam’s skateboard.

We got Laurel a comfy new chair that her and Miral spent all week ‘sharing’.

The biggest hit of all though was Alexa. Adam has wanted one for the longest time and it is definitely the present the whole family loved the most. This photo is fuzzy but it shows the total joy that Adam had when he opened it.

Look who made it onto the skateboard (….in case you were wondering Miral usually ends up where she wants to be).

After all the presents were opened we got dressed up for a fun dinner with our family.

For their birthdays, Uncle Mj and Aunt Daf took the boys to see the Harlem Globetrotters and I babysat the girls. It was great to have time with these two peanuts. And the boys loved it!

This Christmas we were lucky enough to get to see Grandma Yuyu and also Aunt Sandra, Uncle Shawn, Roman, Isla, Grant and Tamer! They drove all the way from Detroit.