We held our first Passover Seder this year. We invited Gary’s Mom and our friends Matt & Erika with their kids…nice and small to ease us into the craziness of a Seder. Of course even with only 9 people there, the 4 kids in attendance managed to make things very, um, lively. As it should be though! A Seder wouldn’t be a Seder without loud kids and some spilled wine. It was fun though, and Gary did a great job with all the food and leading the service.

Pictures were limited, but we got a couple nice shots of the table before chaos ensued.

Here’s the one shot I got of the kids playing. Nathan wasn’t too keen on getting his picture taken, as you can tell from this photo!

“What? We’re being good! I swear!”

We had some friends visit from Virginia and stay the night with their kids. They’d previously gifted Nathan and Hannah some cute matching monkey footies and we got all the kids in them for pictures. How cute are they??

Nathan and Penelope ran in circles following each other and laughing hysterically…

Until they finally decided to sit still for some pre-bedtime TV.

Noah and Hannah were a little more low key.

I had no hope of getting all four kids in one picture…maybe another time!

When Hannah was 6 weeks old (early January) we had a Baby Naming, or Simchat Bat, for her. Our dear friend Matt agreed to lead the service and did an amazing job, and our house was filled with friends and family. It turned out to be a great day (exhausting, but great!).

My brother and his girlfriend, Heather, came to visit for the weekend. It was wonderful to have them here to celebrate with us and to meet Hannah.

A friend of mine took pictures during the the naming, but I haven’t loaded them into Flickr yet. Here are some that were taken with my camera:

My Aunt flew in for a night just for the naming. We were so happy to have her there!

I love this picture! Six of the kids here (the exception being one younger sibling in the striped sweater), were all born within a few months of each other. I hope that we can continue to get them together like this for years to come.

Family picture with a squiggly 3 1/2 year old

More pictures here

Lots of fun with friends in August…

We went to on a Pirate Ship adventure in downtown Baltimore. It was lots of fun, and we hope to do it again this summer.

Enjoyed a birthday party at Clark’s Elioak Farm

(on a hayride)

And met a friend and her daughter at the beautiful Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania.

(Caterpillar in the treehouse)

(Show me if you can curl your tongues!)

(Same fountain, same friend, almost two years later. Other picture is from November 2008)

(Same fountain, almost two years later. Other picture is from November 2008)

This photo of Nathan from August makes me think of my Dad. We were on the little playground near our house.

I had to get this picture since I knew we’d be moving soon and it’s Nathan’s first house!

And I was finally able to get Nathan to let me take pictures of him in his “Big Bro to be” shirt. Yay!

For some reason he insisted on holding up this (totally awesome) book that Uncle Ethan gave him.

We also took some of the first belly pictures of this pregnancy. I was 26 weeks.

More pictures from August here

Summer is always super busy…day trips, birthday parties, time outside…here’s our June in pictures..

Birthday party

Trip to the National Zoo in DC with friends

A neighborhood carnival

Pool time at home

(Water gun fight!)

Roasted marshmallows on the deck

Nathan’s first movie in the theater (Toy Story 3!). He loved it and we can’t wait to take him again.

Nathan gathered all his stuffed dogs for Fenny and laid them out around him.

More pictures from June here

Obviously I’m very behind on updating the site. Life just gets busy I guess!

In March we had fun jumping in the puddles around our neighborhood.

Nathan showed me his grumpy and happy and excited faces.

And we went to a really fun birthday party on The Mall in DC for the Kite Festival. Nathan took his first metro/subway ride and flew his first kite, and we had a great time.

April updates to come soon…

We visited the B&O Railroad Museum in January.

Nathan had fun running around with one of his friends.

And got to take his first train ride.

The rest of the day was spent checking out all the different trains they had. There was lots of room to run around and a few things to climb on, so it was a fun afternoon.

We took Nathan bowling recently. The first time was at a friend’s birthday party and Nathan had a lot of fun, so this time we went with some friends and their daughter.

October was a fun month. We went to Zoo Boo at the Maryland Zoo, something we’ve done the last three years and hope to continue to do each year. All the kids dress up in their Halloween costumes and can go trick-or-treating at various booths. It’s been a fun time to get together with friends and have a fun family day.

Nathan looks like he’s plotting some serious trouble.

Feeding a giraffe.

Buds. These two had such a fun time together.

Getting a ride.

Carousel Ride.

Halloween was fun too. Nathan, thankfully, was always excited to put on his dinosaur costume. I think it helped that he got to pick out what he wanted to be and gave the final approval on what we ordered. After the first house Nathan wanted to eat his candy immediately. And after about 7 houses Nathan said he had enough candy and was ready to go home. Silly boy doesn’t know what he’s missing!

Practicing in the costume before Halloween.

Roar!!

Checking the loot.

Checking out our Jack-o-Latern

Chocolate!

We took a really fun trip to Dutch Wonderland a couple weeks ago. We met some friends with a daughter Nathan’s age and they had a blast on all the rides.

Nathan’s favorite was by far the jeeps. I think he made Becca ride them at least three times with him and still talks about how he “needs to ride the jeeps.”

He also got to ride a pony

Drive a car with Daddy

Ride a Nathan-sized train

And ride the sky tram

Great day. Great weather.
More pictures in the October album.